On May 18th, Christ the King and St. Barnabas Episcopal Churches came together to host a remembrance ceremony for Mary Turner, a victim of one of the most horrific lynchings that occured on a bridge bordering Lowndes and Brooks Counties in 1918.
Turner was just nineteen years old and eight months pregnant when a white mob, enraged by the killing of a white farmer, lynched Turner’s husband, Hayes, and six other black farmworkers. Mary Turner demanded the authorities give her and her children justice in her husband’s murder. Instead, the same mob decided to “show her a lesson.” On May 19th, they hunted her down, hanged her by her feet at the bridge, doused her clothing in gasoline and lit her on fire. Someone cut open her womb, and when her unborn child fell to the ground, they stomped the child to death. They shot up Mary’s body, and then buried both her and her child in a shallow grave marked by a whiskey bottle and cigar. No one was ever held accountable in this terrible crime.
Turner is remembered in the Civil Rights mural on the north wall of Christ the King Episcopal Church as a Tree of Life. Mural artist Shay Clayton felt it important to have her pregnant belly wrapped in arms of love that she imagined as the arms of her husband, Hayes, loving her for her efforts to fight for justice for him and others.
Audrey Grant, the great granddaughter of Mary Turner, said this depiction of her ancestor was both a powerful and peaceful representation.
Michael Noll, Junior Warden at Christ the King, and the Rev. Susan Gage of St. Barnabas are both members of Racial Justice Georgia, a racial healing ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia. Both expressed the importance of remembering women such as Mary Turner, telling the truth about the history of lynching, and at the same time, paying homage to the courage it took for Mary Turner to even think of seeking justice at that time.
Rev. Gage noted that in Genesis 4, God responded to the cries of Abel’s blood coming from the ground, noting that those cries are still heard today for those who never received true justice for the crimes that took their lives. Quoting from a song by Judith Hill, Rev. Gage said, “Bad times makes for strong women.”
May we never forget the strength and the courage it takes to call out wrongdoing as we seek a more just society.