The Legacy of Lynching

Lanhart Cohen said she doesn't hate, but she still feels anger. Unlike some descendants, she can't go to history books to find out what happened to her cousin. The only record of his murder is in the stories her grandparents and other relatives tell about the nightriders who fired shots into her grandfather's farm house. After the shooting stopped, family members went to sleep believing that everyone had been spared. It wasn't until the next morning that her Aunt Bertha noticed her son was missing, Langhart Cohen said. She found her son hanging from a tree.

An Uncle's Murder

Betty Greene said the apology was the best way for the federal government to acknowledge the history of racism in the United States.

As a child, Greene, 58, who grew up in Detroit, was confused by segregated facilities when she traveled south with her mother. "I remember my reaction the first time I saw water fountains marked 'white' and 'colored.' I went to the one that said white, because I thought that meant the water would be closer to clear. A white man . . . asked me why I was drinking from the fountain. I didn't choose the one marked colored because I thought that meant the water would be colored, like colors," she said.

Greene's mother, Winona Puckett Padgett, 78, niece of lynching victim Richard Puckett, said she learned about her uncle's murder through "whispers from neighbors." When she was 15, she asked her father, James Malachi Puckett, if the rumors were true. Her father told her that Richard Puckett had gone to her family's home after he got into trouble for delivering a note to a white woman who was having an adulterous affair with a co-worker. The woman's husband was at home and accused Puckett of accosting her, Padgett said.

"My father told us about the lynch mob coming to our house because Uncle Richard had gone there after the incident," Padgett said. "My father told us how he stood his ground. He refused to give my uncle to the lynch mob. He said he would only give him to the police. He said he was trying to protect his wife and his babies, but he wasn't afraid for himself."

When her father turned Puckett over to the sheriff, the sheriff gave him to the lynch mob, who dragged him to a nearby train depot, beat him and hanged him from a trestle.

Thirty years ago, a friend found a picture of Puckett's suspended corpse and sent copies to his relatives. Padgett gave the picture to Allen, who used it in "Without Sanctuary."

Simeon Wright said he was "awed" by the descendants' stories and plans to visit the museum Cameron started.

"That Senator Landrieu and the others would even start this process was amazing," Wright said. "Then to have my senator, [Barack] Obama, involved, to get to come to Washington to meet the descendants and see the resolution passed. The whole thing was a moving, moving experience."