In today’s Rants and Raves column, a contributor asks why a column was written about the Mary Turner lynchings of 1918.

The ranter says we just opened old wounds.

Actually, we found very few people who knew about these horrific events. And no one is alive here today who knew of this horror first hand. 

Many have never even noticed the plaque that described the murders and the fact that no one was ever held accountable.

The plaque, near the banks of Little River just past Barney, Ga., says this: “Near this site on May 19, 1918, 21-year-old Mary Tuner, eight months pregnant, was burned, mutilated and shot to death by a local mob after publicly denouncing her husband’s lynching the previous day. In the days immediately following the murder of a white planter by a black employee on May 16, 1918, at least 11 local African Americans, including the Turners, died at the  hands of a lynch mob in one of the deadliest waves of vigilantism in Georgia’s history. No charges were ever brought against known or suspected participants in these crimes. From 1889-1930, as many as 550 people were killed in Georgia in these illegal acts of mob violence.”

Of course all of the brutality was not described in detail on the plaque. One person, whose grandfather told him more details of the event, said Mary’s baby was ripped from her womb and mutilated as well.

Yes, these were incredibly heinous events. But history is important — the good, the bad, the ugly.  The plaque was placed there by various historical entities. Thanks to those involved in that commemoration.

The year 1918 is almost a century in the past. But these events are as much a part of our story as those things we would count as positive. We must not sanitize the issues. We must draw a proper resolve from them. 

And no, it’s not about opening old wounds. It’s about acknowledging our past … knowing from whence we came so that a proper perspective can be developed for our future.

Yes it was a sorry time in South Georgia history. We’ve come a long way.

 We still have a long way to go.