Racial Violence and Erasure in Jackal: The Unseen Pattern of Targeting Black Girls

Thematic Claim: Systemic Erasure Fuels Repeated Violence

In Jackal, Erin E. Adams argues that racial violence in Johnstown is not a series of isolated crimes but a recurring pattern sustained by deliberate erasure of Black history. The town’s refusal to acknowledge its 1923 banishment of two thousand Black and brown residents creates the conditions for a century of targeted attacks on Black girls. The novel shows how silence—from police negligence to forgotten history—enables predators like the Fellow and his son Doug to hunt without consequence. Only by confronting this erased past can characters like Liz Rocher break the cycle and reclaim their power.

Historical Erasure: The 1923 Banishment

The novel anchors its theme in a real historical event: Mayor Joseph Cauffiel’s 1923 decree ordering all Black residents who had lived in Johnstown less than seven years to leave. In Chapter 17, Latoya recounts the aftermath: “two thousand Black folks left in less than a week” and “ten crosses burned in the hills.” This expulsion is directly compared to the Tulsa massacre and the Saint Louis race riots, yet it has been erased from local education. Liz, like many readers, learns of it only through Latoya’s testimony. The mayor’s order was never legally enforced, but the threat of violence made it effective. The novel draws a parallel between this mass removal and the later disappearance of individual Black girls: both are forms of erasure that the town collectively ignores.

The Author’s Note reinforces this connection. Adams explains that her own upbringing as one of three Black students in Johnstown led her to investigate why the town was so segregated. The 1923 banishment, uncovered through Cody McDevitt’s Banished from Johnstown, answered her question. By weaving this history into the fiction, Adams argues that systemic racism is maintained through deliberate forgetting.

The Solstice Abductions: A Pattern of Targeting

The novel’s central mystery is the disappearance of Black girls every summer solstice, beginning with Alice Walker in 1985. In Chapter 24, the mothers’ meeting reveals the pattern: Keisha Woodson, Kayla Montrose, Morgan Daniels, Patrice Carter, Alice Walker—all taken on the same day, all from the same town. Kylie notes that the police dismiss these victims as runaways or ignore their cases entirely. The medical examiner’s office helps Liz only because of Doug’s ulterior motives. The absence of official investigation constitutes a form of erasure: the girls are not even counted as victims.

The predator, Doug Nowak and his father before him, explicitly targets Black girls because their disappearances attract less scrutiny. In Chapter 6, Doug confesses: “Dad taught me not to go after the adults because people make them martyrs. They say their names. It’s easier to complicate the blame when a child goes missing.” The children are chosen because the system is designed to ignore them. The ritual is also tied to the solstice—a date that aligns with the ancient folklore of the Jackal, but also with a calendar of neglect.

The Fellow and the Jackal: Symbols of Erased History

The entity known as the Jackal is born from the town’s violence. In Chapter 51, Jack reflects that it has existed for decades, observing the “cycles of violence” and using hearts to construct a physical form. The Fellow—Doug’s father—becomes its worshipper, offering the hearts of abducted girls. This symbiosis literalizes the connection between human racism and supernatural predation. The Jackal cannot leave the woods because the town’s hatred keeps it alive.

The denim jacket (Alice’s favorite garment) and the orange bandana (used to lure Alice) become symbols of the victims’ stolen identities. The pink crayon appears in Caroline’s drawing, and later Liz picks it up as a talisman of resistance. The crown of stars and the North Star represent navigation and memory—Liz uses the stars to map her way home, while Caroline draws constellations that hide the Jackal’s silhouette. Sight, not light, is the antidote to the shadow.

Complexity and Contradiction: The Angry Survivor

The novel does not present a simple hero-villain binary. Liz herself struggles with the anger that Jack cultivated in her. In Chapter 52, she admits: “what Jack did to me worked…that anger he craved? It didn’t go away when he did.” The story complicates the idea of healing: Liz learns to use her anger for herself rather than letting others weaponize it. She faces the shadow at the novel’s end, but she does not claim to have defeated it entirely.

Similarly, the mothers’ group is fractured. Tanisha dismisses Kylie’s story of the shadow; Latoya refuses to dig into the hate that took Morgan; Farrah is broken by seeing the entity in her own eyes. The novel acknowledges that confronting erased history is painful and not everyone is ready for it. Yet the final image—Liz turning to face the shadow—offers a model of resistance based on acknowledgement rather than denial.

Symbol Connections

Five Study Questions and Answers

1. How does the historical banishment of 1923 relate to the modern abduction of Black girls in the novel?

The 1923 banishment set a precedent for erasing Black presence from Johnstown. Latoya explains that two thousand Black and brown people left after the mayor’s decree, and the event was forgotten. This pattern of forced removal and willful amnesia repeats when the police ignore the solstice abductions. The town’s refusal to acknowledge its racist history allows predators to target Black girls without accountability.

2. Why does the Fellow target Black girls specifically, according to Doug’s confession?

Doug says his father taught him to avoid adults because they become martyrs—people say their names. Children are easier to dismiss as runaways, and their cases receive less scrutiny. The system is already designed to overlook Black girls, so the killers exploit that neglect. Doug also admits that he was jealous of Liz’s mother’s success as a Black doctor, revealing how personal resentment fuels systemic violence.

3. What role does police negligence play in the erasure of the victims?

Police fail to investigate the disappearances properly. The medical examiner’s office initially withholds information. Doug, a detective, actively participates in the cover-up by manipulating evidence and threatening witnesses. The mothers’ meeting in Chapter 24 shows how each family was dismissed: “Unless there is something staring them right in the face, they won’t do shit.” The police force is complicit in the erasure.

4. How does the Jackal reflect the town’s history of racial violence?

The Jackal is a supernatural entity that feeds on the hearts of abducted girls. It was born from the Fellow’s worship, which itself grew out of the town’s racist hatred. In Chapter 51, the Jackal says it observed the town’s cycles of violence and tried to leave but remained trapped. The monster is a physical manifestation of what Latoya calls “the open wound since the flood”—the accumulated, unacknowledged racial harm.

5. How does Liz’s anger evolve by the end of the novel, and what does it say about confronting erasure?

Initially, Liz tries to suppress her anger because it was used by Jack to control her. But in Chapter 52, she decides to use her anger “for herself” rather than letting others weaponize it. She faces the shadow rather than looking away. This represents a shift from erasure to acknowledgement: she names what frightens her and refuses to let the town’s pattern of silencing continue. Her final action is to turn and face the darkness, signaling that confronting truth—however ugly—is the only way to break the cycle.