The Monster in Our Midst

By Kris Nelscott

When a disturbing postcard arrives at his Atlanta office, Emerson knows he must report it to the NAACP. The postcard, sent by the mysterious Lurleen from Abbotts Creek, Arkansas, depicts yet another lynching.

Emerson agrees to travel to Abbotts Creek to investigate, but he knows doing so poses great risk. Emerson only passes as white, and this Lurleen knows his face.

Emerson knows one day his luck will run out. And when he arrives in Abbotts Creek, he soon discovers that day might have come at last.

"Nelscott is good at conveying the edgy caution that blacks once brought to their movements among white society."

—Houston Chronicle

• Language: English
• Publisher: WMG Publishing
• Release date: Jan 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215814932

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The Monster in Our Midst

THE MONSTER IN OUR MIDST

KRIS NELSCOTT

WMG Publishing, Inc.

CONTENTS

The Monster in Our Midst

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THE MONSTER IN OUR MIDST

I ask not only black Americans but white Americans, are you not ashamed of lynching? …The nation today is striving to lead the moral forces of the world in support of the weak against the strong. Well, I’ll tell you it can’t do it until it conquers and crushes this monster in its own midst.

—James Weldon Johnson

NAACP Field Secretary

The National Conference on Lynching

May 10, 1919

She found the postcard next to the cash register at a general store in a small town in Arkansas. The hand-tinted photograph caught her attention. She picked it up and nearly dropped it in surprise, then glanced at the stout man who owned the place.

He had been measuring a pound of dried beans for her onto a white scale mounted on a solid oak counter. The entire store smelled of spices and coffee, with an undercurrent of Virginia pipe tobacco.

The stout man had dark mistrustful eyes and a fat, petulant mouth. He wore a heavy apron over his white shirt, and his black pants had worn gray at the knees.

He was measuring her as surely as he was measuring those beans.

My, she said. Is this what I think it is?

I dunno, miss, the stout man said. What do you think it is?

Is this that nigra what gave you all the trouble last fall? she asked. I heard about these dealings the first time I came through here—what was it, September? Everyone was talking about how safe they was feeling, now that it’d all ended.

Apparently, she sounded sympathetic enough. The stout man smiled at her, although the smile didn’t reach his eyes.

That’d be the one, he said.

He scraped some of the beans off the top of the pile, then tied the white bag he’d put them in.

He paused, then asked pointedly, Who’re your people?

She’d run into that question before, and knew how to reply, no matter what name she was answering to.

My people are in Atlanta now, she said, but I was raised due south of here. I’m Lureen Taylor.

Thomas Mosby, he said, almost begrudgingly.

My husband’s passed, she said as if she were a lonely woman, unable to stop sharing, and I don’t like Atlanta. So I’m looking for a good community with solid values where I can live out my days in relative quiet.

She wasn’t that old, but old enough to make the story believable. It usually softened men like Thomas Mosby, although it didn’t seem to soften this one, maybe because he had seen her surprise when she picked up the postcard.

She still held it between her thumb and forefinger. If she wanted to stay in this little community for even a few days, she needed to alleviate his suspicions.

I heard about such cards, she said, waving it slightly. "I have never seen one made from a real event. Usually I seen the photographs of buildings or the paintings from history, never one from