The Leo Frank Case

In the novel A Lesson Before Dying, written by Ernest J. Gaines in 1993, Grant Higgins struggles with the idea of criminal justice in the south during the 1940s. During this time in Bayonne, LA African Americans did not receive the same justice as whites. In this quotation one can see the discrimination, “Twelve white men say a black man must die, and another white man sets the date and time without consulting one black person. Justice?” (Gaines 157).

“The “violence” that must take place in Southern literature is often a final resort of the character when all other alternatives have failed”

Through his incredible array of sourcing that includes both primary and secondary sourcing, there is much to take away from this book that previous works do not include. While there are brief areas of criticism that can be stated about this book, Walter Johnson provides the literature of the Old South with a comprehensive, yet a refreshing take on the importance and devastation of

In his seminal book, Honor and Violence in the Old South, historian Bertram Wyatt-Brown argues that southern society differed from the northern states in three respects, what honor truly meant in the north vs. the south, honor as it related to southern whites, and the role of the woman in the household, that, Wyatt-Brown argues, always existed. Southerners adhered to this moral code that is termed the rule of honor. In defining an ethical institution that was omnipresent among a select few individuals in the south, the author argues that northern notions of honor differed significantly from how honor was perceived in the south. In the north, “honor… became akin to respectability, a word that included freedom from licit vices that once were signals of masculinity.” Drawing on a rich source of literature that is unbiased, Wyatt-Brown contends that the system of honor in the south differed ostensibly, as honor was “an encoded system, a matter of interchanges between the individual and the community to which he or she belonged.”

1849 to 1910 was an important time for America. Reforms were happening all across the board, affecting workers, African Americans, and children. It was also very crucial for women’s rights – voting rights in particular. This period saw the beginning of the women’s suffrage movement; however, it also marked the start of anti-suffrage. During this time, society was divided with one of the simplest and most complicated questions of the era: what is the proper role of women?

The act of Norfolk Mayor of being irrational roused Governor Floyd’s upheaval. Amid the insurgence of Nat Turners, the frenzy of the Norfolk Mayor was put by bits of gossip and suppositions that the present uprising was an extensive, effective occasion. Slaves in Virginia, far outnumbered the white populace and an across the board rebellion could demonstrate terrible to the whites. The Governors resentment was halfway vanity and in addition pride.

Thirty miles off U.S. Highway one in the small town of Alston, GA, Alexander Rivera, Jr. found himself interviewing the newly widowed Sallie Nixon in a chauffer outfit as a reporter for the Pittsburgh Courier in 1948. Her late husband, Isaiah Nixon, a turpentine worker and a father of six, had been shot three times on their front porch for voting in the Democratic Primary. Even before the interview, Alexander Rivera knew that a small town faced with the murder of a black man would be enraged and torn by the act of racial violence. Living in the Jim Crow South as a traveling reporter for the Pittsburgh Courier, Alexander Rivera was used to the act of concealing his identity to garner crucial information on trials, lynching’s and murders done to African Americans. “Something told me, I don’t know what the something was to go dressed as a chauffeur” Alexander Rivera explained, “It was easier traveling as a chauffeur because everybody figured that you worked with somebody important”.

We, as a nation, faced many changes however the South, especially, endured an abundant amount of transformations. Transformations included events such as, the Civil War, Reconstruction, the New South, and the impact the New South had post its time period. The New South’s time period, in particular, engendered transformation within the South, and also had a tremendous impact on the South, until the beginning of the 20th century. The term the ‘New South’ emerged, after 1877. Henry W. Grady, editor of the Atlanta Constitution, coined the term ‘New South’.

To summarize this article, Tawana Brawley was an innocent 15-year-old girl that viciously been gang raped by six man one described as a cop. Her fragile body was found smeared with manure. Tawana later became a symbol, representing the unequal Justice for African Americans. Her story received many attention and was given lifelong donations that would benefit her in the future, but justice was never fought for this blameless girl. Nevertheless, When Rev. Al Sharpton, Alton Maddox Jr., and C. Vernon Mason took on her case that would be the beginning of the end to finding justice for Tawana.

In Suzanne Lebsock’s A Murder in Virginia, 2003, the judicial proceedings of a court case are depicted after a women, Lucy Pollard, was found brutally slain in her own backyard. Most would think this to be a simple illustration of a murder trial, but this case comes with a twist. The twist is that the murder took place in rural Virginia in 1895. This is a time period that is characterized as post Reconstruction but before the implementation of the Jim Crow Laws. Being a Confederate state shortly after the Civil War, one would believe that race relations in Virginia would be extremely tumultuous, but this case just happens to fall in a small window of time in which relationships were surprisingly harmonious.

Dr. Smead’s book, Blood Justice: The Lynching of Mack Charles Parker gives an investigative and in-depth account of one the last lynchings in America. The book tells the story of Mack Charles Parker, an African-American victim of lynching in Poplarville, Mississippi during 1959. Parker is accused of raping a pregnant white woman named June Walters. He is also accused of abducting Walters and her four-year-old daughter Debbie. Eventually, Parker is apprehended and later murdered by an angry mob of the town residents in order to prevent a trial.

With determination and the passion burning within them, women and African Americans alike, had reached the right for suffrage. In the 1820’s the role of a women was to stay home

Even though Leibowitz realized the unfairness within the trial of Scottosboro case, Wright kept his onslaught. By arguing that Ruby Bates’ statement about the jury of her trip in New York City wasn’t understandable since some parts were explained in the Jew Language, he kept consequent comments for denying Leibowitz’s motion for a mistrial. Even he said that because he had been prosecuting cases in the Alabama court for long enough to know that he could use sectionalism in the court. People from outside of the region reacted different ways, such as NAACP and the I.L.D, Internaitonal Labor Defense. Sectionalism of south that was structured by the South’s regional culture definitely made this Scottsboro case to be a tragedy.

The media is illuminating racial relations in the South and they are showing how people in the North are being treated. When people in the North sees how the segregationists are treating African Americans in the South, they support the side of integration. In “A Mighty Long Way”, Carlotta said that, “Finally one of them delivered a crushing blow to the back of Wilson”s head with an heavy object believed to be a brick” (pg.85 Lanier). People are seeing how white racists are attacking African-Americans.

Amara Crook Harmon—L202 Major Paper 3 Clever Title Countee Cullen’s “Incident” explores the concept of unprovoked and unwarranted racism through the eyes of an eight-year-old boy. In his short yet powerful poem, Cullen uses a single incident in which a young boy “riding through old Baltimore” (1) is singled out and called the N-word by another very small child, despite having done or said nothing to offend the boy. Although this incident is clearly hurtful, why is this incident in particular so important?