On the Laps of Gods
Author: Whitaker, Robert
ISBN: 9780307339836
Publisher: RANDOM HOUSE US
Year first published: 23 Jun 2009
Pages: 416
Format: Paperback / softback
For readers of narrative American history; readers of the National Book Award-winning I>Arc of Justice/I> by Kevin Boyle, as well as other books on race in America, especially those focusing on the Reconstruction and the Jim Crow era; readers of books on constitutional law and the Supreme Court.BR>BR>b>They Shot Them Down Like Rabbits . . . br>/b>br>September 30, 1919. The United States teetered on the edge of a racial civil war. During the previous three months, racial fighting had erupted in twenty-five cities. And deep in the Arkansas Delta, black sharecroppers were meeting in a humble wooden church, forming a union and making plans to sue their white landowners. A car pulled up outside the church . . . br>br>What happened next has long been shrouded in controversy.br>br>In this heartbreaking but ultimately triumphant story of courage and will, journalist Robert Whitaker carefully documents-and exposes-one of the worst racial massacres in American history. i>On the Laps of Gods/i> is the story of the 1919 Elaine massacre in Hoop Spur, Arkansas, during which white mobs and federal troops killed more than one hundred black men, women, and children; of the twelve black men subsequently condemned to die; of Scipio Africanus Jones, a former slave and tenacious black attorney; and of i>Moore v. Dempsey,/i> the case Jones brought to the Supreme Court, which set the legal stage for the civil rights movement half a century later.
ISBN: 9780307339836
Publisher: RANDOM HOUSE US
Year first published: 23 Jun 2009
Pages: 416
Format: Paperback / softback
For readers of narrative American history; readers of the National Book Award-winning I>Arc of Justice/I> by Kevin Boyle, as well as other books on race in America, especially those focusing on the Reconstruction and the Jim Crow era; readers of books on constitutional law and the Supreme Court.BR>BR>b>They Shot Them Down Like Rabbits . . . br>/b>br>September 30, 1919. The United States teetered on the edge of a racial civil war. During the previous three months, racial fighting had erupted in twenty-five cities. And deep in the Arkansas Delta, black sharecroppers were meeting in a humble wooden church, forming a union and making plans to sue their white landowners. A car pulled up outside the church . . . br>br>What happened next has long been shrouded in controversy.br>br>In this heartbreaking but ultimately triumphant story of courage and will, journalist Robert Whitaker carefully documents-and exposes-one of the worst racial massacres in American history. i>On the Laps of Gods/i> is the story of the 1919 Elaine massacre in Hoop Spur, Arkansas, during which white mobs and federal troops killed more than one hundred black men, women, and children; of the twelve black men subsequently condemned to die; of Scipio Africanus Jones, a former slave and tenacious black attorney; and of i>Moore v. Dempsey,/i> the case Jones brought to the Supreme Court, which set the legal stage for the civil rights movement half a century later.
