Susan Barringer Wells

Susan Barringer Wells is an eighth-generation North Carolinian whose fifth great-grandfather John Wells, is one of 50 signers of The Tryon Resolves of 1775, a proclamation of patriots seeking freedom from British tyranny. As we know, the end of British tyranny in America didn't change the tyranny some Americans committed against people of color during slavery and even after it was legally abolished.

After earning a BA in English with a minor in History at the University of North Carolina, Susan studied Drama, Art History, Commercial Art and Ad Design. She taught adults and children for a while and worked as an editor of children’s educational materials. Later after completing graduate courses at UNC's School of Public Health, she was employed as a child nutrition specialist.

It was while she was researching her Rowan County family history that she first learned of the murders of her relatives and the two multiple lynchings that occurred four years apart on the outskirts of Salisbury, North Carolina—also her ancestors' likely involvement in those atrocities.

Ten years after she published the results of her investigation into the lynchings, she learned, from author Bill James and his daughter, Rachel, about another possible suspect in the axe murder of her relatives. That suspect is not black; nor was he among those who were lynched for these crimes. These murder victims were deprived of a trial and any chance at proving their innocence.

While A GAME CALLED SALISBURY centers around the Salisbury, North Carolina lynchings, it is also a study of white supremacy propaganda that incited the 1898 Wilmington race massacre and the only political coup in U.S. History, as well as numerous lynchings that occurred in the aftermath of this racial violence.

A Game Called Salisbury is the 2009 recipient of th North Carolina Society of Historians' Willie Parker Peace History Book Award.