PROGRAM SUCCESS – AUGUST 2009
PAGE 5
New Book Focuses On Lynching
Eeny Miney Mo / Time To Lynch A Negro
A heartfelt new book by author and poet, Eddie Bell, Eeny
Meeny Miney Mo / Time to Lynch a Negro was released
January 2009 by Royal Fireworks Press. This daring work,
Eddie’s third, is a fictional depiction of stories surrounding
lynching and its impact on the folks left behind. It offers an
insiders look at a hidden
American story. “The
fact that lynching is not
talked about by blacks or
whites, in the same
manner as the Jewish
media discourse on the
Holocaust, is all the more
reason for writing the
book,”
the
author
explains.
have not shied away
from
the
personal
passions
and
real
consequences
that
always accompany these
desperate acts of hate and
retribution.”
Eddie Bell recently
completed a successful
debut book tour that took
him to Durham, NC,
Alexander City, AL,
Summerfield, Tampa,
and Detroit, MI. He
reads his work widely
Book Cover
throughout New York
and across the country and has toured in France on three
occasions.
Collateral Damage: A Soliloquy is a wife’s lament about
her “missin man” and Aftermath of the Bad Nigger
Festival: An Old Woman’s Story tells of long-held memories
of a white woman, in advanced age, taken to a spectacle
lynching by her father when she was a little girl. Spectacle
lynchings were those that were advertised and drew large
crowds of onlookers. A Prayer for Reuben is an old time
prayer by a father asking forgiveness for the mob that
lynched his son. Other poems are equally compelling.
I asked the author to provide the background for the writing
of Eeny Meeny Miney Mo / Time to Lynch a Negro and the
following article is his response.
Darryl A. Barrs, Program Success Editor
The idea for Eeny Meeny Miney Mo / Time to Lynch a
Negro has its origins with a casual suggestion by a fellow
writer. Knowing that I was a photographer, he opined that a
photo essay depicting lynching sites in their present day
environment would be an interesting project. The idea
intrigued me, but it didn’t take me long to realize that this
was an improbable task. The sites are so numerous and so
widespread that it would take a lifetime to complete such a
project.
My book, which is comprised of short stories and poetry, is
not so much about the act of lynching, but more about the
people affected: mothers, wives, people in the crowd. In my
introduction I write, “In order to spare the sensitivities of the
reader I have refrained from dwelling too heavily on
lynching’s grotesque, inhumane acts of torture and death, but
I see the writing of Eeny
Meeny miney Mo as
giving voice to those
forgotten people who
Eddie Bell
suffered the effects of
mob violence and have been ignored by history. The poetry
mainly speaks in women’s voices as they convey deeply felt
emotions in a very personal fashion.
The short stories characterize fictional people that
experienced lynching up close. One story tells of a tragedy
that stemmed from a
school
romance
between a black boy
and white girl. Another
tells of a woman whose
husband was lynched
and her entanglement
with a drunken suitor.
And still another tells
of a revenge lynching
by a black man who
became a mute after
being confronted by a
scene that he witnessed
as a young boy.
CD Cover
Selected poems from the book have been produced in a
compact disc entitled, “Festival of Tears.” My reading (and
that of two guest readers) is accompanied by accomplished
musicians rendering blues, jazz and spiritual interpretations
on violin, piano and bass. Pianist Peter Tomlinson, who has
See Lynching Page 8