Silence in Sikeston | Witnesses to a Lynching
Clip: Season 8 Episode 12 | 59sVideo has Closed Captions
Two residents recall the day they, as young children, witnessed the lynching of Cleo Wright in 1942.
Carleen Harrington and Mable Cook were only girls growing up in Sikeston, Missouri when Cleo Wright was lynched by a white mob in front of the Black community. The violence of that 1942 day haunted these two young residents, and the small city, for decades leaving them silent to the situation. Now, they are sharing how the experience affected them.
Funding for Silence in Sikeston provided by the Ford Foundation. Funding for Local, USA provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and Wyncote Foundation.
Silence in Sikeston | Witnesses to a Lynching
Clip: Season 8 Episode 12 | 59sVideo has Closed Captions
Carleen Harrington and Mable Cook were only girls growing up in Sikeston, Missouri when Cleo Wright was lynched by a white mob in front of the Black community. The violence of that 1942 day haunted these two young residents, and the small city, for decades leaving them silent to the situation. Now, they are sharing how the experience affected them.
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship[Carleen Harrington] We were jus He had a big police car come down the street, hollering and saying, "All the (beeps) better get off the street," because he ha [Harry Howard] Are you serious?
[Carleen] This man's leg tied to (tires crunching) (emotional string music) And so they had drug him from do across the railroad track.
We were certainly, you talk abou it was horrible feeling.
[Rhonda Council] Where were you at when it happened?
- [Mable Cook] Standing on the p We heard all the commotion so we, me and my sister, we got on the porch and looked o and we saw 'em dragging.
They could've just taken him and put him in jail or something and not do all that - [Rhonda] So it was a message they was getting out.
[Mable] Yeah, that's right.
They did that so the next one should know not to be trying to do the same thin Mm-hm.
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Providing Support for PBS.org
Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship
Funding for Silence in Sikeston provided by the Ford Foundation. Funding for Local, USA provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and Wyncote Foundation.