Silence in Sikeston: No One Wants To Talk About Racial Trauma. Why My Family Broke Our Silence.

About the Project

When KFF Health News correspondent Cara Anthony visited the rural community of Sikeston, Missouri, during a 2020 reporting trip, we thought we would publish a short, reported piece about its tragic past as the site of a 1942 lynching.

As KFF Health News partnered with Retro Report and we did more reporting, it became clear: The story was bigger. The trauma of that lynching resonated in the 2020 police shooting of another young Black man in the community. Sikeston told an important story of America’s unresolved history with racism, violence, and trauma.

Over the next few years, we worked with Retro Report and WORLD on the Silence in Sikeston project and produced an hour-long documentary film, a limited-series podcast, and educational materials for students to explore how these two killings, nearly 80 years apart, share tragic DNA rooted in our nation’s legacy of racism. Both Black men were violently killed without the opportunity to be tried for alleged crimes. The trauma experienced by witnesses and survivors was exacerbated by silence, a survival strategy that many families still use to keep their children safe.

But while we knew that this story of generational pain was a part of many Black Americans’ pasts, we didn’t realize the role it played in our own Cara Anthony’s family story. As she led the Silence in Sikeston project as the primary reporter, film producer, podcast host, and narrator for the educational videos, she learned about her own family’s silenced past — the police killing of her great uncle in 1946.

Her father had kept it a secret for years, just like so many families in Sikeston had kept quiet about the lynching in their community after it was clear no one was going to be charged.

Cara could have limited her role to reporter. But Silence in Sikeston is about violence and racism, and those forces have influenced her worldview as a Black woman in America.

With her family’s support, Cara decided to step into the story and include her personal experience in a beautifully told essay that was first published by The Emancipator, then shared with outlets nationwide via KFF Health News’ partnership model. With WORLD, we also created an 8-minute “Beyond the Lens” video about Cara and her story. It includes her voiceover reading excerpts from the essay.

In her essay, she expertly untangles what her family’s trauma means for her as a journalist, a mother, and a daughter, and deftly weaves it into the complicated story of racism in Sikeston — and across America.