The Family Tree: A Lynching in Georgia, a Legacy of Secrets, and My Search for the Truth

Harris County, Georgia, 1912. A white man, the beloved nephew of the county sheriff, is shot dead on the porch of a black woman. Days later, the sheriff sanctions the lynching of a black woman and three black men, all of them innocent. For Karen Branan, the great-granddaughter of that sheriff, this isn't just history; this is family history.



Branan spent nearly twenty years combing through diaries and letters, hunting for clues in libraries and archives throughout the United States to piece ...