Grace Elizabeth Hale: “The Lyncher in the Family: The Facts and the Stories"

On Oct. 6, historian Grace Elizabeth Hale will deliver a public lecture at Mississippi State University on research from her forthcoming book "In the Pines: A Lynching, A Lie, A Reckoning" (Little Brown, 2023).

This work is a history of white supremacy in the form of a story - the tale of Hale's grandfather and his time as a sheriff in Jefferson Davis County, what that place was like in the first half of the 20th century and what she has discovered about his participation in an unaccounted for 1947 lynching of a Black man named Versie Johnson. 

Hale is the Commonwealth Professor of American Studies and History at the University of Virginia. She is the author of three other books: "Making Whiteness: The Culture of Segregation in the South, 1890-1940;" "A Nation of Outsiders: How the White Middle Class Fell in Love with Rebellion in Postwar America;" and "Cool Town: How Athens, Georgia, Launched Alternative Music and Changed American Culture."