Hidden in Plain Sight: A History of the Newberry Mass Lynching of 1916

by Janis Owens

Hidden in Plain A History of the Newberry Mass Lynching of 1916 is a fast-paced narrative history of a 1916 mass lynching in North Florida, where six members of a tight-knit Black family were killed by a white mob of the "best men" in the district. The lynching garnered brief, nationwide attention, including an investigation by the NAACP and condemnation by W. E. B. Dubois, before it was buried in a vow of silence that endured for nearly a hundred years. With an abundance of citation and uncommon insight, Hidden in Plain A History of the Newberry Mass Lynching of 1916 draws a portrait of a struggling, turn-of-the-century farming town and the families, Black and white, who were pitched headlong into a weekend of bloodlust and revenge that would change the town forever. With a scope of a hundred years, the story that begins in anguish unexpectedly ends in recent steps to reconciliation and remembrance.

172 pages, Paperback

Published May 27, 2021

Reviews

[Tricia Booker · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took a novelist to tell the very real story of what happened in Newberry, Florida over a century ago. In Hidden in Plain Sight, Janis Owens recounts the 1916 vigilante lynching of six African Americans, none of whom had been even accused of a crime. But Owens doesn't just tell the story - she documents every detail in order to make sure the terrible injustices of that bleak time are never forgotten. She has, in fact, done a journalist's job, sifting through hundreds of old records and interviewing people whose parents witnessed the events. It's ironic that people who oppose taking down Confederate monuments say they fear history will be forgotten. Hidden in Plain Sight is exactly the kind of racist history those monuments represent, and yet it was nearly forgotten. No longer.
-Tricia Booker
Visiting Professor of Journalism
University of North Florida