All That was Lost from My Grandmother

In the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan killed at least 600 Black people in Texas. My grandmama’s family was one of the hundreds or thousands of families inextricably linked with those deplorable statistics.

My mama (my grandma) had a secret that she was embarrassed to say anything about. She really loved all of us, but her demeanor was very stern. At the time, I never knew why. But now that I am older, I see where the pain was coming from. My sister told me about it as I was writing this memoir. My grandma grew up in a small Texas town and had two brothers. But one of them was drowned by the Ku Klux Klan. And the other brother was hung in a tree by the KKK. Both of her brothers were still children when they were killed.

Later, her father and my great-grandfather was killed because he spoke to a white woman; the KKK shot him. He had a store and was a good man. Everyone loved my great-grandfather. But he, like so many others, were killed because of his skin color. They were doing away with the African Americans in a grisly way!

My grandmother lived through racial prejudice, violence, and terror in the Jim Crow South.

I want this to be heard and then stopped by the things that led to their death.

LeJeana Reagan is a writer and was a publisher. She was also a Sunday school teacher and in a women’s committee. Reagan hopes to get her Master’s in Psychology.

Posted May 20, 2022

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TAGGED WITH: African-American Experience, Racism