For decades, too few witnesses affected by lynchings came forward to tell their stories. But lynching is etched into our collective history, and now, in Lynched: The Power of Memory in a Culture of Terror (Baylor Univ., out now), Angela D. Sims wants to end the silence of African-American elders whose lives intersected with those brutal acts, and to bring their stories to wider attention.

Sims, dean of academic programs, Robert B. and Kathleen Rogers chair in church and society, and associate professor of ethics and black church studies at Saint Paul School of Theology, came to write this book because she wanted to understand how those affected by lynchings—both eyewitnesses and others in the families and communities of victims—somehow were not destroyed by their proximity to dehumanizing acts. “[African-Americans] who came of age in a culture of terror were still able, whether it’s based on their faith or something else, to glimpse areas of hope and participate fully within their communities and society,” says Sims, whose doctoral dissertation was about anti-lynching advocate Ida B. Wells’s activism against the gruesome crime.

Lynched had its genesis when, a few months after defending her dissertation, Sims heard a preacher recount vivid memories of a lynching that occurred in his hometown in Georgia. Sims says that his remarks prompted her to ask herself whether there might be others also willing to share their memories.

As a way to illustrate how difficult the process of sharing traumatic memories can be, Sims compares the act of remembering to baptism. “I look at the way baptism lives in my own religious tradition, in historically black Baptist churches,” she says. “Baptism is a process of immersion. What does it mean to allow oneself to be immersed in terrible memories as a way to give [other] folks hope and meaning?”

Sims compares her research for Lynched to the work of the Depression-era WPA Project, which sent investigators into the field to gather oral histories. She too conducted interviews, documenting the oral histories of several dozen participants, and she wants her book to provide a platform for voices that are seldom heard and not included in any scholarly work. “It’s unfortunate that this is still so culturally relevant in the 21st century” Sims says. “It pains me that individuals are still dealing with domestic terror in the U.S. today.” —Robin Farmer