Pushback

Honea Path Town Sign

Since Madison and I didn’t want this story to be all boring Google facts, we decided to reach out to the long-time residents of Honea Path and see if they would be willing to add anything personal to our project. Little did we know just how personal they would go.

I put together a post and shared it on several Honea Path Facebook groups. Basically, I explained the scope of our project, requested people reach out if they’d like to chat about the massacre, and then clearly offered anonymity to all.

Honestly, I really didn’t think we’d get any comments let alone private messages. I thought people wouldn’t care about our project. After all, we were telling the story of an event that happened back in 1934. That’s a long time ago for most Facebook users. Or not.

Minutes after I shared my first post, the comment section seemed to explode. So did my private messages. Long time residents, new arrivals, and even people from totally different towns had something to say about the Chiquola Mill Massacre. In particular, they had something to say about how we were handling the story.

I had numerous messages from individuals requesting that I “tell both sides” and “be honest about the Beechams.”

I had a few more messages that were less magnanimous.

So I looked up who the Beechams were and why so many people cared about them. I found that Dan Beecham, the former superintendent of the mill and former Honea Path mayor, had ordered his men to shoot at the workers striking in front of the mill. Beecham's descendants still live in Honea Path today.

The town's response to my bringing up the Beecham name was both surprising and a little disconcerting. Some of the public comments were nasty enough that my grandmother saw them and started worrying that the online anger would soon become in person attacks. My mother wondered if people would treat us differently in town. Sounds odd, but in a town as small as Honea Path, everybody knows everybody. The mill was still a living thing for Honea Path, and I had just hit its last nerve.

Thankfully, nothing came of the anger. I did not respond to the rudest of messages and shut down comments on any posts that were getting out of hand. I did not visit Honea Path for a couple weeks. What can I say? I hate confrontation.

While the anger slowly died back down, the fear did not leave. People told me they wanted to interview and give honest stories, but they feared the backlash. They wouldn’t accept my offer of anonymity and instead requested that I share the finished project with them later. Privately. So that no one else knew. I agreed. There was nothing I could do but keep asking for someone to publicly stand against the town’s scorn and share the information I needed for an interview.

During this time, I think I sent Madison a thousand screenshots of people’s conversations with me. There was a lot of “no” in those screenshots. Just when I started to think we’d never get a quotable story for the project, someone stepped forward. Her name was Katherine Gary and her grandmother had been shot during the massacre.