Silence in Sikeston

The story of how the 1942 lynching of Cleo Wright - and the subsequent failure of the first federal attempt to prosecute a lynching - continues to haunt the small city of Sikeston, Missouri. Then, in 2020, the community is faced with the police killing of a young Black father. The film SILENCE IN SIKESTON explores the necessary questions about history, trauma, silence and resilience over 78 years.

The story of how the 1942 lynching of Cleo Wright - and the subsequent failure of the first federal attempt to prosecute a lynching - continues to haunt the small city of Sikeston, Missouri. Then, in 2020, the community is faced with the police killing of a young Black father. The film SILENCE IN SIKESTON explores the necessary questions about history, trauma, silence and resilience over 78 years.

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.

In 2020, Denzel Taylor's life was cut short in a police shooting. His mother, Jean Kelly, shares pieces of his story as a son, father and young, Black man who had much more to give to his loved ones in Chicago and Sikeston.

In 1942, Cleo Wright was lynched by a white mob before Sikeston, Missouri's Black community. Wright's death was the first federally investigated lynching but not before 3,842 had occurred around the country. Before the 2022 Emmett Till Antilynching Act, an anti-lynching campaign that began in the late 1800s, and led by Ida B. Wells, the NAACP and many activists, aimed to make the offense a crime.

WORLD's Chris Hastings talks with KFF Health News Midwest correspondent Cara Anthony about SILENCE IN SIKESTON. They discuss how the film and podcast examine racial violence, trauma and silence following the deaths of two Black men in one Missouri community, and exposes how the health of residents were affected. Anthony also opens up about her own family's intersection with police violence.

Cara Anthony talks about SILENCE IN SIKESTON and the exploration of health - physical, mental and emotional - when trauma lives in the body. The KFF Health News Midwest correspondent shares how working on the project revealed a piece of family history that parallels the racial violence and silence seen and talked about in the film and podcast.

Rhonda Council talks with her grandmother Mable Cook about the lynching of Cleo Wright and her response to witnessing the violence while fellow Sikeston resident Larry McLellon shares his experience as a young Black man during that time.