When a Mississippi community uncovers a history of racial terror long buried from public memory, residents and descendants come together to recover lost stories, return to the places where violence occurred, and confront what it means to carry the responsibility of remembering.
The Work of Remembering follows the Lafayette Community Remembrance Project, a group of residents and descendants working to uncover and publicly remember the history of racial terror lynchings in Lafayette County, Mississippi.
The work begins when a local newspaper editor receives a report documenting at least seven lynchings in the county, exposing a history many residents had never been taught and families had rarely spoken about. What starts with research soon becomes something more personal as community members connect with descendants, including the family of Elwood Higginbottom, whose murder forced his wife, children, and relatives to leave the community, and the family of William Steen, whose story raises questions that generations later remain unanswered.
Through family stories, visits to long-forgotten places, soil collections, historical markers, music, and public acts of remembrance, the film explores what happens when history moves from records and archives into relationships with living people. Along the way, the work reveals both the possibilities and limits of memorialization. Remembering can create connection, acknowledgment, and healing, but it cannot erase what happened or answer every question left behind.
As LCRP’s work expands from Lafayette County to supporting communities across Mississippi, The Work of Remembering asks us to consider who is responsible for carrying difficult history forward. The film ultimately argues that remembrance belongs not only to descendants, but to all of us who inherit the places, institutions, and communities shaped by the past. Because the work of remembering is never finished.Â
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