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"Hell Put to Shame is a powerfully unsettling portrait of both the single most savage episode in the long decades of savagery inflicted by white southerners on their Black neighbors in the 20th century--and the methodical process that followed to erase those crimes from America's collective memory." --Douglas A. Blackmon, author of Slavery by Another Name, winner of the Pulitzer Prize
From the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of Chesapeake Requiem comes a gripping new work of narrative nonfiction telling the forgotten story of the mass killing of eleven Black farmhands on a Georgia plantation in the spring of 1921--a crime which exposed for the nation the existence of the "peonage system," a form of legal enslavement established after the Civil War across the American South.
On a Sunday morning in the spring of 1921, a small boy made a grim discovery as he played on a riverbank in the cotton country of rural Georgia: the bodies of two drowned men, bound together with wire and chain and weighted with a hundred-pound sack of rocks. Within days a third body turned up in another, nearby river, and in the weeks that followed, eight others. And with them, a deeper horror: all eleven had been kept in virtual slavery before their deaths. In fact, as America was shocked to learn, the dead were among thousands of Black men enslaved throughout the South, in conditions nearly as dire as those before the Civil War.
Hell Put to Shame tells the forgotten story of that mass killing, and of the revelations about peonage, or debt slavery, that it placed before a public self-satisfied that involuntary servitude had ended at Appomattox more than fifty years before.
By turns police procedural, courtroom drama, and political expose, Hell Put to Shame also reintroduces readers to three Americans who spearheaded the prosecution of John S. Williams, the wealthy plantation owner behind the murders, at a time when White people rarely faced punishment for violence against their Black neighbors. Georgia Governor Hugh M. Dorsey had earned international infamy while prosecuting the 1913 Leo Frank murder case in Atlanta and consequently won the statehouse as a hero of white supremacists--then redeemed himself in spectacular fashion with the "Murder Farm" affair. The remarkable polymath James Weldon Johnson, newly appointed the first Black leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, marshaled the organization into a full-on war against peonage. And Johnson's lieutenant, Walter F. White, a light-skinned, fair-haired, blue-eyed Black man, conducted undercover work at the scene of lynchings and other Jim Crow atrocities, helping to throw a light on such violence and to hasten its end.
The result is a story that remains fresh and relevant a century later, as the nation continues to wrestle with seemingly intractable challenges in matters of race and justice. And the 1921 case at its heart argues that the forces that so roil society today have been with us for generations.
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
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Like it was written by George Santos
Received an Advanced Reader Copy from a friend. I am an avid true crime reader and upon completion I question if the author is credible. The timeline does not add up for his age and the times of his alleged involvement in organized crime. Some of the things in the book he is alleged to have said and done I remember almost word for word from movies I had previously watched. He literally stole a scene from the movie the accountant with Ben Affleck and said that he did it. I did a little research after completing the book and learned that this author was also claiming in 2010 that he was a long time member of the Bloods Gang. That coupled with the above leads me to believe that it is nothing more than fantasy. Do not waste your time or money
Like it was written by George Santos
Received an Advanced Reader Copy from a friend. I am an avid true crime reader and upon completion I question if the author is credible. The timeline does not add up for his age and the times of his alleged involvement in organized crime. Some of the things in the book he is alleged to have said and done I remember almost word for word from movies I had previously watched. He literally stole a scene from the movie the accountant with Ben Affleck and said that he did it. I did a little research after completing the book and learned that this author was also claiming in 2010 that he was a long time member of the Bloods Gang. That coupled with the above leads me to believe that it is nothing more than fantasy. Do not waste your time or money
What a difficult story to tell. I appreciate the honesty and vulnerability. Definitely made me think.
I had hopes for this book but was not expecting what I would read within the pages. If your kink is deplorable grammar, incoherent sentences, and inconsistent messages, then this book is for you. At first, I thought the book I received was not the book I ordered. But as I dived in, it was very confusing. I would not recommend this book to anyone
There are not many reviews on the internet for this book. In researching the many stores selling the book, it was self-published which makes a lot of sense. The online description is written perfectly, so reading the actual book was very difficult. Pages two and three are written clearly as well as the table of contents. Pages 155 and 156 are also written logically.
It appears this book was written, then sent through a program like “Grammarly.” Once completed it seems it was published without being re-read or edited. The first clue was the title narrative that used “Has” instead of “As.” The table of contents is one page off from what it shows on pages four though seven. Many of the “q’s” are written as “[]”
Below are some examples of what was within the pages of this book written verbatim:
“Chains & Discipline/ Domination & entry/ Sadism & Masochism (BDSM) is a wide classification of bed room play.” Page 9
“When bringing up the topic of chains, you are actually asking a person to offer you their depend on, their flexibility, and also possibly their suggestion of security in exchange for sensual/sexual enjoyment, power-play, and also feasible re-evaluation of your very own connection.” Page 39
“Techni[]ue can take a selection of kinds and also be as easy or facility as you pick to (new paragraph) bargain for your details scenario” Page 52
“BDSM stands for chains as well as entry, technique and also supremacy as well as sadism and also masochism.” Page 125
“SHELF means Risk Aware Consensual Kink.” Page 130
“Approval is whatever.” Page 152
“your twist isn’t my twist, yet your twist is OKAY.” Page 153
“You can be a top, base, or button” Page 153
Good service, good book. Just what I was looking for! Thank you!