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

Author: Karen Branan

Narrator: Pam Ward

Unabridged: 9 hr

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 01/26/2016

Synopsis


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 together the events and motives that led a group of people to murder four of their fellow citizens in such a brutal public display. Her research revealed surprising new insights into the day-to-day reality of race relations in the Jim Crow–era South, but what she ultimately discovered was far more personal.

A gripping story of privilege and power, anger, and atonement, The Family Tree transports listeners to a small Southern town steeped in racial tension and bound by powerful family ties. Branan takes us back in time to the Civil War, demonstrating how plantation politics and the Lost Cause movement set the stage for the fiery racial dynamics of the twentieth century.

About Karen Branan

Karen Branan is a veteran journalist who has written for newspapers, magazines, stage, and television for almost fifty years. Her work has appeared in Life, Mother Jones, Ms., Ladies' Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, Today's Health, Learning, Parents, Star Tribune (Minneapolis), the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and on PBS, CBS, ABC, CBC, BBC, and CNN.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Lisa

Rating: B+ Source: Edelweiss Some good books are fun to read. You ENJOY them, you laugh, and you smile. Other good books are NOT necessarily fun to read. They are still good books, and often, important books. They are books people SHOULD read. But they are not enjoyable and they are not fun. The Famil......more

Goodreads review by Donna

This was a difficult book for me to read, partly because as non-fiction historical fiction, some of the text is detailed and dry, but mostly because the subject is horrifying. I cannot think of anything worse than a lynching. This author, Karen Branan focuses on the lynching of four African American......more

Goodreads review by Read In Colour

The writer got bogged down in family history and who was related to whom. It made it difficult to keep up with what was going on. I understand that it was personal for her as it's told from her point of view as the granddaughter of a sheriff during this incident, but the story could have been better......more

Goodreads review by Lori

Karen Branan relates the story of her family sparked by her discovery of a lynching in Hamilton, Georgia, her ancestral town. She found herself related to one of those hanged because of an ancestor's second family with a black woman. While it is obvious the author researched the story well, the stor......more

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