In December of 2024, I took a road trip to Little Rock, Arkansas. I wanted to see one of my all time favorite songwriters, Mike Cooley of Drive-by Truckers who does not play very many solo shows. Most folks didn’t get it and I understand. Arkansas in December? Isn’t that a good two days away?
The trip had several goals and I accomplished each. First, to see Cooley solo of course. Second, to spend some time thinking about the last tumultuous two years of my life and where I go from here. And third - an aim that unfolded during the journey - to see some things I’ve been needing to see.
About twelve years ago my life forever changed when I took a job working at a school that served the underserved areas of Jacksonville, FL. It was an eye and heart opening experience. Almost all of my kids were Black. They were living in the toughest neighborhoods in Jacksonville, which are among the toughest neighborhoods in the country.
I read Ta-Nehisi Coates and Ida Mae Wells. Sat in my students’ living rooms and got to know their families. In short, I learned about the scourge of institutional racism from a front-row seat. As a result of these experiences I dedicated myself to a life of anti-racism and have brought that energy to every day.
In 2013 things felt like they were turning a corner. For all of his faults, Barack Obama did usher in what he promised: hope. A Black man was elected President of the most powerful empire the world has ever known. He at least projected dignity and class (even as he was ordering extrajudicial assassinations of American citizens.) Representation matters. The kids that age who are now in their twenties are so cool. They dress cool. They are civic minded and justice oriented. The next generation, anecdotally, not so much.
What is different? Leadership. Leadership matters. The group of kids in middle and high school right now have grown up in the age of Trump- a man who can’t recognize Christmas Day without saying something bigoted and hateful. That seeps into the culture and promises to permeate our institutions for years to come.
Which is why a book like The Barn is essential reading. We need reminders of where things were and how easy it would be to slip back there. Hell, how about a reminder of how obvious it is that we are slipping back to a time when Black Americans disappeared without so much as an investigation for crimes so horrendous as looking at a white woman.
A lot of what I read about our current social and political moment strains to give legitimate consideration to the idea of authoritarianism as an equal ethos versus democracy. Reading about what happened in Mississippi throughout the history of this nation, with the 1950s and 60s as a central focus is jarring. So much of what was happening then is happening now. Impunity for nefarious actors. Rhetoric dehumanizing people based on the color of their skin, their gender, or where they were born.
In The Barn, Wright Thompson distills hundreds of years into a potent literary cocktail. The book delves into the economics of The South, the political dynamics that allow violent racism to flourish, and questions about where we go from here.
Thompson pulls no punches but resists the urge to editorialize. He tells the story, and its tragic consequences are impossible to ignore. His research is vigorous. His prose clips along. The Barn is a sprawling work that feels concise in its delivery.
Knowing I would be reading this book, I took a detour through Mississippi on my Cooley trip. I went to Sumner, MS, where the sham trial prosecuting two of Emmett Till’s killers took place. It was a Sunday and everything was closed. Sumner, MS, is a tiny town.
Dogs, well kept pooches, milled about the town square with collars and tags. Two large, ostensibly imposing pups bounded up to me for sniffs and love, human parents nowhere in sight. A skittish terrier mix glanced over his shoulder with that adorable terrier back leg limp as I walked to the plaque immortalizing that fateful trial. Mother fuckers murdered a kid in brutal fashion and just went about their lives.
A kid who posed no threat other than in the violent, unfounded, sexual fantasies of shitty white men. Dead. And the history of his murder obscured by forces that refused to reckon with a long, violent history. One can’t help but be enraged imagining the scenes that unfolded on this land.
I feel a renewed sense of purpose after reading The Barn. In my home state of Florida there are laws on the books preventing teachers from teaching factual history- especially as it pertains to oppression of Black Americans. I can lose my teaching license for telling the truth, and that fear impacts how I approach each day in the classroom.
Ten years ago, pre-Trump, we were headed to a world where things were getting better. Institutional racism was still well in place but the pendulum was swinging. Things are bleak as I write this. Donald Trump is about to take power again. He, who ran the first time on being racist and not much else. No policy solutions to real problems, just hate.
Our cultural climate feels hopeless more often than not, but people like Wright Thompson are sounding the alarm. We need more books like The Barn. We need more Wright Thompsons. This book lit a fire in my belly that I am taking into the next chapter of my life.
At 44, I am looking inward even more than my concave psyche has demanded since I was an adolescent. “What Have I Done To Help?,” Jason Isbell asks on his brilliant album Reunions. The work is not done and I can do more. Books like The Barn are an important reminder.
