In Memory of Mary Turner: As a Silent Protest Against Mob Violence

Item

Artist

Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller

Title

In Memory of Mary Turner: As a Silent Protest Against Mob Violence

Date

1919

Medium

painted plaster

Dimensions

20 x 7 1/2 x 7 1/2" (50.8 x 19.1 x 19.1 cm)

Accession Number

220

Description

"This sculpture, depicting a woman cradling an infant in her arms and leaning away from grasping hands and flames at the base, was created in response to the vicious lynching of a young woman named Mary Turner in 1918. Mary Turner's husband had been lynched and she publicly denounced his murder. In response, a mob of hundreds captured her, hung her upside down from a tree, and brutally killed her and her unborn child.

Artist Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller's sculpture is one of the first created by an African American specifically depicting the brutality of lynch mobs."
Museum of African American History website

Location

Museum of African American History, Boston and Nantucket