As I listened to Warren Lee — a descendent of James Dennis, one of the victims of the 1916 lynching in Newberry — talk about growing up with that painful history, I was deeply moved by his story. He grew up in Jonesville and Newberry, where everyone knew about the lynching … but no one talked openly about it. He spoke about Dudley Farms, a place praised as a historic site, but one that never talked about its part of this painful history. Thankfully beginning this year, the young people at Newberry High School are being taught the history of the atrocities of the Jim Crow era, due to the work of Concerned Citizens of Newberry and Mayor Jordan Marlowe. Gainesville high schools offer African-American history as an elective.