FYI,

The Noose: A Symbol Of Hatred

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By JULIE BUCKNER ARMSTRONG

Published: February 24, 2008

When my friends and I were bored in high school, we entertained
ourselves with the word game Hangman.

One player drew a scaffold and a noose, and below that a line for each
letter of the word. The other player guessed letters hoping to fill in
enough blanks to identify the word itself. Each missed letter resulted
in one stick-figure body part drawn in.

The game's object was to beat death. For white teenagers like me,
nooses held no real significance in post-civil-rights Alabama.

Fast forward 25 years. I am writing a book about the 1918 lynching of
a pregnant woman named Mary Turner near Valdosta, Ga. The mob went
after her because she threatened to press charges in her husband's
lynching. After torturing and killing her, they cut out her fetus and
stomped it into the ground.