Grace Hale, Author of In the Pines: A Lynching, A Lie, A Reckoning

Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum Theater
Atlanta, GA

Grace Hale grew up hearing a family legend, that in 1947, her beloved grandfather had been serving as a sheriff in the Piney Woods of south-central Mississippi when he prevented a lynch mob from killing a Black man who was in his jail on suspicion of raping a white woman—only for the suspect to die the next day during an escape attempt. It was a tale straight out of To Kill a Mockingbird, with her grandfather as the tragic hero. This story, however, hid a dark truth.