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Our Town: A Heartland Lynching, a Haunted Town, and the Hidden History of White America Hardcover – March 21, 2006

by Cynthia Carr (Author)
4.3 out of 5 stars 29 customer reviews
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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 512 pages
  • Publisher: Crown; First Edition edition (March 21, 2006)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0517705060
  • ISBN-13: 978-0517705063
  • Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1.6 x 9.6 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,532,562 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsTruth and Reconciliation
By Karen H. Vierneisel on June 5, 2006
Format: Hardcover
Our Town: A Heartland Lynching, A Haunted Town, and the Hidden History of White America is an honest, though painful look at race relations in America. C. Carr sees parallels between her quest in Our Town and that of South Africa's "truth and reconciliation" hearings. The work bears witness to the searing history of lynching in towns all across America in the first half the last century. Carr captures white hatred, fear, denial, and guilt and black anger, bitterness, fear, and pain. She quotes Chilean legal philosopher and activist Jose Zalaquett, a member of the commission that investigated atrocities under the Pinochet regime: "If you have a choice between truth and justice, choose truth. Truth doesn't bring back the dead, but it does release them from silence." That's just what Carr does in this book.

Carr was 17 when she learned her beloved grandfather was a Klansman. Not until she was in her 20s did she see the infamous photo taken in her home town on the sweltering summer night of August 7, 1930--a black and white picture of two black men hanging from a tree as smiling townsfolk looked on. Like so many of us white liberals she felt guilty about our country's racist history. But Carr also felt a special shame about her town's history and her grandfather's membership in the Klan. That shame ultimately led her to write Our Town. Her story is an effort to examine the truth as a means of healing and opening a dialogue.

Carr pursues the truth like a bloodhound. It doesn't matter that she often loses the scent while on the trail because she refuses to give up and just keeps circling Marion and the small towns surrounding it until she gets the next whiff. Early on in her research she decides to go back home and ends up living in Marion, Indiana for an entire year.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsHaunting and Heartfelt
By Bookster on May 22, 2006
Format: Hardcover
I grew up 1/2 block from the Marion city limits. I spent 21 years there and wanted to leave from the time I was an adolescent. Although I have been gone over 30 years, I visit several times a year as I still have family there.

The lynching was not something I knew about until I was in high school. (I am white and went to all white county schools. My parents moved to Marion in the fifties.)

I also have to address the review by the man from TN. He objects to the characterization of the viewers in the lynching photo as gleeful. It is the single most harrowing aspect of the photo. Just look on the back of the dust jacket and decide for yourself.

His apologia is that the viewers may have been on a voyage of discovery and not have known how to react because who could enjoy looking at such a sight. How does the reviewer then explain the photo becoming a local bestseller?

The reviewer also suggests that the survivor of the lynch mob (James Cameron) may have fabricated his presence there. Cameron's surviving the lynch mob is not in question. There are numerous witnesses. The reviewer further tries to cast doubt by saying he doesn't recall what felony Cameron went to jail for. Cameron was imprisoned for his part in the killing of Deeter - the crime that led to the lynching - and was later pardoned by the Governor of Indiana. The teenaged Cameron had initially agreed to participate in the robbery but ran away when he recognized Deeter as a man who had been kind to him.

You will meet many like the reviewer from TN in Carr's book. A theme of the book is the continuing denial of the lynching and the racism in Marion by the white community. Marion has been crumbling and shrinking as long as I have known it. Now I know why.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsEye Opening!
By Denise N on January 25, 2014
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
I am an avid ancestry researcher and knew my family had roots in Marion, IN and I wanted to see if Amazon had any books on the history of Marion, IN. This book came up in my search. I had never heard about this horrific event from any of my family members so I was interested and bought it. This book was a shocking and utterly sad read. I was also shocked to discover while reading this book that my Great Grandfather was a police officer during the lynching, had worked that night and had testified during the subsequent court proceedings. Cynthia Carr did a fantastic job in researching this book. It was hard for me to put down and I have reread it a couple of times now. This is a book all Americans need to read.
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5.0 out of 5 starsCompelling
By Aka3 on December 28, 2013
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
I know this town very well, so I was interested in reading this book. Several people I remember from Marion were interviewed and mentioned by name, which I found kind of cool and jarring at the same time. I like the way this author thinks and I love the way she leads the reader along on the search for answers and meaning. I felt like I was an insider and she was an outsider. I kind of had that feeling you have when watching the movie Titanic -- you know the ship will sink but the characters don't. So I was thinking that the author should go to this place or go to that place or look around this corner, but she would take a wrong turn. She also discovered some interesting new things down those turns. However, she missed some important people and missed some nuances.

I almost gave this book 4 stars instead of 5 due to the inordinate amount of time the author spent on a ku klux klan tangent, meeting with the current klan and going to their events and their homes in Marion and in Ft. Wayne (which might as well be another world). Also the author saves a big revelation for the ending of the book about the real ringleaders in the lynching and their location and connections. She could have removed most of the information about the klan and focused on the actual people she indicates were involved.

Many times she was blinded and led astray by her own preconceived ideas. She came into her Marion project with ideas about the divisions between black people, white people, and native american people. Such rigid models just don't apply in a place like Marion.Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 starsBook was interesting. The main reason that I read ...

Book was interesting. The main reason that I read it was because I am from Marion Indiana and on the cover the picture was in the neighborhood that I lived in. Read more

Published 10 months ago by Gaetana M. Durham
4.0 out of 5 starsHow would you like to find out that a town where you lived was the...

I'm embarrassed to admit that I lived in this city for 6 years. Thank you, Cynthia Carr, for opening up my eyes to the REAL reasons that there were no African-American children at... Read more

Published on December 11, 2013 by Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 starsWow.

I'm just over halfway through and I'm continually blown away. Carr really put so much on the line for this book. Read more

Published on November 19, 2013 by Katari
4.0 out of 5 starsThe dark side of human nature

I was aware of this incident through my in-laws (which ow look more like outlaws). This book reveals the dark side of our humanity and the triuth about race relations. Read more

Published on May 7, 2013 by Nancy Mills
5.0 out of 5 starsNot a bad city

I spent 60 yrs living in Marion before moving to Ky. Remember so much of what was written & remember my father telling me about the lynching. Read more

Published on December 19, 2012 by Gary Mayo
3.0 out of 5 starsYet another liberal anti-white tract

I do not feel guilty about being white. I have never lynched anyone. The clear message of this poisonous book is that white people as such are devils, and black people as such... Read more

Published on November 6, 2012 by othoniaboys
5.0 out of 5 starsMy Connection To This True Life Story

One of the principles in the Cynthia Carr's Our Town book is the woman Mary Ball. She was the woman who says she was raped while her boyfried was killed which set off the chain of... Read more

Published on May 18, 2011 by Maddie sez
5.0 out of 5 starsA long but rewarding book.

The last public lynching in the North took place in 1930 in Marion, Indiana, hometown of the author's father. Read more

Published on July 16, 2010 by Indian Prairie Public Library
5.0 out of 5 starsA Job Well Done!!!!!

Outstanding! The only word to describe this 10 year in the making heart felt project. Cynthia took her time and did painstaking research. Read more

Published on May 8, 2008 by Bradley D. Thompson
2.0 out of 5 starsPoorly written

This book is poorly written and extremely hard to follow. She takes a subject, which could have been extremely interesting, and just completely muddles it up. Read more

Published on February 15, 2008 by Brian Frank

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