In 2020, Sikeston police killed another young Black man, 23-year-old Denzel Taylor. Taylor’s shooting death immediately made local headlines, but then the cycle of silence in Sikeston repeated itself.

Host Cara Anthony and pediatrician Rhea Boyd draw health parallels between the loss experienced by two families nearly 80 years apart. In both cases, young daughters were left behind to grapple with unanswered questions and devastating loss.

“Regardless of the age, children experience longing,” Boyd said. “They miss people when they don’t see them again; even babies can experience that.”

[Editor’s note: A swear word is bleeped out in this episode.]

Host

In Conversation With …

Editor’s note: If you are able, we encourage you to listen to the audio of “Silence in Sikeston,” which includes emotion and emphasis not found in the transcript. This transcript, generated using transcription software, has been edited for style and clarity. Please use the transcript as a tool but check the corresponding audio before quoting the podcast. 

[Solemn instrumental music begins playing softly.] 

Cara Anthony: When Nannetta Forrest was growing up, a lot went unsaid in her family. 

Nannetta Forrest: You know, people didn’t do a lot of talking back then. And it was almost like trying to pull teeth out of a hen. 

Cara Anthony: She lived nearly her whole life in Indiana, but Nannetta’s story — the secrets and the silence — all started in Sikeston, Missouri. 

Nannetta was born there in 1942. Several months earlier, while her mother was pregnant, Nannetta’s father was lynched. 

His name … was Cleo Wright. 

Nannetta Forrest: He was taken away before I got here! 

Cara Anthony: Taken from a jail cell. Taken and dragged through the streets by a white mob. Taken to Sunset Addition, the center of Black life in Sikeston, and lynched. Taken from his family.  

Nannetta’s mother kept quiet. She never wanted her daughter to know what happened to her father. 

But one day, Nannetta was with her grandfather. A game show that aired on CBS in the 1950s was on TV. It was called “Strike it Rich.” 

[Clip from “Strike it Rich” begins playing.] 

“Strike It Rich” clip: Mr. “Strike It Rich” himself, Warren Hull. [Applause] 

Nannetta Forrest: Celebrities would go on, and they’d try to win money for, like, underprivileged people. 

“Strike It Rich” clip: Thanks a lot! 

Nannetta Forrest: And that’s when Grandpa told me, he said, “You can go on there, Nan.” And I said, “Go on there with what?” And that’s when he went in his wallet and pulled out this yellow piece of paper. 

[Solemn instrumental music plays.] 

Cara Anthony: It was a newspaper clipping about the lynching of her father. 

Nannetta Forrest: And that was my first time ever becoming aware of it. 

Cara Anthony: It was around 1955. Nannetta was 13 or 14 at the time. 

Nannetta Forrest: I did wanna know the story behind it, what happened, but nobody seemed to wanna talk about it. 

Cara Anthony: Over the years, she pieced together bits of what happened. But there was always one nagging question that didn’t have an answer: 

What would her life have been like if that mob hadn’t lynched her dad? 

Nannetta Forrest: Now, I do often wonder that. Had he been alive when I was born and been in my life, what type of person would I have been? Would I have been the same person? Would I have been a different person? And this is something I’ll never know. 

Cara Anthony: I’m Cara Anthony. I’m a health reporter. 

I’ve traveled to Sikeston, Missouri, for years, asking people about the killing of Cleo Wright — and the silence that surrounds his death. 

Nearly eight decades after the killing, that silence was still stifling. Like generations of stuffed-down fear and anger. 

At nearly every turn, locals refused to talk to me. In fact, many people felt they could not talk to me. Until I met … Mikela Jackson. 

[Solemn instrumental music fades out.] 

Mikela Jackson: It’s … it’s … it’s no healing from grief. It’s an everyday thing for me. 

Cara Anthony: Mikela goes by Keke. She’s in her mid-20s. But she’s heard about the lynching back in 1942. 

Cara Anthony: Talk to me a little bit about that. Have you ever heard of Cleo Wright? 

Mikela Jackson: Denzel brung that up to me. Denzel brung it up to me because we used to live on Sunset Street, and he was telling me, like, they dragged him through Sunset. 

Cara Anthony: “Denzel” is Denzel Taylor, Keke’s fiancé. 

Sikeston police shot him at least 18 times — and killed Denzel in April 2020. He was 23 years old. 

That year, everyone was talking about new research that found that a Black man had a 1-in-1,000 chance of being killed by police. 

Denzel Taylor became that 1 in a thousand. 

[Sparse, minor music plays quietly.] 

Right in the middle of her grief, Keke refused to be quiet. 

Mikela Jackson: The Bootheel knows what happened to him. The world, they have no idea who Denzel Taylor is. 

Cara Anthony: The Bootheel is where Sikeston sits — in the far southeast corner of Missouri. 

Mikela Jackson: So that’s why I want his story … I wanna make him proud, actually. ’Cuz I want him to know, look, Babe, they going to hear this one way or another.   

Cara Anthony: I made a film about the deaths of Denzel and Cleo — two Black men killed decades apart — in the same community. 

For the documentary, we explored questions about the impact of racial trauma and the persistent harm it causes. 

Here, for the podcast, we’re exploring another layer. How does systemic racial violence impact health? The health of Black people, in particular? 

[“Silence in Sikeston” theme begins playing.] 

Denzel’s story reminds me so much of Cleo’s. So many things about their lives — and their deaths — are similar. 

They both left behind a daughter they never got to meet. 

They both were killed by a public health threat of their time. 

A threat to Black men of their time. 

For Cleo, that was lynching. 

For Denzel, it was police violence. 

Neither of them got their day in court. 

In this episode, we’re looking at what happened to Denzel Taylor. 

We’re exploring police violence as a public health problem. One that’s making us sick and cutting lives short. 

From WORLD Channel and KFF Health News, and distributed by PRX, this is “Silence in Sikeston,” the podcast about finding the words to say the things that go unsaid. 

Episode 3: “Trauma Lives in the Body.”  

[“Silence in Sikeston” theme ends.] 

[Gentle, bright instrumental music plays.] 

Cara Anthony: Denzel was from Chicago. Growing up, he spent time in southeastern Missouri with his dad’s family. 

Denzel and Keke met in Sikeston. And Keke says they fell in love immediately. 

Mikela Jackson: It was a butterfly feeling, like you could just tell it was love. It was the best energy ever.  

Cara Anthony: They started their family. De’nia was born first. Denzel used to call her “Cupcake.” 

Denzel Taylor: Hey, Cupcake. Say hey, y’all. I love you, princess. [Baby babbles.] 

Cara Anthony: Aiyana came next. In 2020, Keke was pregnant with their third daughter, Brookelynn. 

Mikela Jackson: He said he wanted seven kids. I said, Denzel, what? He wanted seven kids. That’s a basketball team. I can’t handle that. 

Cara Anthony: They were planning to get married after Brookelynn was born. 

Mikela Jackson: I really wanted a big family with Denzel. I wanted to get married. I wanted to go to D- … We was planning on moving to Dallas and everything and it’s just like, my whole world is just like, it just blew up on me. 

Cara Anthony: Remember 2020? It felt like the news was full of stories about Black people getting killed by police. 

Videos from body cameras were all over social media. Around that same time, Keke remembers Denzel getting pulled over by police more and more. 

And, Keke says, he started to become convinced that someday he might be killed by police too. 

Mikela Jackson: He said if he was to ever get in any type of interaction with the police, he would let them kill him just to show how America is. 

He would bring it up, like, outta nowhere. And he would say it, and I would wonder, like, why is you constantly saying it? And I kind of will get irritated because it’s, like, that’s not a way that I will want you to go out. Like, we’re supposed to grow old together. 

Cara Anthony: On April 29 that year, Denzel’s premonition came true. 

Police body cameras captured what happened the night Denzel was killed. 

You’re about to hear a retelling of what happened the night Denzel died — based on interviews with his family and audio pulled from those body cam videos. 

When I first got the videos, I stared at the attachments in my email for a long time. I didn’t want to look. 

[Soft droning music fades in.] 

But I think it’s important that we do look at what happened. It’s part of what I have to do to examine police killings as a public health threat. 

Denzel was staying with his father and his stepmom. 

[Rain sounds play.] 

It was raining that night. Denzel and his dad, Milton Taylor, were stuck in the house together. 

They got into an argument. Things escalated.  

Denzel’s mom, Jean Kelly, was asleep in Chicago some 400 miles away. In the early hours of the morning, Denzel’s sister ran into her room yelling. 

Jean Kelly: “Mom, wake up.” I said, “What happened?” She said, “Denzel just shot Daddy.” I said, “What? Denzel just shot Daddy? That doesn’t make any sense at all.” 

EMS audio: 49-year-old. Male. Gunshot wound. Two to three shots to the chest. Five officers on scene. 

Cara Anthony: By the time police arrived at Milton’s home, Denzel had left. EMTs stabilized Milton and took him to the hospital. 

EMS audio: We’re running hot. St. Francis. One patient.  

Cara Anthony: Meanwhile, up in Chicago, Jean is trying to figure out what’s going on. She calls Milton’s wife, Denzel’s stepmom. 

Jean Kelly: She said she had a couple of family members out looking for Denzel, you know, because she was saying, “I want them to find him before the police finds him.” 

Cara Anthony: Police are speaking with Denzel’s stepmom when he appears. 

The body-camera video shows the scene from an officer’s perspective. 

[Music fades out.]  

Cara Anthony: By now, it’s stopped raining. A streetlamp lights up the end of the block. Police had wrapped the area in yellow police tape. The camera shows Denzel standing in the near distance on the other side of the yellow tape. He’s wearing a hoodie. 

Officers: Show me your hands now! Take your hand out of your pocket! 

Denzel Taylor: Just kill me, bro. 

Jean Kelly: They were saying, uh, “Put your hands up” or whatever the, the, they said to him, and there was some words exchanged. And, uh, it sounded like he said, “Well, shoot me, bro. Just go ahead, shoot me.” 

Cara Anthony: The officers fire their guns. 

Jean Kelly: They hit my son one time, I believe, if not two, and my son fell. He went, he dropped to his knees and fell face down. 

Cara Anthony: There’s a pause. It’s just a moment or two, but as I watch it, it feels longer. 

And then, the police fire again, sending bullets into his body on the ground. They keep shooting. You can hear dozens of shots. 

Police body cam video: We got shots fired. We need EMS. We got one subject down, shots fired! Hands now! Hands! Hands! 

Cara Anthony: One officer walks up — and uses his foot to roll Denzel the rest of the way onto his stomach. Denzel groans as the officer pins his arms behind his back and handcuffs him. 

[Handcuffs click]  

Cara Anthony: They search his body.  

Police body cam video: Goddamn it. 

Cara Anthony: Police don’t find a gun. Or any weapon. Just a piece of wood in his hoodie pocket. 

Police body cam video: Are you [expletive] serious? He had a [expletive] stick of wood. 

Cara Anthony: Police call for an ambulance. 

EMS audio: … EMS respond to one subject shot. Time of page, 02 36. 

Cara Anthony: On the body camera video, one officer points a flashlight in Denzel’s face. 

Police body cam video: Why didn’t you just take your hand out of your pocket, man? 

Cara Anthony: Minutes tick by. Red and blue police lights flash off the wet pavement. Denzel is still in the street, motionless. 

[Ambulance sirens] 

Cara Anthony: EMS arrive, but it’s too late. Denzel is dead. 

Over the radio, the dispatcher calls for the coroner. 

EMS audio: That’s yes, ma’am. Contact coroner. Ten-four. 

[Somber instrumental music plays softly.] 

Cara Anthony: Keke had been out of town. She got the call as she was driving back to Sikeston. The police had killed Denzel. 

Mikela Jackson: And I said, “No, they did not. No, they did not.” I couldn’t believe it. It was heartbreaking. 

Cara Anthony: A special prosecutor declined to file charges against the police officers who killed Denzel. The officers did not comment for this project. Sikeston Chief of Public Safety James McMillen says the officers believed Denzel was armed and that they were in fear for their life. 

Denzel’s family sued the city of Sikeston. The city and the family reached a wrongful death settlement for $2 million. Close to half of it went to legal fees. Most of the rest of it will go to Denzel’s daughters. 

Keke thinks a lot about how life goes on for the officers who killed Denzel. 

Mikela Jackson: They still get to see their family every single day of their life. They still get to call their daughters. They still get to go home and tuck their kids into bed. Denzel can never do that ever, ever again. 

I’m a forced single parent. I have to push through every single day. 

Keke watched the body cam video over and over. But Denzel’s death just wouldn’t sink in. And she’s worried about their daughters. 

Mikela Jackson: I hope they never see the video ’cause that’s traumatizing. ’Cause that’s their dad.   

Cara Anthony: Eventually, Keke left Sikeston. She says there are too many memories of Denzel and what happened to him there. 

On the day I visited her new home, it was just over a year after Denzel’s death. 

[Cara and Keke laugh together in the background.] 

Two-year-old Aiyana is napping in the next room. Keke has the youngest, Brookelynn, on her lap. And the oldest, De’nia, is … everywhere. 

Right now, she’s zooming through the dining room on a scooter. 

Cara Anthony: She just did, like, a trick, like a BMX. She’s BMXing in this apartment right now. Is she a daredevil? 

Mikela Jackson: She do that all the time. [Laughter] Too much. No. No bike. 

Cara Anthony: Eventually, De’nia parked her wheels and talked to me. 

Cara Anthony: Let’s just get this started. Tell me your name again and how old you are.   

De’nia: Four.  

Cara Anthony: And what is your name? 

De’nia: De’nia.  

Cara Anthony: In my time as a health reporter, I’ve written a lot about the impact gun violence has on kids. I’ve gotten some training in how to talk to them about it on their level — without retraumatizing them.  

Cara Anthony: Your mommy’s sitting here, and she said I have permission to ask you about your daddy. 

De’nia: Daddy? 

Cara Anthony: Do you miss your daddy? 

De’nia: Yes.  

Cara Anthony: Yeah? Where’s your daddy? 

De’nia: I don’t know. 

Cara Anthony: Yeah.   

De’nia: He’s sleeping.   

Cara Anthony: Hmm?   

De’nia: He’s sleeping.   

Cara Anthony: You said he’s sleeping?  

De’nia: Yes. 

Mikela Jackson: That’s what she say. She said, “My daddy’s sleeping.” 

Cara Anthony: De’nia is trying to make sense of why her dad isn’t with them anymore. And Keke doesn’t know what to tell her.   

Mikela Jackson: Like last night she actually woke up out of her sleep and she was crying and she was like, Mama, my daddy. And I didn’t know what to tell her because it’s, like, what do you tell a 4-year-old that they’re never ever going to see their dad again? 

[Subtle instrumental music plays.] 

Cara Anthony: I called a pediatrician, Rhea Boyd, to talk about what losing a parent to police violence could mean for kids like De’nia, Aiyana,  and Brookelynn. 

Rhea Boyd: Regardless of the age, children experience longing. They miss people when they don’t see them again, even babies can experience that. 

Cara Anthony: Losing a parent — especially to violence — can have a major impact on a child’s future health. 

Rhea Boyd: Certain experiences, including the death of a parent, increases a child’s risk for certain physical health ailments, like heart disease, um, kind of neurologic ailments, like increased risk for Alzheimer’s. Mental health impairments, like increased risk for depression. And these are increased risks as they move into adulthood. 

Cara Anthony: Study after study show the link, even though we don’t totally understand all the mechanisms.  

Rhea Boyd: It’s not just innate to our biology. It’s because of the conditions in which Black folks have been forced to live. 

Cara Anthony: Black people in the United States carry more stress throughout their lives than white people. That doesn’t change, even when they make more money. 

Researchers have tied that stress to the racism we deal with in everyday interactions — and to the institutional racism that makes it harder for us to take care of ourselves and our families. 

Black people age faster, get sicker, and die sooner than our white peers — and carrying chronic stress is a factor. 

Rhea says police violence contributes to this, too. 

Rhea Boyd: Police are a public institution. And when they disproportionately take the lives of Black folks, or disproportionately police Black neighborhoods, that has direct impacts on our lives, on our well-being. 

Cara Anthony: Keke says, back when she was living in Sikeston, she felt anxious every time she saw police lights in her rearview mirror. 

[Subtle instrumental music ends.] 

Mikela Jackson: Now, it’s like, OK, here it go again. I’m getting pulled over. Because it, I’m, it’s, I’m used to it at this point. I’m used to it.  

Cara Anthony: Used to it, maybe. But not numb to it. 

Mikela Jackson: I can’t tell my kids, “Hey, don’t be scared when you get pulled over.” I can’t tell them that. ’Cause I’m still scared myself, even a year later. I’m still scared.  

Cara Anthony: Rhea calls this “anticipatory stress.” 

Rhea Boyd: Anticipatory stress means you carry a level of vigilance and worry and concern about things that might happen to you or your kids.  

Cara Anthony: Children can pick up on what’s going on in these situations and can end up carrying that toxic stress, too. 

Denzel Taylor’s mother, Jean Kelly, told me about the worry that comes with having a Black son in America. The fear that he could become that 1 in 1,000 Black men killed by police.  

[Grand, angelic music plays in the background.]  

Jean Kelly: [Singing] Lord, have mercy on me … 

Cara Anthony: Jean says before Denzel’s death, her spirit was on alert, like she was bracing for something bad. And a tune kept playing over and over in her mind. 

Jean Kelly: [Singing] Lord, have mercy on me. I said, Lord, have mercy on me. 

I just needed his, I needed his mercy and his grace and strength and everything to prepare me for what was to be … whatever it was to be, I was going to need his mercy.  

[Grand, angelic music fades out] 

Cara Anthony: I know what Black people are dealing with today. But I can only imagine what it would have been like in 1942, when Cleo Wright was lynched.  

Rhea Boyd: The type of control people had their kids and their body under constantly so that they weren’t the victim of that type of violence, I think, physiologically, it was likely so enormous that the intergenerational effects of that type of terror still live in our bodies as descendants of those who experienced it.  

Cara Anthony: Research is starting to explore how living with this kind of terror could go beyond behaviors to something deeper: changing how our genes work.  

[Bouncy instrumental music plays.] 

Some of this research comes out of a field called “epigenetics.” It’s the idea that something you experience can change how the genes in your body are expressed. 

And that can have huge impacts on your health: It could make you age quicker or be more prone to developing a disease like cancer. 

And epigenetic research is looking into how things your ancestors experienced could also affect your health today. 

A police shooting and a lynching. 

Two Black men killed in the same town — nearly 80 years apart. 

As I reported their stories, many people have asked why we’re examining the deaths of Cleo Wright and Denzel Taylor side by side. 

After years of reporting on these deaths, I’ve decided, as a health reporter, I want to focus on is this: the trauma that remains after the violence against these men — the possible health effects for their families and their communities. 

I want to better understand what the loss could mean for Cleo and Denzel’s daughters. Little girls growing up without their dad. 

Cleo’s daughter, Nannetta Forrest, wasn’t born yet when her father was killed. When we last spoke a few years before she died, she was 78 years old. And she said she was still asking herself that question that had nagged at her, her whole life: Who would she have been? 

Nannetta Forrest: Would I have been the same person? Would I have been a different person? 

Cara Anthony: And Denzel’s girls: De’nia and Aiyana. And Brookelynn, who wasn’t born yet. Brookelynn might ask herself the same thing as she grows. 

Mikela Jackson: She has no memories. She’s never seen him a day in her life. So it’s like, she’ll never know him, like, as a person. [Den’ia playing in the background] 

Cara Anthony: Just like Nannetta, Denzel’s girls are facing higher risks of psychological and mental health problems … and the possibility that losing their father this way could change how their genes work. 

[“Silence in Sikeston” theme begins playing.] 

In the face of those risks and possibilities, Keke’s looking for ways to protect her daughters. 

She’s moved them away from Sikeston to a city where she hopes they’ll have more peace. 

She wants them to know all about their dad, and how much he loved them. 

She wants them to know his voice.  

Denzel Taylor: Hey, Cupcake! 

Cara Anthony: It’s the opposite of silence. She wants them to be able to heal out loud. 

On the next episode, we’re in Sikeston, where people are looking for ways to heal and move forward after the deaths of Cleo Wright and Denzel Taylor.  

Pershard Owens: We got to look in the mirror and say, am I doing what I can to try and change the dynamic of Sikeston, even if it does hurt? That’s what we have to start doing.  

Cara Anthony: Including the possibility for big changes — community-level, systemwide changes.   

James McMillen: I get frustrated and I’m trying to direct that frustration into something that could actually work.  

Cara Anthony: That’s next time, on the final episode of “Silence in Sikeston.” 

[“Silence in Sikeston” theme ends.] 

[Upbeat instrumental music plays.] 

Cara Anthony: Thanks for listening to “Silence in Sikeston.” 

Next, go watch the documentary — it’s a joint production from Retro Report and KFF Health News, presented in partnership with WORLD. 

Subscribe to WORLD Channel on YouTube. That’s where you can find the film “Silence in Sikeston,” a Local, USA special.  

This podcast is a co-production of WORLD Channel and KFF Health News and distributed by PRX.  

It was produced with support from PRX and made possible in part by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.  

The audio series was reported and hosted by me, Cara Anthony. 

Zach Dyer and Taylor Cook are the producers.  

Editing by Simone Popperl.  

Taunya English is managing editor of the podcast.  

Sound design, mixing, and original music by Lonnie Ro.   

Podcast art design by Colin Mahoney and Tania Castro-Daunais.  

Oona Zenda and Lydia Zuraw are the landing page designers. 

Have you seen the amazing Sikeston photography? It’s from Michael B. Thomas. 

And Lynne Shallcross is the photo editor. 

Thank you to my vocal coach, Viki Merrick.  

Music in this episode is from Epidemic Sound and BlueDot Sessions.  

Additional audio from the CBS TV show “Strike It Rich” and Denzel Taylor’s family. 

Some of the audio you’ll hear across the podcast is also in the film.  

For that, special thanks to Adam Zletz, Matt Gettemeier, Roger Herr, and Philip Geyelin.  

Kyra Darnton is executive producer at Retro Report.  

I was a producer on the film.  

Jill Rosenbaum directed the documentary.   

Kytja Weir is national editor at KFF Health News.  

WORLD Channel’s editor-in-chief and executive producer is Chris Hastings. 

We’re keeping this conversation going on Instagram and X.  

Tarena Lofton and Hannah Norman are engagement and social media producers for the show. 

Help us get the word out about “Silence in Sikeston.”  

Write a review or give us a quick rating wherever you listen to this podcast.  

Thank you. It makes a difference. 

Oh, yeah. And tell your friends in real life, too. 

[Upbeat instrumental music ends.] 

Credits

Additional Newsroom Support

Lynne Shallcross, photo editorOona Zenda, illustrator and web producerLydia Zuraw, web producerTarena Lofton, audience engagement producer Hannah Norman, video producer and visual reporter Chaseedaw Giles, audience engagement editor and digital strategistKytja Weir, national editor Mary Agnes Carey, managing editor Alex Wayne, executive editorDavid Rousseau, publisher Terry Byrne, copy chief Gabe Brison-Trezise, deputy copy chief Tammie Smith, communications officer 

The “Silence in Sikeston” podcast is a production of KFF Health News and WORLD. Distributed by PRX. Subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeart, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Watch the accompanying documentary from WORLD, Retro Report, and KFF here.

To hear other KFF Health News podcasts, click here.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

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This story can be republished for free (details).

For more on the “Silence in Sikeston” project:

WATCH: The documentary film “Silence in Sikeston,” a co-production of KFF Health News and Retro Report, is now available to stream on WORLD’s YouTube channel, WORLDchannel.org, and the PBS app.

LISTEN: The limited-series podcast

• Episode 1: “Racism Can Make You Sick”

The 1942 lynching of Cleo Wright in Sikeston, Missouri, and conversations with one of the few remaining witnesses launch a discussion about the health consequences of racism and violence in the United States. Host Cara Anthony speaks with history scholar Eddie R. Cole and racial equity scholar Keisha Bentley-Edwards about the physical, mental, and emotional burdens on Sikeston residents and Black Americans in general.

• Episode 2: “Hush, Fix Your Face”

Racial violence is an experience shared by residents of Sikeston, Missouri, and many Black Americans. Staying silent in the face of this threat is a survival tradition families have passed down to their children to keep them safe. After host Cara Anthony uncovers details of a police killing in her family, she and psychologist Aiesha Lee discuss the silence that surrounds racism and its effects on health across generations — including the reverberations Anthony and her family live with today.

• To catch the upcoming episodes, subscribe and listen on PRX, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, or wherever you get your podcasts.

READ: KFF Health News Midwest correspondent Cara Anthony wrote an essay about what her reporting on this project helped her learn about her own family’s hidden past.

• “No One Wants To Talk About Racial Trauma. Why My Family Broke Our Silence.”

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

USE OUR CONTENT

This story can be republished for free (details).

Nearly 80 years later, another young Black man, Denzel Taylor, was shot at least 18 times by police in the same small community. 

In the hourlong “Silence in Sikeston” documentary film broadcast on WORLD’s “Local, USA,” KFF Health News and Retro Report explore how the impact of these men’s killings tells a story about trauma and racism, but also resilience and healing. 

Stemming from a reporting trip by KFF Health News Midwest correspondent Cara Anthony in 2020, this film takes the audience to Indiana, Alabama, and where it all began in the southeastern corner of Missouri known as the Bootheel. 

Wright’s lynching put this rural community on a world stage and led to the first federal attempt to prosecute a lynching. But no one was held accountable. The killing was quickly hushed among locals, and his name was largely forgotten. When Taylor was shot by police in 2020 —a year when protests about police brutality rocked the nation — his killing drew little attention. 

The film breaks the silence and shares the stories of these men’s families, community members, and police to uncover the consequences of this trauma on Sikeston. A limited-series podcast exploring the health effects of racial violence and articles are also part of this journalism collaboration.

“Being quiet isn’t the answer,” Michael Snider, Cleo Wright’s great-grandson, told the filmmakers.

Credits

KFF Health News

Producer and reporter: Cara AnthonyEditors: Taunya English, Kytja WeirCopy editors: Terry Byrne, Gabe Brison-TreziseWeb producers: Lynne Shallcross, Oona Zenda, Lydia ZurawPhotographer: Michael B. ThomasSocial media producers: Tarena Lofton, Hannah Norman

Retro Report

Director: Jill RosenbaumWriter: Jill RosenbaumEditors: Cheree Dillon, Brian KamerzelSenior producer: Karen M. SughrueExecutive producer: Kyra Darnton

WORLD

Host: Tina M. McDuffieProducer and editor: Hannah PaulDigital producer: Sharon WongEditor: Jill Poisson, Cecilia PréstamoAssistant editor: Abhi IndrekarDigital associate producer: Brigitte McIndoePost-production assistant: Jenny TanSenior editorial adviser: Judith VecchioneProject manager, acquisition and distribution: Georgiana Lee

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

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As a child, Larry McClellon’s mother told him not to ask too many questions about the 1942 lynching of Cleo Wright in their hometown of Sikeston. McClellon, now an outspoken activist, wants his community to acknowledge the city’s painful past, as well as the racism and violence.

“They do not want to talk about that subject,” McClellon said. “That’s a hush-hush.”

Also in this episode, host Cara Anthony uncovers details of a police killing in her own family. Anthony unpacks her family’s story with Aiesha Lee, a licensed professional counselor and an assistant professor at Penn State.

“This pain has compounded over generations,” Lee said. “We’re going to have to deconstruct it or heal it over generations.”

Host

In Conversation With …

Editor’s note: If you are able, we encourage you to listen to the audio of “Silence in Sikeston,” which includes emotion and emphasis not found in the transcript. This transcript, generated using transcription software, has been edited for style and clarity. Please use the transcript as a tool but check the corresponding audio before quoting the podcast. 

Cara Anthony: A lynching isn’t an isolated, singular act. 

The violence — and the silence around it — was a deliberate, community-wide lesson meant to be passed on. 

And passed down. 

[BEAT]  

Cara Anthony: In Sikeston, Missouri, a 25-year-old soon-to-be father named Cleo Wright was lynched by a white mob. 

It happened in 1942. But you didn’t have to be there, or even born yet, to get the message. 

Larry McClellon: I grew up here in Sikeston, Missouri. My age … 77. 

Cara Anthony: That’s community elder Larry McClellon. 

He was born two years after Cleo Wright’s body was dragged across the railroad tracks to the Black side of town. 

Larry McClellon: Back in the old days, when dark comes, you don’t want to be caught over here after 6 o’clock. You want to be on this side of the tracks. 

I didn’t cross the line. Because I knew what was waiting. I knew what time it was here in Sikeston, Missouri. 

[BEAT]  

Cara Anthony: I’m Cara Anthony. I’m a journalist. I’ve been visiting Sikeston for years to work on a documentary film and podcast about the lynching of Cleo Wright. 

And the police killing in 2020 of another young, Black father, Denzel Taylor. 

Larry McClellon: All these Black men are getting shot down, losing their life. 

Cara Anthony: Cleo and Denzel, killed some 80 years apart. In the same city. 

Larry McClellon: They do not want to talk about that subject. That’s a hush-hush. 

Cara Anthony: In this episode of the podcast, we’re exploring how that “hush” hurts the community. And the way it hurts people’s health. 

Here’s an example: Larry says it’s hard to feel safe in your hometown when Black men are killed and nearly everyone looks the other way. 

Growing up, Larry had a lot of questions about Cleo. 

Larry McClellon: I used to ask Mom. You know, “What is this with this man that supposedly, uh, got lynched?” And she told me, “Hey, you stay away from that. … Don’t you be asking no questions about Cleo Wright because that was just a no-no.” 

Cara Anthony: Why was that a no-no? 

Larry McClellon: Because she’s afraid for me that they would probably take me out and do something to me. Maybe bodily harm or something like that. 

Cara Anthony: “They” being white neighbors. 

Despite those lessons, Larry became an outspoken activist for racial justice and police reform in Sikeston. He founded an organization here called And Justice for All. 

Being vocal has come at a price, he says. 

Larry McClellon: Somebody called me and said, “Uh, Mr. Larry, your building is on fire.” 

So, I didn’t even really hang the phone up real good. I just jumped up and come up the highway. 

Cara Anthony: It was April 2019 — Larry rushed to the headquarters of And Justice for All. 

Larry McClellon: I could see the flame was high as anything in Sikeston, might as well say. So, I gets up there and, uh, fire burning. So, all the fire department get out there pouring water and everything. 

Cara Anthony: The building was a total loss. 

Larry McClellon: The building was set on fire. That’s what, that’s what happened. 

Who would come in and destroy something like that? 

Cara Anthony: The police report says it was arson, but nothing really came of the investigation. Larry suspects it was a targeted attack — retaliation for his activism, for speaking out. Retaliation that could continue. 

Larry McClellon: I got 4 acres over there. A lot of trees and so forth. And some of my own people, they make jokes out of it sometime, like, “Man, you going to be hanging from one of those trees down there, or somebody’s going to set over in those bushes with a high-powered rifle and going to shoot you when you walk out the door or shoot you when you pull up.” 

Cara Anthony: And still, Larry’s decided he’s not going to hold his tongue. 

Because keeping quiet causes its own trouble, its own hurt and pain. 

This is “Silence in Sikeston.” The podcast all about finding the words to say the things that go unsaid. 

From WORLD Channel and KFF Health News and distributed by PRX. 

Episode 2: “Hush, Fix Your Face.” 

[BEAT] 

Cara Anthony: Larry’s keeping on with his work in Sikeston. But all those warnings from his mother decades ago to keep quiet about Cleo’s lynching left a mark. 

I called up Aiesha Lee to talk about this. She’s a licensed mental health professional and also an assistant professor at Penn State. 

One of the first things she wanted me to know is that silence has been used as a tool of systemic oppression in America for a very long time. 

Aiesha Lee says lynching — and the community terror it caused — was part of a wider effort to impose white supremacy. 

Aiesha Lee: This is a design. Let me be clear, this is, it was very much designed for us to be these subservient, submissive people who do not ask questions, who do not say anything, and just do as they’re told. 

Cara Anthony: One of Aiesha’s areas of expertise is how racism can impact physical and mental health — across generations. She sees signs of it in her clients every day. 

Aiesha Lee: No one actually comes in and says, “Hey, I’m dealing with intergenerational trauma. Can you help me?” Right? 

Cara Anthony: I will have to admit, I’ve been very skeptical about that term, what that means, because, in my family, it was always this thing of like, “We’re good over here. Everything’s OK.” 

Aiesha Lee: I love what you just said. And, and for me, as a mental [health] professional, I get really cautious when using, even using the word “trauma.” 

Part of the, the generational legacy of Black families is we don’t talk about our problems, we just kind of roll through them, we deal with them, we’re strong, and we just keep it moving forward, right? 

It’s protection. It is “Let me teach you the ways of the world according to us” or for us, right? And for us, we need to keep our mouth shut. We can’t ask any questions. We can’t make any noise, because if we do, you’re going to get the same, or worse than, you know, others. 

Cara Anthony: My parents. Grandparents. My great-grandparents. Their experiences with racial violence — and what they had to do to stay safe — shaped me. 

Stuffing down injustice and pain is a tried-and-true way to cope. But Aiesha says holding hurt in hurts. 

Aiesha Lee: It’s almost like every time we’re silent, it’s like a little pinprick that we, we do to our bodies internally. 

Cara Anthony: She says over time those wounds add up. 

Aiesha Lee: After so long, um, those little pinpricks turn up as heart disease, as cancer, as, you know, all these other ailments. 

Cara Anthony: Feeling unsafe, being that vigilant all the time. What can that do to someone’s body? 

Aiesha Lee: Imagine every time you walk out of the door, you’re tightening your body, you’re tensing up your body, right? And you’re holding on to it for the entire day until you come home at night. What do we think would happen to our bodies as a result? 

Cara Anthony: A study from UCLA found experiences with racism and discrimination correlated with higher levels of inflammation in the bodies of Black and Hispanic people. It affected their immune system, their gut. 

Aiesha says always being on edge can rewire how the brain deals with stress. 

Aiesha Lee: That’s what that hypervigilance does. That hypervigilance causes our bodies to tense up so that we can’t fully breathe. 

Cara Anthony: Yeah, that’s exhausting. And as you were talking about it, like, I even feel my body just being tight as you are speaking about these things. 

Cara Anthony: If you don’t deal with the emotional stuff, Aiesha says, it can live in your body. 

Aiesha Lee: Arthritis, fibromyalgia, high blood pressure …  

Cara Anthony: … and ripple through families as intergenerational trauma. 

That makes me wonder about my dad’s high blood pressure. 

My mom’s chronic pain. 

About my own trouble sleeping. 

[BEAT] 

Cara Anthony: Despite endless conversations with my parents about this work — somehow, I was months and months into reporting on racial violence in Sikeston before I learned new details about a death in my own family. 

Wilbon Anthony: I enjoy reading about history where, you know, my people come from. 

Cara Anthony: My dad, Wilbon Anthony, knew the story for nearly a decade, but kept it to himself. 

Really, I shouldn’t have been surprised. My whole life I was taught in big and small ways that usually it’s better to stay silent. 

There’s a risk — to self — when you speak out. 

I’m 37 years old — plenty grown now — but it feels like the “adults” have always tiptoed around the story of Leemon Anthony, my great-uncle on my father’s side. 

Leemon served in the military during World War II. Family members remember him as fun-loving and outgoing. 

I was told that Leemon died in a wagon-and-mule accident in 1946. But at family reunions, sometimes I’d overhear details that were different. 

Wilbon Anthony: There was a hint there was something to do with it about the police, but it wasn’t much. 

Cara Anthony: My dad knew that the stories he’d heard about Uncle Leemon’s death were incomplete. That missing piece left him feeling undone. 

Wilbon Anthony: Later in life, I started researching it. I just thought about it one day and, uh, just said, “Oh, see if it was something about this.” 

Cara Anthony: He called up family members, dug through newspaper archives online, and searched ancestry websites. Eventually, he found Leemon’s death certificate. 

To show me what he found, Dad and I sat in his home office. He pulled up the death certificate on his computer. Leemon was 29. 

Wilbon Anthony: It says, “Shot by police, resisting arrest.” 

Well, no one ever, I never heard this in my, uh, whole life. 

Then item 21, it lists the causes of death: accident or suicide or homicide, and the list says that item is homicide. 

Cara Anthony: OK, OK, um, that’s a lot. I need to pause. 

[BEAT] 

Cara Anthony: Shot by police. 

Even now, I only have bits and pieces of the story, mostly from whispers from my family. 

There was a wagon accident. 

One of my older cousins says a local white woman saw it and called the police. An article published in The Jackson Sun quoted Leemon’s father saying that Leemon had been “restless” and “all out of shape” since he returned home from the war. 

What we do know is that the police showed up. And they killed Leemon. 

[BEAT]  

Cara Anthony: When I learned about my Uncle Leemon’s death, when I got slammed by that grief and anger, I called my Aunt B — my dad’s sister Bernice Spann — and told her what my dad had found. 

Cara Anthony: OK, I just sent you the death certificate, um, just so you can … 

Bernice Spann: What does it say, his death, how he died? 

Cara Anthony: It says homicide, and that he was shot by the police. 

Bernice Spann: Wow. 

Cara Anthony: Yeah. Yeah. 

Bernice Spann: And they said “homicide”? 

Cara Anthony: Right. 

Bernice Spann: And nobody was charged? 

Cara Anthony: No charges. 

So, what are you thinking right now? 

Bernice Spann: I’m heartbroken. 

Cara Anthony: Yeah. Yeah. 

Bernice Spann: I mean, that’s close. That is not … it’s an uncle. 

Cara Anthony: That’s your uncle. That’s my great-uncle. That’s your uncle. Yeah.  

Bernice Spann: Well, that’s my uncle. And he died and nobody fought. 

Cara Anthony: Yeah. 

Bernice Spann: Nobody fought for a resolution ’cause nobody … everybody felt powerless. 

Cara Anthony: Even now there’s so much silence in our family around Leemon’s death. 

Bernice Spann: I think there’s something in our DNA that still makes us scared to talk about it. I need for us to look at it. I don’t know. Does it make sense? And maybe you’re the one who, it’s time for you to look at it. 

Cara Anthony: So, that’s what I’m doing. 

[BEAT] 

Cara Anthony: This storytelling — this journalism — is about what’s at stake for our health, and our community, and loved ones when we’re silent in the face of racial violence — and the systemic racism that allows it to exist. 

So on one reporting trip to Sikeston, I asked my family to take the ride with me. 

We loaded into a van. 

[Cara’s mom hums in the background.]  

And during the drive from Illinois to southeastern Missouri, my mom hummed hymns, while my daughter, Lily, napped and inhaled snacks. 

Cotton is still king in Sikeston. It’s a huge part of the town’s economy, and culture, and history. So just before we got to town, we stopped at a cotton field. 

[Car door shuts.] 

Cara Anthony: OK, Lily, come here. 

Cara Anthony: Lily was just 5 back then.  

Cara Anthony: What is this? What are we looking at right now? 

Lily: Cotton. 

Cara Anthony: Lily was excited, but when I turned around, my dad, Wilbon, looked watchful. 

Wary. 

As for lots of Black Americans, cotton’s a part of our family’s history. 

Cara Anthony: OK, Dad. Come over here. So, Dad, Lily just said that cotton looks like cotton candy and potatoes ’cause it looks fluffy. When you look out at this field, what do you see? 

Wilbon Anthony: Well, I see. First, I see a lot of memories. I remember … picking cotton as a kid. Actually, I can remember waiting on my parents while they were in the fields picking cotton. And then I remember a lot of days of hard work. 

So, yeah, I … yeah, I have a lot, a lot of memories about cotton. 

Cara Anthony: My mom has memories, too. As a little girl in Tennessee, around Lily’s age, my mom was already working in a field like this. 

Days and days hunched over. Carrying heavy bales, working until her hands were sore. 

My mom’s still in grief about the violence and punishing labor — and lost opportunity — so tightly woven into all this cotton. 

As a child, she hid that pain. She’d lie face down in the dirt when the school bus drove past, hoping the other kids wouldn’t see. 

[BEAT] 

Cara Anthony: Standing in that cotton — three generations together — I worried I was dredging up old wounds or causing new hurt. 

Still, I want to try to have these conversations without passing the pain and stress down to the next generation — to my daughter. 

Cara Anthony: Why did we come down here to Sikeston? 

Lily: Because there’s important work here. 

Cara Anthony: Yeah, there is important work here. 

[BEAT] 

Cara Anthony: Someday I need to tell Lily about lynching in America. About Cleo Wright and our Uncle Leemon. I want her to know their names. I need to tell Lily about her personal risk of encountering that kind of violence. 

But, truthfully, I’m not quite ready yet. 

Here’s some advice I got from Aiesha Lee. 

Aiesha Lee: This pain has compounded over generations, and so we’re going to have to deconstruct it or heal it over generations, right? And so, you know, our generation and the generations that come behind us will have little pieces of the work to do. 

[BEAT] 

As we put mental health more so at the forefront, and as we start to communicate more and more within our families, that’s how we engage in, in this healing. 

Cara Anthony: I was told to keep quiet a lot when I was a kid, but I want to nurture Lily’s curiosity and teach her what she needs to know to stay safe. 

My parents did what they thought was best. Now it’s my turn to try to find that balance. 

Sometimes when Lily’s jumpy and restless, having a hard time falling asleep, we’ll sing together. 

Cara Anthony and Lily [singing]: Hush. Hush, hush, somebody’s calling my name. Hush, hush, somebody’s calling my name. 

Cara Anthony: At first listen, that might sound like a message to stay silent. 

Actually, it’s a song enslaved people sang as they worked in cotton fields. As they dreamed and planned. It’s a call to be acknowledged. Named. And counted. 

Lily has grown up a lot since we visited that cotton field in Sikeston. She’s 7 now. I want her to know that she can speak out more freely than her ancestors could. 

More than I have. 

Cara Anthony: Sit over, come over here. Come over here. Seriously. Do you remember a couple of weeks ago when you were crying? And I told you to fix your what? 

Lily: Face. 

Cara Anthony: That wasn’t very nice. I want you to know that we can talk about things. Because when we talk about things, we often feel better, right? 

Lily: Yes. 

Cara Anthony: Can we keep talking to each other while you grow up in life about stuff? Even hard stuff? 

Lily: Like doing 100 math facts? 

Cara Anthony: Sure. That’s the biggest thing in your life right now. But yes, all of that. We’re just going to keep talking to each other. So, can we make a promise? 

Lily: Yeah. 

Cara Anthony: All right, cool. 

Cara Anthony: Talking just might help us start to heal. 

[BEAT] 

Cara Anthony: Next time on “Silence in Sikeston” … 

Mikela Jackson: The Bootheel knows what happened to him. The world — they have no idea who Denzel Taylor is. 

CREDITS  

Cara Anthony: Thanks for listening to “Silence in Sikeston.” 

Next, go watch the documentary. It’s a joint production from Retro Report and KFF Health News, presented in partnership with WORLD. 

Subscribe to WORLD Channel on YouTube. That’s where you can find the film “Silence in Sikeston,” a Local, USA special. 

This podcast is a co-production of WORLD Channel and KFF Health News and distributed by PRX. 

It was produced with support from PRX and made possible in part by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. 

The audio series was reported and hosted by me, Cara Anthony. 

Zach Dyer and Taylor Cook are the producers. 

Editing by Simone Popperl. 

Taunya English is the managing editor of the podcast. 

Sound design, mixing, and original music by Lonnie Ro. 

Podcast art design by Colin Mahoney and Tania Castro-Daunais. 

Oona Zenda was the lead on the landing page design. 

Julio Ricardo Varela consulted on the script. 

Sending a shoutout to my vocal coach, Viki Merrick, for helping me tap into my voice. 

Music in this episode is from BlueDot Sessions and Epidemic Sound. 

Some of the audio you’ll hear across the podcast is also in the film. 

For that, special thanks to Adam Zletz, Matt Gettemeier, Roger Herr, and Philip Geyelin, who worked with us and colleagues from Retro Report. 

Kyra Darnton is executive producer at Retro Report. 

I was a producer on the film. 

Jill Rosenbaum directed the documentary. 

Kytja Weir is national editor at KFF Health News. 

WORLD Channel’s editor-in-chief and executive producer is Chris Hastings. 

If “Silence in Sikeston” has been meaningful to you, help us get the word out! 

Write a review or give us a quick rating on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeart, or wherever you listen to this podcast. It shows the powers that be that this is the kind of journalism you want. 

Thank you. It makes a difference. 

Oh, yeah, and tell your friends in real life, too! 

Credits

Additional Newsroom Support

Lynne Shallcross, photo editorOona Zenda, illustrator and web producerLydia Zuraw, web producerTarena Lofton, audience engagement producer Hannah Norman, video producer and visual reporter Chaseedaw Giles, audience engagement editor and digital strategistKytja Weir, national editor Mary Agnes Carey, managing editor Alex Wayne, executive editorDavid Rousseau, publisher Terry Byrne, copy chief Gabe Brison-Trezise, deputy copy chief Tammie Smith, communications officer 

The “Silence in Sikeston” podcast is a production of KFF Health News and WORLD. Distributed by PRX. Subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeart, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Watch the accompanying documentary from WORLD, Retro Report, and KFF here.

To hear other KFF Health News podcasts, click here.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

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The cotton was beautiful but soggy. An autumn rain had drenched the dirt before we arrived, our shoes sinking into the ground with each step. I felt like a stranger to the soil.

My daughter, Lily, then 5, happily touched a cotton boll for the first time. She said it looked like mashed potatoes. My dad posed for a few photos while I tried to take it all in. We were standing there — three generations strong — on the edge of a cotton field 150 miles away from home and decades removed from our own past. I hoped this was an opportunity for us to understand our story.

As a journalist, I cover the ways racism — including the violence that can come with it — can impact our health. For the past few years, I’ve been working on a documentary film and podcast called “Silence in Sikeston.” The project is about two killings that happened decades apart in this Missouri city: a lynching in 1942 of a young Black man named Cleo Wright and a 2020 police shooting of another young Black man, Denzel Taylor. My reporting explored the trauma that festered in the silence around their killings.

While I interviewed Black families to learn more about the effect of these violent acts on this rural community of 16,000, I couldn’t stop thinking about my own family. Yet I didn’t know just how much of our story, and the silence surrounding it, echoed Sikeston’s trauma. My father revealed our family’s secret only after I delved into this reporting.

My daughter was too young to understand our family’s past. I was still trying to understand it, too. Instead of trying to explain it right away, I took everyone to a cotton field.

Cotton is complicated. White people got rich off cotton while my ancestors received nothing for their enslaved labor. My grandparents then worked hard in those fields for little money so we wouldn’t have to do the same. But my dad still smiled when he posed for a picture that day in the field.

“I see a lot of memories,” he said.

I’m the first generation to never live on a farm. Many Black Americans share that experience, having fled the South during the Great Migration of the last century. Our family left rural Tennessee for cities in the Midwest, but we rarely talked about it. Most of my cousins had seen cotton fields only in movies, never in real life. Our parents worked hard to keep things that way.

At the field that day, my mom never left the van. She didn’t need to see the cotton up close. She was around Lily’s age when her grandfather taught her how to pick cotton. He had a third-grade education and owned more than 100 acres in western Tennessee. Sometimes she had to stay home from school to help work that land while her peers were in class. She would watch the school bus pass by the field.

“I would just hide, lying underneath the cotton stalks, laying as close to the ground as I could, trying to make sure that no one would see me,” my mom said. “It was very embarrassing.”

She didn’t talk to me about that part of her life until we traveled to Sikeston. Our trip to the cotton field opened the door to a conversation that wasn’t easy but was necessary. My reporting sparked similar hard conversations with my dad.

As a child, I overheard adults in my family as they discussed racism and the art of holding their tongues when a white person mistreated them. On my mother’s side of the family, when we’d gather for the holidays, aunts and uncles discussed cross-burnings in the South and in the Midwest. Even in the 1990s, someone placed a burning cross outside a school in Dubuque, Iowa, where one of my relatives served as the city’s first Black principal.

On my father’s side of the family, I heard stories about a relative who died young, my great-uncle Leemon Anthony. For most of my dad’s life, people had said my great-uncle died in a wagon-and-mule accident.

“There was a hint there was something to do with it about the police,” my dad told me recently. “But it wasn’t much.”

So, years ago, my dad decided to investigate.

He called up family members, dug through online newspaper archives, and searched ancestry websites. Eventually, he found Leemon’s death certificate. But for more than a decade, he kept what he found to himself — until I started telling him about the stories from Sikeston.

“It says ‘shot by police,’ ‘resisting arrest,’” my dad explained to me in his home office as we looked at the death certificate. “I never heard this in my whole life. I thought he died in an accident.”

Leemon’s death in 1946 was listed as a homicide and the officers involved weren’t charged with any crime. Every detail mirrored modern-day police shootings and lynchings from the past.

This young Black man — whom my family remembered as fun-loving, outgoing, and handsome — was killed without any court trial, as Taylor was when police shot him and Wright was when a mob lynched him in Sikeston. Even if the men were guilty of the crimes that prompted the confrontations, those allegations would not have triggered the death penalty.

At a hearing in 1946, a police officer said that he shot my uncle in self-defense after Leemon took the officer’s gun away from him three times during a fight, according to a Jackson Sun newspaper article my dad found. In the article, my great-grandfather said that Leemon had been “restless,” “absent minded,” and “all out of shape” since he returned home from serving overseas in the Army during World War II.

Before I could ask any questions, my dad’s phone rang. While he looked to see who was calling, I tried to gather my thoughts. I was overwhelmed by the details.

My dad later gently reminded me that Leemon’s story wasn’t unique. “A lot of us have had these incidents in our families,” he said.

Our conversation took place when activists around the world were speaking out about racial violence, shouting names, and protesting for change. But no one had done that for my uncle. A painful piece of my family’s story had been filed away, silenced. My dad seemed to be the only one holding space for my great-uncle Leemon — a name that was no longer spoken. Yet my dad was doing it alone.

It seems like something we should have discussed as a family. I wondered how it shaped his view of the world and whether he saw himself in Leemon. I felt a sense of grief that was hard to process.

So, as part of my reporting on Sikeston, I spoke to Aiesha Lee, a licensed counselor and Penn State University assistant professor who studies intergenerational trauma.

“This pain has compounded over generations,” Lee said. “We’re going to have to deconstruct it or heal it over generations.”

Lee said that when Black families like mine and those in Sikeston talk about our wounds, it represents the first step toward healing. Not doing so, she said, can lead to mental and physical health problems.

In my family, breaking our silence feels scary. As a society, we’re still learning how to talk about the anxiety, stress, shame, and fear that come from the heavy burden of systemic racism. We all have a responsibility to confront it — not just Black families. I wish we didn’t have to deal with racism, but, in the meantime, my family has decided not to suffer in silence.

On that same trip to the cotton field, I introduced my dad to the families I’d interviewed in Sikeston. They talked to him about Cleo and Denzel. He talked to them about Leemon, too.

I wasn’t thinking about my great-uncle when I first packed my bags for rural Missouri to tell the stories about other Black families. But my dad was holding on to Leemon’s story. By keeping the file — and finally sharing it with me — he was making sure his uncle was remembered. Now I say each of their names: Cleo Wright. Denzel Taylor. Leemon Anthony.

The “Silence in Sikeston” podcast from KFF Health News and GBH’s WORLD is available on all major streaming platforms. A documentary film from KFF Health News, Retro Report, and GBH’s WORLD will air at 8 p.m. ET on Sept. 16 on WORLD’s YouTube channel, WORLDchannel.org, and the PBS app. Preview the trailer for the film and the podcast. More details about “Silence in Sikeston.”

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

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In the aftermath, Cook received advice from her father that was intended to keep her safe.

“He didn’t want us talking about it,” Cook said. “He told us to forget it.”

More than 80 years later, residents of Sikeston still find it difficult to talk about the lynching.

Conversations with Cook, one of the few remaining witnesses of the lynching, launch a discussion of the health consequences of racism and violence in the United States. Host Cara Anthony speaks with historian Eddie R. Cole and racial equity scholar Keisha Bentley-Edwards about the physical, mental, and emotional burdens on Sikeston residents and Black Americans in general.

“Oftentimes, people who experience racial trauma are forced to not acknowledge it,” Bentley-Edwards said. “They’re forced to question whether or not it happened in the first place.”

Host

In Conversation With …

“Silence in Sikeston,” Episode 1: “Racism Can Make You Sick” Transcript 

Editor’s note: If you are able, we encourage you to listen to the audio of “Silence in Sikeston,” which includes emotion and emphasis not found in the transcript. This transcript, generated using transcription software, has been edited for style and clarity. Please use the transcript as a tool but check the corresponding audio before quoting the podcast. 

Cara Anthony: Sikeston sits in the Missouri Bootheel. That’s the lower corner of the state, with the Mississippi River on one side, Arkansas on the other. Lots of people say it’s where the South meets the Midwest. 

Picture cotton, soybeans, rice. It’s hot, green, and flat. If you’ve ever heard of Sikeston before, it’s probably because of this: 

Ryan Skinner: Hot rolls! 

Cara Anthony: Lambert’s Café. Home of the “Throwed Rolls.” 

Server: Yeah, they’ll say, uh, “Hot rolls!” And people will hold their hands up and they’ll toss it to you. 

Cara Anthony: The servers walk around with carts and throw these big dinner rolls at diners. 

Ryan Skinner: Oh, it’s fun. You get to nail people in the head and not get in trouble for it. 

Cara Anthony: There’s the rodeo. The cotton carnival. 

But I came to see Rhonda Council. 

Rhonda Council: My name is Rhonda Council. I was born and raised here in Sikeston. 

Cara Anthony: Rhonda is the town’s first Black city clerk. 

She became my guide. I met her when I came here to make a film about the little-known history of racial violence in Sikeston. 

I’m Cara Anthony. I’m a health reporter. I cover the ways racism — including violence — affects health. 

Rhonda grew up in the shadow of that violence — in a part of town where nearly everyone was Black. It’s called Sunset. 

Rhonda Council: Sunset was a happy place. I remember just being, as a kid, we could walk down to the store, we could just go get candy. 

Cara Anthony: There were churches and a school there. 

Rhonda Council: We knew everybody in the community. If we did something wrong, you can best believe your parents was going to find out about it before you got home. 

Cara Anthony: Back in the day, these were dirt roads. 

Cara Anthony: OK, so we’re getting ready to go on a tour of Sunset, which used to be known as the Sunset Addition, right? 

Rhonda Council: Mm-hmm, yes. Mm-hmm. 

Cara Anthony: We got into her car, along with Rhonda’s mother and her grandmother, Mable Cook. 

Rhonda Council: This street was known as The Bottom. Everything Black-owned. They had clubs, they had stores, they even had houses that people stayed in. I think it was shotgun houses back then? 

Mable Cook: Uh-huh. 

Cara Anthony: That’s Rhonda’s grandmother, Ms. Mable, right there. She was a teenager here in the 1940s. Her memory of the place seems to get stronger with each uh-huh and mm-hmm. 

Rhonda Council: And this was just the place where people went on the weekend to, you know, have a good time and party. … And this area was kind of known as “the corner” because they used to have a club here. And they would … they would gamble a lot down here. They would throw dice. Everything down here on the corner. 

Mable Cook: That’s right. Sure did. Mm-hmm. 

Rhonda Council: You remember this street, Grandma? 

Mable Cook: Yeah, I’m trying to see where the store used to be. 

Rhonda Council: OK. 

Mable Cook: I think it was close to Smith Chapel. 

Rhonda Council: OK. 

Cara Anthony: Rhonda’s grandmother, Ms. Mable, was 97 then. 

Rhonda Council: She is a petite lady, to me, thin-framed. I describe her eyes as like a grayish-color eyes. And I don’t know if it’s because of old age, but I think they’re so beautiful. And she just has a pretty smile, and she’s just a fantastic lady. 

Cara Anthony: Ms. Mable was born in Indianola, Mississippi. When she was 14, her father moved to Sikeston looking for work. 

Rhonda Council: And so she came up here to, um, to be with her father. But she said when she came to Sikeston, she said it was an unusual experience because they were not allowed to go to stores. They were not allowed to, basically, be with the white people. And that’s not what she knew down in Mississippi. And in her mind, she couldn’t understand why Missouri, why Sikeston was like that in treating Black people that way. 

And not too long after that, the lynching of Cleo Wright occurred. 

[BEAT]  

Cara Anthony: It was 1942. While the United States was at war marching to stop fascism, a white mob here went unchecked and lynched a man named Cleo Wright. 

The lynching of a Black man in America was not uncommon. And often barely documented. 

But in the case of Cleo Wright — perhaps because the death challenged what the nation said it was fighting for — the killing in this small town made national news. 

The case generated enough attention that the FBI conducted the first federal investigation into a lynching. That investigation ultimately amounted to nothing. 

Meanwhile — here in Sikeston — the response to the brutal death was mostly silence. 

Eight decades later, another Black man was killed in Sikeston. This time by police. 

Local media outlets, like KFVS, covered it as a crime story: 

KFVS report: The Missouri State Highway Patrol says troopers must piece together exactly what led to the shooting death of 22-year-old Denzel Marshall Taylor. 

Cara Anthony: I think the killings of Denzel Taylor and Cleo Wright are a public health story. 

Our film “Silence in Sikeston” is grounded in my reporting about Cleo and Denzel. Part of the record of the community’s trauma and silence is captured in the film. This podcast extends that conversation. 

We’re exploring what it means to live with that stress — of racism, of violence. And we’re going to talk about the toll that it takes on our health as Black Americans, especially as we try to stay safe. 

In each episode, we’ll hear a story from my reporting. Then, a guest and I will talk about it. 

The history … 

Carol Anderson: The power of lynching is to terrorize the Black community, and one of the ways the community deals with that terror is the silence of it. […] And when you don’t deal with the wound, it creates all kinds of damage. 

Cara Anthony: And health … 

Aiesha Lee: It’s almost like every time we’re silent, it’s like a little pinprick. […] And after so long, those little pinpricks turn up as heart disease, as cancer, as all these other ailments. 

Cara Anthony: I’m hoping this journalism, and these stories, will spark a conversation that you’ve been meaning to have. 

This is an invitation. 

From WORLD Channel and KFF Health News and distributed by PRX, this is “Silence in Sikeston,” the podcast.  

Episode 1: “Racism Can Make You Sick” 

[BEAT] 

Cara Anthony: Ms. Mable was a witness to the lynching of Cleo Wright. The 25-year-old was about to become a father. 

Rhonda’s uncle says Cleo was … 

Harry Howard: Young, handsome, an athlete, and very well known in the community. 

Cara Anthony: That’s Harry Howard. He didn’t know Cleo. Harry wasn’t even born yet. But his uncle knew Cleo. 

Harry Howard: They were friends. They would shoot pool together and were known to be at the little corner store, the Scott’s Grocery. 

Cara Anthony: Harry’s family passed down the story of what happened. 

Harry Howard: So everything I’m reporting is the way it was told by people I trust. 

Cara Anthony: Black families mostly talked about it in whispers. 

Eddie R. Cole: And that sounds like this is one of those situations where that community would rather just leave this alone and try to move on with the life that you do have instead of losing more life. 

Cara Anthony: That’s my friend Eddie Cole. He’s a professor of history and education at UCLA. 

We were in college together at Tennessee State and worked on the school newspaper.  

I called up Eddie because I wanted to get his take as a historian. What happens when we keep quiet about a story like Cleo’s? 

Eddie R. Cole: Yeah, I’m Eddie Cole. … So here we go. 

Cara Anthony: Thousands of Black people were lynched before Cleo Wright was. But this was the first time the feds said, “Hey, we should go to Sikeston and investigate lynching as a federal crime.” 

This story though, seriously, like it just disappeared off the face of the map. Like, it’s, it’s scary to me. So many of the witnesses that I interviewed, they’ve passed away, Eddie, since we started this journey. And it’s frightening to me to think that their stories … that these stories can literally just go away. 

[BEAT]  

Eddie R. Cole: Lynching stories disappear but don’t disappear, right? So, the people who committed the crime, they committed it and went on with their day, which is twisted within itself, even to think about that. 

But on the other side, when you think about Black Americans, there was no need to talk a lot about it, right? Because you talk too much about some things and that same sort of militia justice might come to your front door in the middle of the night, right? Stories like this are known but not recorded. 

Cara Anthony: The hush that surrounded Cleo’s story back then was for Black people’s safety. But I’m conflicted. Should Cleo’s story be off the table? Or … could we be missing an opportunity for healing? 

On the phone with Eddie, I could feel this anxiety building up in me. I was almost afraid to bring it up, even though it was the reason why I called. 

[BEAT]  

Cara Anthony: And I will be honest with you, I think of you the same way I think of my brother, my father, like, I’ve almost wanted to protect the Black men in my life from that story because I know how hard it is to hear. 

Cara Anthony: It was January 1942. Cleo was accused of assaulting a white woman. A police officer arrested him; there was a fight. Cleo was beaten and shot. Covered in blood, he was eventually taken to jail. White residents of Sikeston mobbed the jail to get to Cleo. 

Cara Anthony: I do want to play a clip for you, just so you can hear a little bit, if you are up for that, because it’s a lot. How are you feeling about that today? 

Eddie R. Cole: No, I want to hear. I mean, I gotta know more now. You just told me there’s a story that just disappeared, but now you’re bringing it back to life. So let’s play the clip. 

Cara Anthony: All right. Let’s do it. 

Harry Howard: They took him out of the jail and drug him from downtown on Center Street through the Black area of Sunset. 

Obviously, it was a big commotion, and they were saying, “What’s going on?” And the man driving the station wagon told them, “Get out of the street,” and, of course, used the N-word. “There’s a lynching coming.” 

Cara Anthony: Historian Carol Anderson is a professor of African American studies at Emory University. She takes it from there. 

Carol Anderson: They hook him to the bumper of the car and decide to make an example of him in the Black community. 

The mob douses his body with five gallons of gasoline and set it on fire. People are going, “Oh my God, they are burning a Black man. They are burning a Black man. They have lynched a Black man.” 

Cara Anthony: I always need to take a deep breath after hearing that story. So, I check in with Eddie. 

Cara Anthony: OK. How you doing? You OK? 

Eddie R. Cole: Yeah, yeah, um, that was tough. 

Cara Anthony: I’ve grappled a lot with the question of why, like, why now? Why this story? Am I crazy for doing this? 

Eddie R. Cole: Yeah, I mean, this story is really an entry point to talk about society at large. Imagine the people who like the world that we’re in. A world where Black people are oppressed. Right? And so not telling stories like what happens in Sikeston is an easier way to just keep the status quo. And what you’re doing is pushing back on it and saying, ah, we must remember, because the remnants of this period still shape this town today. 

[BEAT]  

Cara Anthony: On the tour of Sikeston with Rhonda, I see that. 

Rhonda Council: We’re going to go in front of the church where Cleo Wright was burned. 

When we get down here to the right, you’ll see Smith Chapel Church. And wasn’t it over here in this way where he got burnt, Grandma? 

Mable Cook: Uh-huh, yep. 

Rhonda Council: OK. From what I hear, it happened right along in this area right here. 

Cara Anthony: It’s a small brick church with a steeple on top. The road is paved now, not gravel as before. It all looks so … normal. 

You’d think that kind of violence, so much hate, would leave a mark on the Earth. But on the day we visited, there was nothing to see. Just the church and the road. 

Ms. Mable is quiet. I wonder what she’s thinking. 

Mable Cook: I just remember them dragging him. They drove him from, uh, the police station out to Sunset Addition. But they took him around all the streets so everybody could see. 

Cara Anthony: Back at Rhonda’s home, we talked more about what Ms. Mable remembered. 

Rhonda Council: Did that affect you in any way when you saw that happening? 

Mable Cook: Yeah, it hurt because I never had seen anything like that. Mm-hmm. And it kind of got me. I was just surprised or something. I don’t know. Mm-hmm. 

Cara Anthony: Remember Ms. Mable had been a child in Mississippi in the ’30s — and it wasn’t until she moved north to Sikeston that she came face to face with a lynching. 

Rhonda Council: Did it stick in your mind after that for a long time? 

Mable Cook: Yeah, it did. It did stick because I just wondered why they wanted to do that to him. You know, they could have just taken him and put him in jail or something and not do all that to him. 

I just never had seen anything like it. I had heard people talking about it, but I had never seen anything like that. 

Cara Anthony: When it happened, a lot of Black families in Sikeston scattered, fled town to places that felt safer. Mable’s family returned to Mississippi for a week. 

But when they got back, she says, Sikeston went on like nothing had ever happened.  

Here’s Rhonda with Ms. Mable again. 

Rhonda Council: After you all saw the lynching that happened, did you and your friends talk about that? 

Mable Cook: No, we didn’t have none … we didn’t talk about it. My daddy told us not to have nothing be said about it, uh-uh. 

Rhonda Council: Oh, because your dad said that. 

Mable Cook: That’s right. He told us not to worry about it, not talk about it. Uh-huh. And he said it’ll go away if you not talk about it, you know, uh-huh. 

Rhonda Council: So over the years, did you ever want to get it out? Did you ever want to talk about it? 

Mable Cook: Yeah, I did want to. Uh-huh. I wanted to. Uh-huh. 

Rhonda Council: But you just couldn’t do it. 

Mable Cook: No. No. Uh-uh. No, he didn’t want us talking about it. He told us to forget it. 

Cara Anthony: Forget it. Don’t talk about it. It’ll go away. 

And, in a way, it did. 

No one was charged. No one went to prison. Cleo’s name faded from the news. 

[BEAT]   

Cara Anthony: But decades later, Ms. Mable, the witness; Rhonda, her granddaughter; and me, the journalist, we talked about it a lot. 

We turned the story over and over, and as I listened to Ms. Mable, there was a distance between the almost matter-of-fact way she described the lynching and what I expected her feelings would be. 

I asked her if she was ever depressed … or if she had sleepless nights, anxiety. As a health reporter, I was on the lookout for symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. 

But Ms. Mable said no. 

That surprised me. And Rhonda, too. 

Cara Anthony: If we were to roll back the clock, go in a time machine, it’s 1942. All of a sudden, you see Cleo Wright’s body on the back of a car. How do you, can you even imagine that? 

Rhonda Council: I could not imagine. And even when talking to her about it, and she had such a vivid memory of it. And you ask her, did it haunt her, and she said no, she, it didn’t bother her, but I know deep down inside it had to because there’s no way that you could see something like that — someone dragged through the streets, basically naked going over rocks and the body just being dragged. 

I, I don’t know how I could have handled it because that’s just very, you just can’t treat a human being like that. 

Cara Anthony: That’s what’s so hard about these stories. And the research shows that seeing that kind of brutal, racial violence has health effects. But how do we recognize them? And what happens if we don’t? 

Those are some of the questions I asked Keisha Bentley-Edwards. 

Keisha Bentley-Edwards: Oftentimes, people who experience racial trauma are forced to not acknowledge it as such, or they’re forced to question whether or not it happened in the first place. 

Cara Anthony: Keisha is an associate professor in medicine at Duke University. She studies structural racism and chronic health conditions and knows a lot about what happens after a lynching. 

Keisha Bentley-Edwards: It’s difficult to talk about racism. And part of it is that you’re talking about power, who has it, who doesn’t have it. 

It’s not fun to talk about constantly being in a state where someone else can control your life with little recourse. 

Cara Anthony: That’s even more complicated in a place like Sikeston. 

Keisha Bentley-Edwards: When you’re in a smaller city, there is no way to turn away from the people who were the perpetrators of a race-based crime. And that, in and of itself, is a trauma. To know that someone has victimized your family member and you still have to say hello, you still have to say, “Good morning, ma’am.” And you have to just swallow your trauma in order to make the person who committed that trauma comfortable so that you don’t put your own family members at risk. 

Cara Anthony: Keisha says part of the stress comes from being Black and always being aware — alert — that the everyday ways you move through the world can be perceived as a threat to other people. 

Keisha Bentley-Edwards: Your life as a Black person is precarious. And I think that is what’s so hard about lynchings and these types of racist incidents is that so much of it is about, “I turned left when I could have turned right.” 

You know, “If I had just turned right or if I had stayed at home for another 10 minutes, this wouldn’t have happened.” 

Cara Anthony: That’s as true today as it was when Cleo Wright was alive. 

Keisha Bentley-Edwards: So, you don’t have to know the history of lynching to be affected by it. And so if you want to dismantle the legacy of the histories, you actually have to know it. So that you can address it and actually have some type of reconciliation and to move forward. 

Cara Anthony: I don’t know how you move on from something like the lynching of Cleo Wright. But breaking the silence is a step. 

And at 97, Ms. Mable did just that. 

She spoke to me. She trusted me enough to talk about it. Afterward, she said she felt lighter. 

Mable Cook: That’s right. Mm-hmm. So, it makes me feel much better after getting it out. 

[BEAT]  

Cara Anthony: A couple of years after we took the tour of Sikeston together, Ms. Mable died. 

When they lowered her casket into the ground, Ms. Mable’s family played a hymn she loved. 

It was a song she had sung for me … the day she invited me to visit her church. We sat in the pews. It was the middle of the week, but she was in her Sunday best. 

As we talked about Cleo Wright and Ms. Mable’s life in Sikeston, she told me she came back to that hymn over and over. 

Mable Cook: “Glory, Glory.” That’s what it was. [SINGING] Glory, glory, hallelujah. Since I laid my burden down. Glory, glory, hallelujah. Since I laid my burdens down […] 

Cara Anthony: I grew up singing that song. But before that moment, it was just another hymn in church. When Ms. Mable sang, it became something else. It sounded more like … an anthem. A call to acknowledge what we’ve been carrying with us in our bodies and minds. And to know it’s possible to talk about it … and maybe feel lighter. 

Mable Cook: [SINGING] … Every route go high and higher since I laid my burden down. Every route go high and higher since I laid my burden down […] 

Cara Anthony: Racism is heavy and it’s making Black people sick. Hives, high blood pressure, heart disease, inflammation, and struggles with mental health. 

To lay those burdens down, we have to name them first. 

That’s what I want this series to be: a podcast about finding the words to say the things that go unsaid. 

Across four episodes, we’re exploring the silence around violence and racism. And, maybe, we’ll get some redemption, too. 

I’m glad you’re here. There’s a lot more to talk about. 

Next time on “Silence in Sikeston,” the podcast … 

Meet my Aunt B and hear about our family’s hidden history. 

Cara Anthony: I told you what the three R’s of history are, right? 

Aunt B: No, tell me. 

Cara Anthony: So the three R’s of history are, you have to recognize something in order to repair it, in order to have days of redemption. So, Recognize, Repair, Redeem. And that’s what we’re doing. 

Aunt B: Man, how deep is that? 

Cara Anthony: That’s what we’re doing. 

Aunt B: Wow. 

CREDITS 

Cara Anthony: Thanks for listening to “Silence in Sikeston.” 

Next, go watch the documentary — it’s a joint production from Retro Report and KFF Health News, presented in partnership with WORLD. 

Subscribe to WORLD Channel on YouTube. That’s where you can find the film “Silence in Sikeston,” a Local, USA special. 

This podcast is a co-production of WORLD Channel and KFF Health News and distributed by PRX. 

It was produced with support from PRX and made possible in part by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. 

The audio series was reported and hosted by me, Cara Anthony. 

Zach Dyer and Taylor Cook are the producers. 

Editing by Simone Popperl. 

Taunya English is managing editor of the podcast. 

Sound design, mixing, and original music by Lonnie Ro. 

Podcast art design by Colin Mahoney and Tania Castro-Daunais. 

Oona Zenda was the lead on the landing page design. 

Julio Ricardo Varela consulted on the script. 

Sending a shoutout to my vocal coach, Viki Merrick, for helping me tap into my voice. 

Music in this episode is from BlueDot Sessions and Epidemic Sound. 

Additional audio from KFVS News in Sikeston, Missouri. 

Some of the audio you’ll hear across the podcast is also in the film. 

For that, special thanks to Adam Zletz, Matt Gettemeier, Roger Herr, and Philip Geyelin, who worked with us and colleagues from Retro Report. 

Kyra Darnton is executive producer at Retro Report. 

I was a producer on the film. 

Jill Rosenbaum directed the documentary. 

Kytja Weir is national editor at KFF Health News. 

WORLD Channel’s editor-in-chief and executive producer is Chris Hastings. 

If “Silence in Sikeston” has been meaningful to you, help us get the word out! 

Write a review or give us a quick rating on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeart, or wherever you listen to this podcast. It shows the powers that be that this is the kind of journalism you want. 

Thank you. It makes a difference. 

Oh yeah … and tell your friends in real life, too! 

Credits

Additional Newsroom Support

Lynne Shallcross, photo editorOona Zenda, illustrator and web producerLydia Zuraw, web producerTarena Lofton, audience engagement producer Hannah Norman, video producer and visual reporter Chaseedaw Giles, audience engagement editor and digital strategistKytja Weir, national editor Mary Agnes Carey, managing editor Alex Wayne, executive editorDavid Rousseau, publisher Terry Byrne, copy chief Gabe Brison-Trezise, deputy copy chief Tammie Smith, communications officer 

The “Silence in Sikeston” podcast is a production of KFF Health News and WORLD. Distributed by PRX. Subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeart, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Watch the accompanying documentary from WORLD, Retro Report, and KFF here.

To hear other KFF Health News podcasts, click here.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

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Earlier that day, the groundskeepers at Sunset Gardens of Memory had dug the small grave up on a hill in a special section of this cemetery in a southern Illinois community across the river from St. Louis. It was for a 3-year-old girl killed by a stray bullet.

“It can be stressful sometimes,” Jasper Belt, 26, said. “We have to use little shovels.”

More than 30 years ago, Johnnie Haire and the other groundskeepers built a garden site just for children, separate from unlabeled sections of the 30-acre cemetery where they used to bury infants. They added a birdbath and bought angel figurines, carefully painting each one a hue of brown. Haire wanted the angels to be Black, like many of the children laid to rest here.

“This is ‘Baby Land,’” said Haire, 67, Sunset Gardens’ grounds supervisor, as he gestured across the area. “This is where a lot of babies are buried.”

Cemeteries like this one have long honored those who die too young. Such special burial sites exist in Gainesville, Florida; Quincy, Illinois; Owensboro, Kentucky; and beyond. They are for stillborn children and those who died of disease or accidents.

Today, a modern epidemic fills more graves than anything else: In the U.S., firearm-related injuries were the leading cause of death for children in 2020, ahead of motor vehicle crashes, according to researchers from the University of Michigan.

The men at Sunset Gardens are collecting data in their own way, too.

In 2019, Haire broke ground on a new section of the cemetery where teenagers and young adults are buried, including those killed by covid-19 and many who were victims of gun violence. It’s called the “Garden of Grace.” It’s already been used more than anyone would like.

“One time, it was just every weekend. Just a steady flow,” Haire said. “This one getting killed over here. This one getting killed over there. They fighting against each other, some rival gangs or whatever they were. So we had a lot. A lot of that.”

And 2021 was especially deadly nationwide: More than 47,000 people of all ages died from gunshot injuries, the highest U.S. toll since the early 1990s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This past year wasn’t as deadly nationally, though the tally is still being finalized.

The groundskeepers at Sunset Gardens have learned to watch their step in Baby Land because grieving parents drop off toys, candy, and balloons for their deceased children. “They just do things so differently in grief,” said Jocelyn Belt, 35, whose dad, William Belt Sr., 66, has worked at the cemetery since before she was born. Her brother and cousin work there, too.

The groundskeepers work quietly as families grieve. William Belt Jr., 44, said he doesn’t pry, even if he knows the family and would like to know how they’re doing.

“That’s what you learn not to do,” he said. “We let them come to us.”

But often, the men said, they are anonymous amid the rituals of grief. William Belt Jr. said he sometimes runs into those who attended the burials around town. “They don’t know my name. They’ll be like, ‘Gravedigger, you buried my mom. Man, thanks.’”

These men understand the complicated pain of losing loved ones. In the past year alone, the Belt family has experienced three deaths, including a relative who was shot and killed.

And on New Year’s Eve, William Belt Jr. himself was shot while in his truck outside a gas station convenience store.

“Nobody’s exempt,” he said, while recovering at home. “It could have been an old lady going to get some cornmeal or something like that from that store and could have got caught right in the crossfire.”

His family is thankful he’s OK. He is still grappling with his own close call, though.

“I would have probably been overtime for some of my co-workers. That’s something to think about,” Belt said. “And then they wouldn’t been able to go to my funeral ’cause they got to bury me.”

William Belt Sr. said his body froze when his son was shot. And he said he couldn’t hold back his emotions when he buried his brother and niece less than a month apart. Many of their relatives are buried at Sunset Gardens — literally by them.

“I weep,” he said. “Big difference between crying and weeping. Weeping, I’m closer to God.”

Their job is physical, emotional work done in all seasons, all weather. Injuries occur. Heartbreak is everywhere.

To hold their own hearts together, the groundskeepers often decompress as they eat lunch in a shed near the cemetery’s front office, trading stories in front of a wood-burning stove to keep warm during winter. They find joy where they can. The Belts like to fish. And the senior Belt occasionally sings the blues to soothe his soul. Parker, a long-haired cat, provides them company, too — and enjoys investigating the men’s lunches.

And they laugh when they can. William Belt Sr. still remembers his first year on the job. He wanted to be respectful, he said with a smile, even though his clients were deceased.

“‘Excuse me, coming through,’” Belt recalled saying as he walked through the cemetery. “Then I got myself together.”

Digging graves for a living wasn’t on the career list for Belt or his friend Haire. But that’s exactly what the two men have done for some 43 years — whether it’s for those who lived long, full lives or those whose young lives were cut short. They’re caretakers.

“That’s the proper name for it,” Haire said.

As he stood amid the graves on a recent day, he noted that the wooden Baby Land sign that welcomes mourners is worn. The paint on the angels is peeling, too.

“It needs touching up over there,” Haire said. “But I’ve been busy.”

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

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“They trained us as little kids. How to own your ’hood, own your street: ‘This is my territory,’” Roby-Bell said.

The experience also taught her tough lessons about life and death at an early age. At least half of the friends she grew up with are now dead. “At times, it became hard because you just get tired of fighting,” she said. “I probably should have been dead a long time ago.”

At 42, Roby-Bell isn’t defending territory for a gang anymore. Instead, she is standing up for the families in the southern Illinois communities of East St. Louis and neighboring Washington Park who want their children to be able to go outside to play without fearing for their lives. As a survivor of the violence, Roby-Bell serves as a source of strength for others. Those traumatized by gun violence call her for counseling. She has planned funerals for victims. And, for years, she has presided over burials of both strangers and friends. She sleeps with her phone by her side, so she doesn’t miss a cry for help.

Nearby, Larita Rice-Barnes, 47, also carries a phone that doubles as a lifeline for grieving families. And Terra Jenkins, 50, receives similar calls. She typically checks her phone throughout the day, replying to messages from locals and nearby funeral homes.

As young women, all three ran with street gangs around East St. Louis and its surrounding communities. Today, Roby-Bell works for a school district mentoring high school students. Jenkins is an outreach leader for a local clinic, and Rice-Barnes is a published author who spends countless hours volunteering and running two nonprofits.

Still, their battle scars and faded tattoos recall their past. Because of those experiences on the front lines, some people trust them more than they do the police. The women fill in the gaps for a community fighting economic inequality, homelessness, health disparities, and gun violence.

“In East St. Louis, you’re into it with death,” Jenkins said. “Nine times out of 10, the position that I’m in, I just be involved with a whole lot of death because I’m at the morgue.”

Jenkins, who goes by “T-baby Ooh-Wee,” said she stumbled into the work of helping people. In the late 1980s as a teenager, she joined the Gangster Disciples, commonly referred to as “GD.” As time went on, she became a leader in the organization, a queen who called the shots.

She turned her grandmother’s basement in neighboring Washington Park into a barbershop. Her business became a therapeutic space for clients who confided in Jenkins while she trimmed their hair.

“Just like the beauty shop, the guys want to talk,” Jenkins said. “They couldn’t talk to their homeboys, so when they sat in my chair they started talking to T-baby. They started talking about their problems. I mean the big gangsters, they’re crying. They’re just spilling their guts to me.”

As time went on, she became a trusted friend and activist whom many in the city could call on in their times of need. While she still is considered an “OG,” or original gangster, she said, somewhere along the way the gang life she knew changed. Rival gangs started to talk less and shoot more.

“These kids act like their hands don’t work,” Jenkins said. “And they never had a fistfight in their life.”

They use guns instead, she added. “Then you ask them: What y’all mad for? And they don’t even know what they arguing each other for. It couldn’t be money because lately here, lately here, the killing, ain’t nobody getting robbed. A lot of these kids still got the money in their pocket, their jewelry on them,” she said. “It’s, like, over Facebook.”

Jenkins blames herself and her generation. “We dropped the ball,” she said. Now, she is trying to pick up the pieces.

Every case is different, Jenkins said, but most grieving families need empathy, money for the funeral, and practical help, such as a haircut for their deceased loved one or a space to hold a memorial service. Jenkins said she is an introvert but rises to the occasion when alerted to a need in the community. She gathers clothing, food, and basic essentials. She sits with families after the funeral is over — when the families are left alone to deal with the grief.

In Roby-Bell’s case, her life changed in 2009. That’s when her cousin Keyatia Gibson was gunned down in front of a liquor store in the city.

“It took a while for them to come cover her up,” Roby-Bell said. She added that her cousin’s two young children stood over her body. “And they saw that. And I watched the pain.”

A mother of three herself, Roby-Bell decided to change her life. She started going to church and turned her focus toward helping those in need. Two years ago, Roby-Bell opened Restoration Outreach Center, a church in Washington Park, where she often shares her story.

As a member of a gang “I hustled,” Roby-Bell said. “But I survived the worst season of my life. And I didn’t just survive for me. I survived for my three daughters.”

At her church, she often prays for the youngest members of her congregation. “We always cover them in prayer. We pray for their safety, for their life span,” Roby-Bell said. “I work in the schools, so I’m always praying for their future.”

But religion cannot always be their salve. When a child is caught in the crossfire, Rice-Barnes said, she chooses her words carefully when meeting with the grieving family. She doesn’t tell parents that their deceased child turned into an angel. That kind of rhetoric isn’t in her playbook.

“People need the ministry of presence,” Rice-Barnes said. “In most cases, they don’t need you to say anything. They just need to know that you’re there.”

Earlier this year, Rice-Barnes wrapped her arms around the family of 3-year-old Joseph Michael Lowe, who was killed by gunfire while in a car with his older brother. But as she deals with each family’s pain, she must grapple with her painful past, too.

During Rice-Barnes’ adolescent years, she had friends who were Gangster Disciples, but she spent most of her time with a rival gang, the Vice Lords. She lost two close friends to gun violence and had her own close calls. She feared for her life when a man held a gun to her head. And a few years later, she ended up flat on the ground in a field after someone in a nearby car started shooting.

“In the midst of running, I fell,” Rice-Barnes said. “I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if someone was standing over me.”

She walked away that day but carries the memory as she helps those who experience loss. “I’m still dealing with the devastation of what happened,” Rice-Barnes said. “In more recent years, I find myself telling those stories, but they were just packed down and suppressed.”

Rice-Barnes hosts rallies in East St. Louis to remember victims of gun violence, survivors, and their families. Her nonprofit Metro East Organizing Coalition brings residents together for conversations about solutions. Dozens of people showed up to a June event where Rice-Barnes reminded city leaders of the need for policy changes and programs that could potentially save lives.

Rice-Barnes’ nonprofit teams up with other crime reduction organizations to analyze data, so she believes her efforts have helped reduce crime in the past 18 months. Still, she knows the city has a long way to go. Yet the idea of giving up on this city isn’t an option for Rice-Barnes — or for Jenkins and Roby-Bell. The trio believe their community will thrive again, so they focus on the future.

“It doesn’t matter how you start, but it matters how you finish,” Roby-Bell said.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

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