In the tradition of Melissa Faye Greene and her award-winning
Praying for Sheetrock
, extraordinarily talented debut author Laura Wexler tells the story of the Moore's Ford Lynching in Walton County, Georgia in 1946
—
the last mass lynching in America, fully explored here for the first time.
July 25, 1946. In Walton County, Georgia, a mob of white men commit one of the most heinous racial crimes in America's history: the shotgun murder of four black sharecroppers
two men and two women
at Moore's Ford Bridge.
Fire in a Canebrake
, the term locals used to describe the sound of the fatal gunshots, is the story of our nation's last mass lynching on record. More than a half century later, the lynchers' identities still remain unknown.
Drawing from interviews, archival sources, and uncensored FBI reports, acclaimed journalist and author Laura Wexler takes readers deep into the heart of Walton County, bringing to life the characters who inhabited that infamous landscape
from sheriffs to white supremacists to the victims themselves
including a white man who claims to have been a secret witness to the crime. By turns a powerful historical document, a murder mystery, and a cautionary tale,
ignites a powerful contemplation on race, humanity, history, and the epic struggle for truth.