What Was Done

It’s 1978, in rural Maryland. Deirdre, a White historian working to complete her doctoral dissertation on lynchings in the state, visits the site where the last Maryland lynching occurred in 1933 and finds a story that reaches back to the 1840s and forward to 1978. It will turn out to involve her uncle, her uncle’s in-laws, Deirdre’s Black civil rights worker boyfriend, and their 14-year-old son. The story of endemic racism, once uncovered, forces momentous decisions regarding allegiances, attitudes, and reconciliation.