What do you think?
Rate this book
Elegy for Mary Turner: An Illustrated Account of a Lynching
A lyrical and haunting depiction of American racial violence and lynching, evoked through stunning full-color artwork.
In late May 1918 in Valdosta, Georgia, ten Black men and one Black woman—Mary Turner, eight months pregnant at the time—were lynched and tortured by mobs of white citizens.
Through hauntingly detailed full-color artwork and collage, Elegy for Mary Turner names those who were killed, identifies the killers, and evokes a landscape in which the NAACP investigated the crimes when the state would not and a time when white citizens baked pies and flocked to see Black corpses while Black people fought to make their lives—and their mourning—matter.
Included are contributions from C. Tyrone Forehand, great-grandnephew of Mary and Hayes Turner, whose family has long campaigned for the deaths to be remembered; abolitionist activist and educator Mariame Kaba, reflecting on the violence visited on Black women’s bodies; and historian Julie Buckner Armstrong, who opens a window onto the broader scale of lynching’s terror in American history.
In late May 1918 in Valdosta, Georgia, ten Black men and one Black woman—Mary Turner, eight months pregnant at the time—were lynched and tortured by mobs of white citizens.
Through hauntingly detailed full-color artwork and collage, Elegy for Mary Turner names those who were killed, identifies the killers, and evokes a landscape in which the NAACP investigated the crimes when the state would not and a time when white citizens baked pies and flocked to see Black corpses while Black people fought to make their lives—and their mourning—matter.
Included are contributions from C. Tyrone Forehand, great-grandnephew of Mary and Hayes Turner, whose family has long campaigned for the deaths to be remembered; abolitionist activist and educator Mariame Kaba, reflecting on the violence visited on Black women’s bodies; and historian Julie Buckner Armstrong, who opens a window onto the broader scale of lynching’s terror in American history.
57 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2021
11 people are currently reading
680 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 66 reviews
May 17, 2022
good god.
everyone should read this, a brutally underread and beautifully made book about an event brutal beyond words: the lynching of Mary Turner, who, at eight months pregnant, was murdered in the most violent killing i have ever heard of for the crime of speaking out against her husband's lynching just before.
and lest we delude ourselves into thinking that we are not the same country that stood by and let this happen:
when a historical marker was finally placed at the site of the lynching, it had to be taken down. it was irrevocably damaged by graffiti, riddled with bullet holes, and repeatedly hit by vehicles, despite its placement far from the road.
4.5 stars
everyone should read this, a brutally underread and beautifully made book about an event brutal beyond words: the lynching of Mary Turner, who, at eight months pregnant, was murdered in the most violent killing i have ever heard of for the crime of speaking out against her husband's lynching just before.
and lest we delude ourselves into thinking that we are not the same country that stood by and let this happen:
when a historical marker was finally placed at the site of the lynching, it had to be taken down. it was irrevocably damaged by graffiti, riddled with bullet holes, and repeatedly hit by vehicles, despite its placement far from the road.
4.5 stars
February 6, 2022
A riveting and stomach-turning historical account of a lynching rampage in Georgia in 1918 that saw a white mob murder the pregnant Mary Turner, her unborn child ripped from the womb, her husband, and eight or more other Black men.
The book includes found items and newspaper clippings, and I find the cavalier tone of this excerpt from a local paper of the time to be absolutely chilling:
Hayes Turner was hanged at the Okapilco river in Brooks county last night. His wife, it is claimed made unwise remarks today about the execution of her husband and the people in their indignant mood took exceptions to her remarks, as well as her attitude, and without waiting for nightfall took her to the river where she was hanged and her body riddled with bullets.
A historical marker about the atrocity was erected in 2009 near the site of Turner's murder. It is a sad statement on the current state of affairs that the final words in the book, a footnote under the text of the marker, tell us that it had to be removed in October 2020 due to repeated vandalism.
My only reservation about the book is the use of cursive throughout, which I fear will keep it from being read by many of my daughter's generation and younger who were not taught cursive in school and will see the stylized, splotchy and uneven handwriting as a barrier.
The book includes found items and newspaper clippings, and I find the cavalier tone of this excerpt from a local paper of the time to be absolutely chilling:
Hayes Turner was hanged at the Okapilco river in Brooks county last night. His wife, it is claimed made unwise remarks today about the execution of her husband and the people in their indignant mood took exceptions to her remarks, as well as her attitude, and without waiting for nightfall took her to the river where she was hanged and her body riddled with bullets.
A historical marker about the atrocity was erected in 2009 near the site of Turner's murder. It is a sad statement on the current state of affairs that the final words in the book, a footnote under the text of the marker, tell us that it had to be removed in October 2020 due to repeated vandalism.
My only reservation about the book is the use of cursive throughout, which I fear will keep it from being read by many of my daughter's generation and younger who were not taught cursive in school and will see the stylized, splotchy and uneven handwriting as a barrier.
April 28, 2021
General content warning for this book. Its about lynching so there is graphic violence.
There's a lot of emotions happening right now I can't really put into words. I am heartbroken, I am angry, but I am also surprised. You would think after all this time you would have read about it all, but Mary Turner's story is one I have not heard before. Mixed with the haunting prints and newspaper clippings William's really tells the story in a way it couldn't be told with just words. I am glad this book was written so that I can from now on say her name.
There's a lot of emotions happening right now I can't really put into words. I am heartbroken, I am angry, but I am also surprised. You would think after all this time you would have read about it all, but Mary Turner's story is one I have not heard before. Mixed with the haunting prints and newspaper clippings William's really tells the story in a way it couldn't be told with just words. I am glad this book was written so that I can from now on say her name.
April 1, 2021
I rarely write reviews but this book truly hit a nerve with me. Not only was this a brutal absolutely heinous crime but the fact the memorial had to be taken down due to vandalism is remarkably disgusting. This country was built on so much blood shed and hate its ridiculous.
April 16, 2022
Brutal, but important.
February 21, 2022
Rachel Marie-Crane WIlliams's stark, singular panels—reminiscent of woodcuts by Emory Douglas
and paired with an old-timey, nervous cursive—make for an honorable and necessary resuscitation of a wrongly-forgotten piece of history. One that was never properly told in the first place, situated as it was next to frivolous ads for coat checks and jewelry auctions, as seen in one of many news clipping scans that Williams scrapbooked into her retelling of Mary Turner's lynching. Like Rebecca Hall and Hugo Martinez's Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts, this book deserves a seat alongside recent recoveries of black women's stories for its genuinely feminist excavation of buried truths.
and paired with an old-timey, nervous cursive—make for an honorable and necessary resuscitation of a wrongly-forgotten piece of history. One that was never properly told in the first place, situated as it was next to frivolous ads for coat checks and jewelry auctions, as seen in one of many news clipping scans that Williams scrapbooked into her retelling of Mary Turner's lynching. Like Rebecca Hall and Hugo Martinez's Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts, this book deserves a seat alongside recent recoveries of black women's stories for its genuinely feminist excavation of buried truths.
April 25, 2021
This book provides an illustrated account of the lynching of Mary Turner.
Content Warning: racial violence, torture, murder, infanticide, abuse of a corpse.
On May 19, 1918 Mary Turner and her unborn baby were brutally murdered by a mob in Lowndes County, Georgia.
"We still wait for the arc of the moral universe to bend towards justice." (page 49)
Brutal, tragic, and haunting, the story is told in straight forward, unemotional language. The handwritten text is accompanied by simple woodblock style illustrations in black and sepia as well as facsimiles of historical documents. Three contemporary commentaries are also included.
Content Warning: racial violence, torture, murder, infanticide, abuse of a corpse.
On May 19, 1918 Mary Turner and her unborn baby were brutally murdered by a mob in Lowndes County, Georgia.
"We still wait for the arc of the moral universe to bend towards justice." (page 49)
Brutal, tragic, and haunting, the story is told in straight forward, unemotional language. The handwritten text is accompanied by simple woodblock style illustrations in black and sepia as well as facsimiles of historical documents. Three contemporary commentaries are also included.
March 2, 2021
Content warning for racial violence and violence against women and uterus
heartbreaking, confronting, and beautifully presented.
heartbreaking, confronting, and beautifully presented.
January 26, 2022
In 2014, while driving back home to Florida after passing through the Southern U.S., my family pulled off the freeway to get some dinner in Valdosta, Georgia. Something about the place made me uneasy. I thought perhaps it was the dozens of confederate flags I had seen hanging on porches, bumper-stickered on large trucks, and emblazoned on belt buckles as we traveled through the southern part of Alabama and Georgia, and shrugged it off. Something must have felt off to my husband too. Later on, he decided to investigate "Valdosta, Georgia." While doing an internet search one evening, he uncovered the tragedy of Mary Turner's murder and the dark history of Georgia's Lowndes and Brookes Counties.
It began with Hampton Smith, a cruel plantation owner who was notorious for his brutal treatment to the black convicts and indentured servants that worked his land in Brooks County, Georgia. In 1918, Smith paid a $30 gaming fine in behalf of Sidney Johnson, an African-American, who went to work at Smith's plantation in order to pay the debt. They argued over wages and Smith ended up physically beating Johnson. Sidney Johnson swore revenge for the cruelty, and later shot and killed Hampton Smith.
Rumors and conspiracies spread through the surrounding counties of an uprising of armed, black murderers . White mobs formed to seek punishment for Smith's murder. Over the next eight days, these mobs went on a lynching rampage and murdered 10 black men and one black woman.
That woman was Mary Turner, who was eight months pregnant. Mary's husband, Hayes was one of the 10 men who the mob lynched. She spoke out against his murder and cried for justice. They decided to "teach her a lesson." The mob hung Mary upside down, doused her body in gasoline and burned her alive. "When the fire had burned away her clothing, a man took a large butcher knife and slit open her pregnant belly," Williams writes. The 8-month-old fetus fell to the ground, and one man crushed the baby with his boot.
This horrific story has stayed with me for years. I remember initially thinking that these deplorable slaughters occurred not so very long ago. Those lynchings happened in the lifetime of my great-grandparents. But weren't stories like this still happening in MY lifetime? I lived in the town just south of Sanford, Florida, where Trayvon Martin was shot and killed (the trial of Zimmerman was happening as we moved to Florida). My husband was at a conference IN Baltimore in 2015 and witnessed the protests over the killing of Freddie Gray. And not even two years ago our nation witnessed the abhorrent modern lynching of Ahmaud Arbery that was caught on video. The story of Mary Turner is still very relevant, and a part of history we should not forget. Rachel Williams adds Mary Turner to the #SayHerName movement.
"Elegy for Mary Turner" is a deeply moving requiem, done with word and image. The artist's crudely chiseled block prints are the perfect medium to capture an abominable part of history, and the raw and painful emotions the illustrations elicit tears your heart-strings to pieces. The addition of collaged documents (newspaper articles, letters and photographs) gives the reality and horror of the story an extra sting.
The author ends the book with the "We still wait for the arc of the moral universe to bend toward justice. There has never been a full reckoning of the racial violence in our country.
Perhaps we can help that arc move a little bit by trying to understand, learn about, and remember the parts of history we don't like to talk about.
It began with Hampton Smith, a cruel plantation owner who was notorious for his brutal treatment to the black convicts and indentured servants that worked his land in Brooks County, Georgia. In 1918, Smith paid a $30 gaming fine in behalf of Sidney Johnson, an African-American, who went to work at Smith's plantation in order to pay the debt. They argued over wages and Smith ended up physically beating Johnson. Sidney Johnson swore revenge for the cruelty, and later shot and killed Hampton Smith.
Rumors and conspiracies spread through the surrounding counties of an uprising of armed, black murderers . White mobs formed to seek punishment for Smith's murder. Over the next eight days, these mobs went on a lynching rampage and murdered 10 black men and one black woman.
That woman was Mary Turner, who was eight months pregnant. Mary's husband, Hayes was one of the 10 men who the mob lynched. She spoke out against his murder and cried for justice. They decided to "teach her a lesson." The mob hung Mary upside down, doused her body in gasoline and burned her alive. "When the fire had burned away her clothing, a man took a large butcher knife and slit open her pregnant belly," Williams writes. The 8-month-old fetus fell to the ground, and one man crushed the baby with his boot.
This horrific story has stayed with me for years. I remember initially thinking that these deplorable slaughters occurred not so very long ago. Those lynchings happened in the lifetime of my great-grandparents. But weren't stories like this still happening in MY lifetime? I lived in the town just south of Sanford, Florida, where Trayvon Martin was shot and killed (the trial of Zimmerman was happening as we moved to Florida). My husband was at a conference IN Baltimore in 2015 and witnessed the protests over the killing of Freddie Gray. And not even two years ago our nation witnessed the abhorrent modern lynching of Ahmaud Arbery that was caught on video. The story of Mary Turner is still very relevant, and a part of history we should not forget. Rachel Williams adds Mary Turner to the #SayHerName movement.
"Elegy for Mary Turner" is a deeply moving requiem, done with word and image. The artist's crudely chiseled block prints are the perfect medium to capture an abominable part of history, and the raw and painful emotions the illustrations elicit tears your heart-strings to pieces. The addition of collaged documents (newspaper articles, letters and photographs) gives the reality and horror of the story an extra sting.
The author ends the book with the "We still wait for the arc of the moral universe to bend toward justice. There has never been a full reckoning of the racial violence in our country.
Perhaps we can help that arc move a little bit by trying to understand, learn about, and remember the parts of history we don't like to talk about.
February 14, 2023
Short.
Simple.
Shocking. (I guess it shouldn't be. But it is.)
The artist's/author's website has a lot of info about this project.
All royalties from this book go to the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta, GA.
A couple of notes:
Fire in a Canebrake: The Last Mass Lynching in America by Laura Wexler is a good book to go along with this one. As is another book I'm currently reading, Columbus and Other Cannibals: The Wétiko Disease of Exploitation, Imperialism, and Terrorism by Jack D. Forbes.
Simple.
Shocking. (I guess it shouldn't be. But it is.)
The artist's/author's website has a lot of info about this project.
All royalties from this book go to the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta, GA.
A couple of notes:
Fire in a Canebrake: The Last Mass Lynching in America by Laura Wexler is a good book to go along with this one. As is another book I'm currently reading, Columbus and Other Cannibals: The Wétiko Disease of Exploitation, Imperialism, and Terrorism by Jack D. Forbes.
April 27, 2021
I don't think I have the right words to describe my feelings about this book. It made me cry (for all the victims) and it made me angry (at my own race). Several times I asked aloud; "What the hell is wrong with people?" No one deserves to die in the way these people did and I'm glad someone is trying to give the story the attention it deserves. It will not be a book I soon forget. . . . .
April 10, 2021
Gorgeous book. It paints a harrowing scene of the atmosphere surrounding the lynchings of Mary Turner and others. The woodcut images, splashes of color, and the handwritten paragraphs provide a space for those who lost their lives to white violence to be remembered as more than just a statistic.
March 25, 2021
This was haunting. Painful to read and in the end, so infuriating.
July 3, 2021
Chilling. An American Horror Story. History.
December 8, 2021
Short but beautiful, troubling, and impactful.
January 26, 2023
Very very very important to read and gain knowledge on. Everyone should know the true facts of these events.
November 28, 2021
This book is horrifying and profound.
But I will point out one thing, something that speaks to the ongoing reality of racism in modern America.
The post-script at the end of the book includes a portion about the erection of a historical marker about the lynching of Mary Turner and of others lynched in the area in May of 1918.
The last text in the book is a footnote: "On October 8, 2020, the Mary Turner Project and the Georgia Historical Society had to remove and store the marker due to repeated vandalism. In its place a large steel cross erected to temporarily mark the site of Mary Turner's murder."
This book will stay with me for a long, long time, but that footnote will stick out in particular in my mind. It shouldn't shock me but it does.
(Note: I have filed this under "favorites". That indicates that I enjoyed this book. I did not. But that does not mean it isn't a deeply powerful reading experience.)
But I will point out one thing, something that speaks to the ongoing reality of racism in modern America.
The post-script at the end of the book includes a portion about the erection of a historical marker about the lynching of Mary Turner and of others lynched in the area in May of 1918.
The last text in the book is a footnote: "On October 8, 2020, the Mary Turner Project and the Georgia Historical Society had to remove and store the marker due to repeated vandalism. In its place a large steel cross erected to temporarily mark the site of Mary Turner's murder."
This book will stay with me for a long, long time, but that footnote will stick out in particular in my mind. It shouldn't shock me but it does.
(Note: I have filed this under "favorites". That indicates that I enjoyed this book. I did not. But that does not mean it isn't a deeply powerful reading experience.)
January 21, 2022
This will break your heart and make you feel every single deep feeling possible in 50 pages. The author mixes drawn images with old postcards and pictures that center the reader in the time and place of this story. That is, the time and place right outside of the horrors of lynching and mob violence. What I found very interesting was the postscript, where it is told that after years of trying to get a memorial plaque placed on the site of Mary Turner's murder, it had to be removed due to repeated vandalism. Do yourself a favor and look up an image of that plaque, which is riddled with bullet holes and had been rammed by ATVs multiple times. Just shows the mindset that is still permeating this country.
March 19, 2022
I picked this up from my library's app after it was recommended to me, and I finished it in one sitting.
Elegy for Mary Turner is a graphic assemblage / narrative of not just the eponymous victim of a lynching, but also several other black people caught in the crossfire of white mob violence in 1918 Georgia. I say "assemblage" because this text is a mix of black-and-white woodcut images, ink splatters, historical documents, baby shoes, and a handwritten narrative connecting it all together. The way information is assembled feels almost like looking into a family scrapbook, intruding on a private moment of grief made public and forceful.
I wish the narrative were longer, went more into the history of the community or the reactions to this spree of lynchings. I wish there were more information on Mary Turner, though I understand why that might be lost to time, and speculation for sentimentality's sake would be gauche. But this is a quick read about how white people continued to inflict violence and terrorism on black communities well after the Civil War, about trauma passed down, and about white violence or complicity. I definitely recommend it to anyone who's into poetry, graphic novels, historical narratives, or an important story, well-told.
Elegy for Mary Turner is a graphic assemblage / narrative of not just the eponymous victim of a lynching, but also several other black people caught in the crossfire of white mob violence in 1918 Georgia. I say "assemblage" because this text is a mix of black-and-white woodcut images, ink splatters, historical documents, baby shoes, and a handwritten narrative connecting it all together. The way information is assembled feels almost like looking into a family scrapbook, intruding on a private moment of grief made public and forceful.
I wish the narrative were longer, went more into the history of the community or the reactions to this spree of lynchings. I wish there were more information on Mary Turner, though I understand why that might be lost to time, and speculation for sentimentality's sake would be gauche. But this is a quick read about how white people continued to inflict violence and terrorism on black communities well after the Civil War, about trauma passed down, and about white violence or complicity. I definitely recommend it to anyone who's into poetry, graphic novels, historical narratives, or an important story, well-told.
October 9, 2022
I was really interested in reading this because I thought I would learn about Mary Turner’s life, but this book isn’t really that. Mary is talked about for about two pages, and the rest of the pages are devoted to telling the stories of other victims. I think that’s fine, but the title should be different so it’s not misleading. I also thought the cursive writing was different but overall made the reading experience difficult. I probably wouldn’t put this in a school library because I know if students saw that handwriting they’d be immediately turned off. I think a better choice would be making this about telling the individual lives of as many lynching victims as possible, instead of marketing it as a specific biography of one victim.
September 4, 2025
I took my time with this book since it involves a Black woman being lynched for standing up for herself and her husband who was lynched days before. The drawings were haunting and beautiful at the same time. It felt like I could see the despair and fear.
Say her name, Mary Turner.
“Mary Turner died a brutal death, but she risked her life for justice. A group of men feared this powerless woman’s act of speaking out so much that they stole her dignity and her life. Every work of art created in Mary Turner’s name repudiates their actions by restoring her humanity to the world.”
Say her name, Mary Turner.
“Mary Turner died a brutal death, but she risked her life for justice. A group of men feared this powerless woman’s act of speaking out so much that they stole her dignity and her life. Every work of art created in Mary Turner’s name repudiates their actions by restoring her humanity to the world.”
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 12, 2023
A book most assuredly worth buying for anyone interested in the topic of lynching and justice. The artwork is exquisite and haunting. The text, while sparing, pulls no punches, noting that violence to Black bodies persists today, much to the dismay of Black bodies,, but to the unfortunate joy of White Supremacists, Republicans, "christians", police forces, and neo-liberal democracies the world over.
As the Afterword attests: White People did not condone lynching, nor did they condemn it. Make of that what you must.
As the Afterword attests: White People did not condone lynching, nor did they condemn it. Make of that what you must.
September 4, 2021
Powerful, extremely disturbing (because so little has changed) hidden history. The use of documents, photographs, and the typography added realism to the story which was so horrific it was difficult to believe… It’s an important example of how false the mainstream narrative about lynchings has been. The lynching of black Americans was never about justice or white women’s honor, rather it was a tool of oppression and terror. Everyone should read this book, even though it will upset any reader.
February 9, 2022
This is one of the most horrifying books I have read in recent times. There seems to be no limit to the capacity of cruelty we can inflict on one another. What a horrible species we are!
Thank you, Rachel Marie-Crane Williams, for not allowing the story of the lynching of Mary Turner and other black victims be erased.
Sadly, lynchings have been replaced by other types of debasement of black people and other minorities.
Thank you, Rachel Marie-Crane Williams, for not allowing the story of the lynching of Mary Turner and other black victims be erased.
Sadly, lynchings have been replaced by other types of debasement of black people and other minorities.
June 13, 2022
The account of this horrid lynching spree was very difficult to read in that a relative of mine was also lynched during this spree. It is difficult to imagine the hate, violence, and disregard for human life that one human can inflict on another human being. It just brought to light the intense fear and violence that my ancestors in Valdosta, Ga. experienced growing up there. This book explains what my ancestors would never talk about when asked what prompted them to leave Georgia.
September 27, 2021
Powerful. I don’t have the words for more, so I’m turning to this sentence from the book description: “A lyrical and haunting depiction of American racial violence and lynching, evoked through stunning full-color artwork”.
June 3, 2022
That was extremely disturbing. But necessary.
This cannot be audiobook, it is illustrated. Also it's too small to read on a phone...well, unless you have really good eyes maybe. I had to read it on my computer.
It's like 15 minutes to read. Very somber and depressing.
This cannot be audiobook, it is illustrated. Also it's too small to read on a phone...well, unless you have really good eyes maybe. I had to read it on my computer.
It's like 15 minutes to read. Very somber and depressing.
June 18, 2021
TW for explicit racial violence.
This is a haunting and harrowing tale of the lynching of a black woman told through pictures and hand written text. It left me rattled.
This is a haunting and harrowing tale of the lynching of a black woman told through pictures and hand written text. It left me rattled.
October 8, 2021
Heartbreaking
A beautiful book about a vicious and abhorrent crime history has passed over and justice ignored. Say her name! Remember Mary Turner!
A beautiful book about a vicious and abhorrent crime history has passed over and justice ignored. Say her name! Remember Mary Turner!
June 2, 2022
A very slight book and not what I typically read, basically collage poetry, but the collage is beautiful woodcuts, and historical ephemera like newspaper articles, and it's obviously beautiful. But for me personally, the only parts that resonated in the way I think the book was going for were the parts that were less dreamlike and poetic and more historicaly factual. The parts I like best are seeing the actual wouldn't-believe-it-if-you-didn't-have-evidence-in-front-of-you racist newspaper articles and facts about lynching and mutilating a pregnant woman, and the list of names, obviously, was very possible. Also, there were a surprisingly number of white women lynched during Jim Crow,, despite the main excuse for lynchings being the goddamn "protection" of white women. Proof that white women are only protected by white supremecist patriarchy as long as they toe the line of "appropriate" white womanhood. Not to make this about white feminism. Because the excellent point of this is to highlight one strong-spoken, heartbroken, vulnerable, brave black woman who has been unintentionally erased by history through lynching being associated with black men. This was an impluse grab at the library and quick to read, and I'm glad I did.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 66 reviews