When Bettie Mae Fikes let loose her first notes beneath the pendulous metal pillars at the Memorial for Peace and Justice, she couldn't help but think of their last thoughts.
"I wondered what was on their minds at the time they were lynched," Fikes said of the men and women memorialized in corten steel above her. "Sometimes I think of the last thought — the last thought, was it fear? Did it feel like they were coming home?"