Stockley has produced a delightful and intriguing human story. It is to be hoped he will use his newly found talent to dig into his past experiences as background for more such captivating tales." ASSOCIATED PRESS A prominent Arkansas politico and state senator is murdered, and the babbling, incoherent man accused of the crime has insanity plea written all over him. Everyone, including Gideon Page, the public defender, thinks this case is nailed shut. But Gideon is curious about a few things, and what he discovers is that even the innocent need an airtight alibi, when a simple case of puppy love turns into a fatal affair to remember.
Entertaining...Fast, fascinating." THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE When the profits of his law firm dip too low, ex-public defender Gideon Page is fired--but not before he steals a case that has all the makings of a media nightmare. Dr. Andrew Chapman, a black psychiatrist, is charged with manslaughter when a severely retarded girl dies in his care during a risky--and some say barbaric--elctro-shock procedure. When it turns out that the doctor and the girl's mother were having an affair, the press is about to have a field day. That is, unless Gideon can unravel the many twisted threads of truth, battle a county steeped in racial strife, and lock horns with a tough, ambitious, female prosecutor in a courtroom set to explode....
On the morning of March 5, 1959, Luvenia Long was listening to gospel music when a news bulletin interrupted her radio program. Fire had engulfed the Arkansas Negro Boys Industrial School in Wrightsville, thirteen miles outside of Little Rock. Her son Lindsey had been confined there since January 14, after a judge for juveniles found him guilty of stealing from a neighborhood store owner. To her horror, Lindsey was not among the forty-eight boys who had clawed their way through the windows of the dormitory to safety. Instead, he was among the twenty-one boys between the ages of thirteen and seventeen who burned to death. Black Boys Burning presents a focused explanation of how systemic poverty perpetuated by white supremacy sealed the fate of those students. A careful telling of the history of the school and fire, the book provides readers a fresh understanding of the broad implications of white supremacy. Grif Stockley’s research adds to an evolving understanding of the Jim Crow South, Arkansas’s history, the lawyers who capitalized on this tragedy, and the African American victims. In hindsight, the disaster at Wrightsville could have been predicted. Immediately after the fire, an unsigned editorial in the Arkansas Democrat noted long-term deterioration, including the wiring, of the buildings. After the Central High School desegregation crisis in 1957, the boys’ deaths eighteen months later were once again an embarrassment to Arkansas. The fire and its circumstances should have provoked southerners to investigate the realities of their “separate but equal institutions.” However, white supremacy ruled the investigations, and the grand jury declared the event to be an anomaly.
On September 30, 1919, local law enforcement in rural Phillips County, Arkansas, attacked black sharecroppers at a meeting of the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America. The next day, hundreds of white men from the Delta, along with US Army troops, converged on the area “with blood in their eyes.” What happened next was one of the deadliest incidents of racial violence in the history of the United States, leaving a legacy of trauma and silence that has persisted for more than a century. In the wake of the massacre, the NAACP and Little Rock lawyer Scipio Jones spearheaded legal action that revolutionized due process in America. The first edition of Grif Stockley’s Blood in Their Eyes, published in 2001, brought renewed attention to the Elaine Massacre and sparked valuable new studies on racial violence and exploitation in Arkansas and beyond. With contributions from fellow historians Brian K. Mitchell and Guy Lancaster, this revised edition draws from recently uncovered source material and explores in greater detail the actions of the mob, the lives of those who survived the massacre, and the regime of fear and terror that prevailed under Jim Crow.
Leigh Wallace, the knockout daughter of a big-time minister, is behind bars, accused of murdering her wealthy husband. Defending her is the county's legendary and dying trial lawyer, Chet Bracken, who now asks none other than lowly lawyer Gideon Page to help him on the case. Page is ecstatic -- a victory would solidify his career. Thoughts of victory quickly dissipate as hidden truths about the serpentine case begin to emerge: that Chet has something up his sleeve...that whatever is up Chet's sleeve, Page's own daughter doesn't want him to find it...that everyone from bimbos to bible thumpers seem to fit into this case...and that jealousy, lust, and religious loyalty can be effective roadblocks to rightful conviction....
A Black history professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, is found shot to death in his brother's home and his outspoken white rival on the faculty is charged with murder.
Daisy Bates (1914–1999) is renowned as the mentor of the Little Rock Nine, the first African Americans to attend Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. For guiding the Nine through one of the most tumultuous civil rights crises of the 1950s, she was selected as Woman of the Year in Education by the Associated Press in 1957 and was the only woman invited to speak at the Lincoln Memorial ceremony in the March on Washington in 1963. But her importance as a historical figure has been overlooked by scholars of the civil rights movement. Daisy Bates: Civil Rights Crusader from Arkansas chronicles her life and political advocacy before, during, and well after the Central High School crisis. An orphan from the Arkansas mill town of Huttig, she eventually rose to the zenith of civil rights action. In 1952, she was elected president of the NAACP in Arkansas and traveled the country speaking on political issues. During the 1960s, she worked as a field organizer for presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson to get out the black vote. Even after a series of strokes, she continued to orchestrate self-help and economic initiatives in Arkansas. Using interviews, archival records, contemporary newspaper accounts, and other materials, author Grif Stockley reconstructs Bates's life and career, revealing her to be a complex, contrary leader of the civil rights movement. Ultimately, Daisy Bates paints a vivid portrait of an ardent, overlooked advocate of social justice.
On September 30, 1919, local law enforcement in rural Phillips County, Arkansas, attacked black sharecroppers at a meeting of the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America. The next day, hundreds of white men from the Delta, along with US Army troops, converged on the area “with blood in their eyes.” What happened next was one of the deadliest incidents of racial violence in the history of the United States, leaving a legacy of trauma and silence that has persisted for more than a century. In the wake of the massacre, the NAACP and Little Rock lawyer Scipio Jones spearheaded legal action that revolutionized due process in America. The first edition of Grif Stockley’s Blood in Their Eyes, published in 2001, brought renewed attention to the Elaine Massacre and sparked valuable new studies on racial violence and exploitation in Arkansas and beyond. With contributions from fellow historians Brian K. Mitchell and Guy Lancaster, this revised edition draws from recently uncovered source material and explores in greater detail the actions of the mob, the lives of those who survived the massacre, and the regime of fear and terror that prevailed under Jim Crow.
Entertaining...Fast, fascinating." THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE When the profits of his law firm dip too low, ex-public defender Gideon Page is fired--but not before he steals a case that has all the makings of a media nightmare. Dr. Andrew Chapman, a black psychiatrist, is charged with manslaughter when a severely retarded girl dies in his care during a risky--and some say barbaric--elctro-shock procedure. When it turns out that the doctor and the girl's mother were having an affair, the press is about to have a field day. That is, unless Gideon can unravel the many twisted threads of truth, battle a county steeped in racial strife, and lock horns with a tough, ambitious, female prosecutor in a courtroom set to explode....
Leigh Wallace, the knockout daughter of a big-time minister, is behind bars, accused of murdering her wealthy husband. Defending her is the county's legendary and dying trial lawyer, Chet Bracken, who now asks none other than lowly lawyer Gideon Page to help him on the case. Page is ecstatic -- a victory would solidify his career. Thoughts of victory quickly dissipate as hidden truths about the serpentine case begin to emerge: that Chet has something up his sleeve...that whatever is up Chet's sleeve, Page's own daughter doesn't want him to find it...that everyone from bimbos to bible thumpers seem to fit into this case...and that jealousy, lust, and religious loyalty can be effective roadblocks to rightful conviction....
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