| Edition |
First edition. |
| Description |
386 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages [361]-367) and index. |
| Contents |
A union in Hoop Spur -- The path to Hoop Spur -- The Red Summer of 1919 -- Helena -- The killing fields -- They shot them down like rabbits -- Whitewash -- The longest train ride ever -- A lesson made plain -- Scipio Africanus Jones -- The constitutional rights of a race -- I wring my hands and cry -- All hope gone -- Great writ of Liberty -- Taft and his court -- Hardly less than revolutionary -- Thunderbolt from a clear sky -- Birth of a new nation. |
| Summary |
September 30, 1919. The United States teetered on the edge of a racial civil war. Racial fighting had erupted in 25 cities. Deep in the Arkansas Delta, black sharecroppers formed a union to sue their white landowners, who had cheated them for years. What happened next has long been shrouded in controversy. Over several days, posses and federal troops gunned down more than 100 men, women, and children. White authorities arrested more than 300 black farmers, and in brief trials, all-white juries sentenced twelve union leaders to the electric chair. And then, a lawyer from Little Rock stepped forward. Scipio Africanus Jones, born a slave, joined with the NAACP to mount an appeal in which he argued that his clients' constitutional rights to a fair trial had been violated. Never before had the U.S. Supreme Court set aside a criminal verdict in a state court because the proceedings had been unfair.--From publisher description. |
| Subject |
Elaine Massacre, Elaine, Ark., 1919.
|
|
Race riots -- Arkansas -- Phillips County -- History.
|
|
Jones, Scipio Africanus, 1863-1943.
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African Americans -- Arkansas -- Phillips County -- History.
|
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Phillips County (Ark.) -- Race relations -- History -- 20th century.
|
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Trials (Murder) -- Arkansas -- Phillips County -- History -- 20th century.
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Phillips County (Ark.) -- History.
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| ISBN |
9780307339829 |
|
0307339823 |
|
