You're listening to Code Switch from NPR, I'm Jean Demby.

And I'm Shireen Marisol Miragey.

All Black History Month, we've been sharing stories of Black Resistance.

Our final story about Black Resistance this month is about resisting the urge to forget,

even when remembering is incredibly painful.

And just a warning, there are descriptions of graphic violence in this episode.

My name is El Lamar Wilson, La Roy Lamar Wilson.

I was born in Mariana, Florida in Jackson County Hospital specifically.

I'm Ben Montgomery. I've spent 20 years as a newspaper reporter, most recently at the Tampa Bay Times.

So Mariana, of course, is a county seat and it is a picture postcard southern town.

You know, if you drove down Lafayette Street, which is the main street, you would drive

between low-slung, well-capped, main street businesses.

But as soon as you've escaped the city limits, you're in like the real south, you're in rural Florida,

you're driving through some marshland and driving through cotton fields.

You get to see the absolute, gorgeous natural beauty that people travel around the world to get to,

you know, go to retreats to get to. That was every day. You know, I could walk in my backyard and see

nothing but green at night, the stars, so many stars.

My idea of Florida, all growing up in, you know, Oklahoma, going to school in Arkansas and living

for a bit in Texas and New York, the idea of Florida was the ideal of Florida. It was like

Disney World and Sugar Sand beaches and retirees and everyone's happy and pastel colors and

Hawaiian shirts. I never really thought of Florida as like the south.

In the last century, one of the most infamous lynchings in America happened in my town,

...