Bullet-pocked marker memorializing 1918 lynching goes on display in Atlanta
An exhibit opening Monday in Atlanta shows a historical marker from the site of a 1918 lynching that was repeatedly vandalized. Pocked with bullet holes and broken at the pedestal, it memorializes an event that some in rural southern Georgia tried hard to erase: the killing of Mary Turner by a white mob. She was set upon after protesting the lynching of her husband, Hayes Turner, and at least 10 other Black people. The violence built support for anti-lynching legislation, though it would not become law for another century. One of Turner's great-granddaughters says millions more people will learn her story now, showing that history lives and continues to grow.
