‘Blood Done Sign My Name’ comes to Fayetteville. 4 things to know.

Mike Wiley will perform in the one-man show “Blood Done Sign My Name,” on Saturday at Methodist University.

Wiley will depict events surrounding the racial killing of Henry Marrow Jr., a 23-year-old Army veteran shot to death in in 1970 in Oxford, North Carolina.

More:Pitts: We will spotlight Fayetteville’s Future Black History Makers

The play is based on Timothy Tyson’s best-selling book of the same name. Tyson grew up in Oxford and heard stories about Marrow’s death.

He will join Wiley after the performance; the two will speak and take questions.

More:Brian Tyree Henry of Fayetteville nominated for Oscar. Here are 4 things to know about him.

Interested in going? Here's what to know.

What are the details?

The event starts at 2 p.m. at Huff Hall on the Methodist campus. There is no cost, but tickets should be reserved through Eventbrite.

More:Don’t call it a museum and 3 other themes about Fayetteville’s history center

The event is sponsored by Organizing Against Racism in Cumberland County (OAR). The group’s president wrote in an email that walk-ins would be permitted.

What is Organizing Against Racism?

The organization over the last few years has sponsored several workshops and events to foster racial understanding and healing.

A mission statement on its website reads: “To build more meaningful, equitable relationships with each other” and "To deepen our analysis of systemic inequity, particularly regarding racism in the US."

MIKE WILEY in Blood Done Sign My Name from Minnow Media on Vimeo.

About the play

Wiley, who lives in Durham, is the owner of Mike Wiley Productions. “Blood Done Sign My Name” is a touring production where he dramatizes the events that started in the spring of 1970 in Oxford. He uses the recollections from Tyson, who was 10 at the time.

“Marrow, who was black, was chased from a local store by three white men after reportedly making a crude remark to one of the men’s wives,” the website for the production states. “They brutally beat Marrow then killed him with a bullet to the head in view of multiple witnesses.”

Despite the witnesses, an all-white jury acquitted Marrow’s killers, which led the town’s Black community to destroy downtown businesses and several tobacco warehouses, according to the website account.

Gospel singer Mary D. Williams also performs spirituals that include “Oh, Freedom” and “Swing Low Sweet Chariot.”

Timothy Tyson — he sounds familiar

He should. In addition to "Blood Done Sign My Name," which had already inspired a major motion picture, Tyson in 2017 published “The Blood of Emmett Till." The best-seller concerns one of the most infamous and galvanizing racial killings in U.S. history, when white assailants in Mississippi brutalized and murdered the 14-year-old from Chicago. The killers were acquitted.

Tyson’s account brought attention to the fact that Carolyn Bryant Donham, the woman whose false accusation led to Till’s murder, was still alive and living in North Carolina.  A Mississippi grand jury considered charges of kidnapping and manslaughter but declined to indict in August 2022.

Tyson also has a Fayetteville connection. His late father, Vernon, was a Methodist minister who served a congregation here in Fayetteville, among several other churches across the state. He was a civil rights leader, whose actions form a part of “Blood Done Sign My Name.”

Myron B. Pitts can be reached at mpitts@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3559.

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: ‘Blood Done Sign My Name’ comes to Fayetteville