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All That Is Necessary For Evil To Prevail.....

MY STORY
Lisa Austin

I will tell you this chronologically so it makes sense. The memories came in bits and pieces and in no particular order. It wasn’t until I could fit this experience together that it even became clear to me. Now, the memory is unshakeable in its truthfulness. This is not anything I made up; I don’t have that kind of imagination.

1956
I was nine years old. My favorite uncle lived on a farm in rural Kentucky. When I was there I could drive the tractor, ride a horse, or climb crabapple trees. For a tomboy it was an exciting place. One fall day, as we got into the car to come home from a visit, my mother turned around to face me in the back seat and said the little girl on the next farm had been “raped by a nigger.” I was told never to speak or be alone with a black man or I would be raped too. I wasn’t really sure what rape was but I had heard talk before about “sex-crazed niggers.” My parents said that word all the time and I hated it. It made me feel icky. I just ignored her like I usually did when something she said made no sense. After all, I rode my bike with Kenny S., whose grandmother ironed my dad’s shirts, and he had never done anything to me.

1957
It was a few months later on a crisp winter day and my father decided to go to my uncle’s place to cut up some wood for his BBQ. My uncle wanted to show us something first before we went into the back woods. The two adults, my cousin, and I climbed into his Cadillac. As we drove back on one of his farms, white people would come out of their shacks and wave to us like we were royalty. I thought it was strange although in retrospect, it made sense.

When we stopped I thought we were going to gather some hickory. Instead my uncle led us up a hill where a lone tree with one substantial limb stood on top. He leaned over to me, getting very close to my face, and said “You won’t have to worry about that nigger no more.” I had no idea what he was talking about. I was so frightened I began to shake. Slowly I backed up as he talked to me until I hit the car door. I could go no further. Suddenly my favorite uncle became a dangerous man.

1998
I did not see my uncle. Occasionally he would call and want me to come and visit. I would ask him if he was ready to give up his racist theories or rhetoric but he wouldn’t. I was not willing to be around that kind of hatred.  The conversation ended the same way every time with me refusing to visit and my uncle getting upset.

I always remembered the incident with the tree and sometimes wondered if it was the bravado of a bully or the hate of a bigot. I learned it was both.

His obituary read he had been a deputy sheriff in Anderson County, Kentucky. The day we went for that ride he had on his tan uniform and shiny badge with his pant legs tucked into his too short boots.

No wonder they waved.

2002
While I drank my coffee, I was reading the Sunday paper when I saw a small article about a book that contained photos and stories of people who had been lynched.

Uncle Johnny, I thought.

I found the book at the library. As I began to look at it I had a very intense visceral reaction to the photographs: men and women laughing and pointing at the dead men; boys standing around a burning body smiling and laughing like they were at a college pep rally, postcards of mutilated African-Americans sent to friends and family. It made my knees weak and I had to sit down before I fell. This was almost more than I could bear but I knew if the African-American community had withstood such things who was I to run away from my history.

Uncle Johnny, I thought.

The chronology of the memories began to make sense. He really had lynched a black man. It was that man accused of raping that little girl. It was a result of that horrible cliché: white girls and women were irresistible and black men were lust-crazed animals. But that was not the real reason he showed the place to us. He took his son, who became active as a young adult in the KKK and white supremacist movements, to groom him. He took my father to show off. I don’t know why he took me. I think in his twisted mind he thought it would make me feel safe…..something I had always felt with him until that day.

Keeping Hellhounds From My Door Mixed Media. Vintage Shotgun Shell box. Vintage photos of lynching woven as the background. Ivory skulls. Velvet leaves. Used shotgun shells. Candles. Feathers. Broken mirror. Klan image colored by hand. Lift up tab on the Klan hood reveals photo and skull for the photo head. 10"x14".	Behold A Pale Rider . Mixed Media. Hand embroidered. Tibetan prayer beads. Photo transfer. Life-size hood.	Detail of Behold A Pale Rider.

Stolen Lives. Mixed Media. 52 1/2' long. 544 names. Vintage flour sacks dyed by artist. Names painted on stamps and applied one letter at a time by artist.	Detail of the banner portion of the installation.	Strange Fruit. 18"x24". Painted and drawn on canvas, photo transfer, window screen, stamps.

AKIA: A Klansman I Am. Artist's field box, Vintage photo, vintage glasses, vintage Klan  brochure, bones, teeth, vintage tintype, vintage watch casing,vintage field  bible, vintage rosary, vintage game pieces, doll hair.

All That Is Necessary for Evil to Prevail. The entire installation is $10,000.