Learning about lynching helped heal my wounds

IT TOOK ME A LONG TIME BEFORE I REALIZED THAT MY family’s struggles had not simply materialized out of thin air—that although we have rightly never made excuses about our faults, they weren’t evidence of ugliness running through our veins. My father beat my mother. My maternal grandfather beat my maternal grandmother. Moochie, my hero big brother, murdered a man. My youngest brother, Jordan, is serving 20 years in a federal prison. A nephew who was raised like a brother is in the middle of a 25-year sentence in a state facility. Another