Josephine Bolling McCall is an Alabama-based speaker, author, and educator who addresses America’s overlooked history of lynching and the racial caste system that made it possible.
As one of the few children of a Jim Crow South lynching victim speaking today,
Jo is a primary source for this period in America’s history of racial terror.
Photo by Jay Reeves, AP
Jo’s father, Elmore Bolling, was a successful black entrepreneur and philanthropist who defied all odds to create an integrated array of transportation and farming businesses in the Jim Crow South.
It was his very success that got him killed by whites who routinely lynched black competitors to maintain systems of white supremacy.
Jo tells the story of her father’s life: his genius for business, his faith and investment in his community, and his persistence in the face of daunting barriers.
The devastating impact of his murder on Jo’s family and their entire community, black and white, reverberates to this day.
America’s history of racial terror violence has yet to be adequately addressed or stopped.
We need to know and understand Elmore Bolling’s story and our history if we are ever to transform the systems that bind us all.
The Penalty for Success
My Father Was Lynched in Lowndes County, Alabama
by Josephine Bolling McCall