The lynching tree is the oldest living thing on our farm. It was here when the first white men
came and it’s still here and growing. I guess the black folks around here have always called it that. Back when I was in elementary school Reverend Amos James began calling for the tree to be destroyed as “a symbol of white oppression.” That’s when everyone started calling it the lynching tree. Before that we just called it the big oak.

That’s when my dad did a smart thing. He invited some other black preachers and the county historical society officers to the farm. Mom served iced tea and little sandwiches to them on the picnic table under the old oak tree. The tree guy from the university talked about how old it was and how much longer it could live.

Then dad talked. He talked about how a farmer has a duty to the land; to preserve it for future
generations while taking a living from it. he said that he wouldn’t allow anyone to cut down the tree because that would be a dereliction of his duty. Then he said that He didn’t think grandpa ever knew about this part of the history of the land he bought in nineteen-seventy two, that he would have been as saddened and angry about it as he was, even if that probably wasn’t as saddened and angry as the descendants of the hanged men. Then he turned toward the historical society people and said that he would like a historical marker like the ones at other places in the county at the road where it passed the oak to commemorate the lynching victims.

You could tell they didn’t like the idea. They said that it would make the county look bad; that it
would just stir up old resentments. Dad offered the first one hundred dollars for the marker and those preachers fell over one another pledging support from their churches. In the end the historical society people decided that it was better to have a plain official marker rather than one dedicated by the black citizens of the county as a couple of the preachers proposed.

It took a while but eventually a granite post with a bronze plaque appeared on the edge of the road right of way. It said:

In memory of the black men lynched on this tree

in 1831 Jonas for attempted escape and striking an overseer

In 1840 brothers Servius and Publius for possessing abolitionist tracts

In 1931 James Rupert Willers for trying to organize a tenant farmers union

The historical society people didn’t want the word black included but dad and the preachers were paying and they won.

Before that we used to sit in the shade at that table for lunch when we were picking peaches and the big oak was a favorite place for us kids to play. Now that just doesn’t seem right. The table is on the other side of the orchard. The younger kids dare each other to touch the tree but no one plays there. My friend Gary, who’s mostly Cherokee, says that his Grandfather always called it the spirit tree. He thinks we’ve all just become more sensitive to what was always there.

Dad knew that not everyone would be happy about the marker so he put a trail cam in the tree looking at it. The first guy to damage the marker was caught on camera and had to pay for the repairs along with a fine. When a group calling themselves spirit of the confederacy showed up they knew about the camera. Two guys wearing ski masks climbed over the fence to take it down. They didn’t know dad had put an alarm on the fence to ring in my bedroom. Always before it had just been an animal hitting the fence. That’s why it was one of my chores in the summer to check on the alarm. I was riding out there on my dirt bike when one of them shot at my headlight. I was not really in pistol range even if he was sober, so he missed. I drove down into the gully and called dad, then realized I should have called the police and did that before leaving the bike and sneaking home through the orchard like dad said to.

Now the alarm still rings in my bedroom but the camera is a model I can monitor from my laptop. If it’s an animal I go back to sleep. If it’s people, I wake dad and my older brother Zack. They will both stand behind the corners of the house with their deer rifles while mom calls the police. That hasn’t happened in a couple of years once word got out to the radical groups that the marker was monitored.

That’s why when the alarm went off at two a.m. last Christmas Eve I expected to see a possum or maybe a deer. What I saw was Darius Gower from my advanced calculus class wearing a dress and carrying a rope as he approached the tree. Darius is one of the smartest kids in school. He’s in more advanced classes than anyone and still is supposed to have all A’s. I heard some of the other black kids teasing him about that once, saying he was an Oreo for studying so much, but he just keeps getting A’s.

As he got closer to the tree and about to get under the camera’s field of view, he adjusted his grip on the rope. That’s when I saw the hangman’s noose. I hollared for dad as I was pulling on my jeans and shoes before heading out the door. I ran as fast I could in the dark but Darius had tied the other end of his rope to a branch and dropped off with the noose around his neck just as I got there.

I was really glad I had climbed the lynching tree so many times when I was younger. Even in the dark I reached the branch the rope was tied to easily. Being a farm kid, my Leatherman is always on my belt outside of school. It was there when I put my Jeans on and I needed it now more than ever before. When the rope proved difficult to cut I changed to the saw blade and Darius dropped to the ground.

I didn’t know what to do next. The 4-H first aid class hadn’t covered hanging victims. I pried the
noose open as gently as I could in case there was a spinal injury. Darius wasn’t breathing. I decided that I would have to do chest compressions and hope there was no serious neck injury. That’s what I was doing when dad and Zack arrived in the truck. We put a blanket over him while Zack and I traded off on the compressions until the ambulance arrived.

We didn’t learn what happened after that until late Christmas day. It was after a supper of leftovers from Christmas dinner that a strange car came down the driveway and Darius and a black couple who turned out to be his parents got out. Darius was wearing a dress again, but not the same one. Once they were inside and mom had offered coffee and cookies Mr. Gower said that Denise wanted to thank us, especially me, but she wasn’t allowed to talk much. Then Darius, who we learned was now Denise, kind of croaked out “thank you. I would have died but I didn’t need to.”

Mrs. Gower mostly talked after that. His, no her, family had known Darius was Denise for a few months. They had been working on a transition plan including consulting her cousin, Rev. James. His comments were real negative but they were going ahead anyway. Until last night’s Christmas Eve Service. Rev. James had called out Denise by her dead name, which is what they called her old name, and screamed in his usual preaching style that she was going to hell and her family with her for supporting such an abomination. She started crying and ran out of the church with Mrs. Gower behind her. Mr. Gower stayed behind to confront the preacher but was cut off by several deacons. Denise kept crying all the way home, running to her bedroom still in tears. Mrs. Gower said that she had been real emotional since starting on estrogen so they thought it was best to let her cry it out, having said all they could think of already in the car. Later that night she snuck out of the house and took the anchor rope from her dad’s boat.

She rode her bicycle to our place because the slave Publius who was hung on the tree was one of her ancestors. It seems that being smart runs in the family since he and Servius had taught themselves to read when it was illegal to learn. She decided that if she was going to commit suicide it would be on the lynching tree. You know the rest, except maybe that Jefferson Davis High School is about to have it’s first black female valedictorian…...If Denise doesn’t get that name changed too.