There Is a Deep Brooding in Arkansas

The Rape Trials That Sustained Jim Crow, and the People Who Fought It, from Thurgood Marshall to Maya Angelou

Inbunden, Engelska, 2025

346 kr

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Beskrivning

A sweeping study of sexual assault trials in the Jim Crow South, detailing the racial and economic inequities of rape law and the resistance of ordinary women In the early years of the twentieth century, Mississippi County, Arkansas, was a brutal and profitable place. Home to starving, landless farmers, the county produced almost 2 percent of the entire world’s cotton. It was also the site of two rape trials that made national headlines: an accusation that sent two Black men, almost certainly innocent, to death row; and the case of two white men, almost certainly guilty, who were likewise sentenced to death but who would ultimately face a very different fate. Braiding together these stories, Scott W. Stern examines how the Jim Crow legal system relied on selectively prosecuting rape to uphold the racial, gender, and economic hierarchies of the segregated, unequal South. But as much as rape law was a site of oppression, it was also, Stern shows, an arena of fierce resistance. Based on deep archival research, this kaleidoscopic narrative includes new information about the early career of Thurgood Marshall, who called one of the Mississippi County trials “worse than any we have had as yet,” and the anti-rape activism of Maya Angelou, who came of age in Arkansas and whose decision to write about her own sexual assault helped shape a burgeoning movement.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2025-03-25
Mått:156 x 235 x 34 mm
Vikt:814 g
Format:Inbunden
Språk:Engelska
Antal sidor:464
Förlag:Yale University Press
ISBN:9780300273571

Utforska kategorier

Amerikas historia inom Historia och arkeologi

Mer om författaren

Scott W. Stern is a writer, scholar, and public interest lawyer. He is a regular contributor to numerous publications and is the author of The Trials of Nina McCall, a New York Times editor’s choice selection and Boston Globe best book of the year. He lives in Oakland, CA.

Recensioner i media

“[A] powerful new history. . . . Stern focuses on two famous Mississippi County cases to track how sexual violence was legally weaponized.”—Alexis Coe, New York TimesRecipient of the 2026 John William Graves Award, sponsored by the Arkansas Historical Association“With deft sensitivity, Stern rescues from obscurity the vibrant but painfully lived lives of ordinary women enduring abuse from the legal system. Creative, gripping, and moving all at the same time.”—Heather Ann Thompson, author of Blood in the Water“Scott Stern’s brilliant study of unequal justice in Arkansas captures important and underexplored aspects of the handling of rape cases as a means of reinforcing white supremacy and Jim Crow.”—Jeannie Whayne, University Professor, University of Arkansas“A moving narrative and astounding work of historical reconstruction. Prodigious archival research, empathetic judgment, and an eye for detail make for a revelatory account of race, gender, and the law.”—John Fabian Witt, author of Lincoln’s Code“With deep historical context, rich detail, and engrossing narrative, Stern constructs braided narratives of three notable Arkansas cases, making palpable the racially disparate outcomes of rape trials, for those accused and those assaulted.”—Estelle B. Freedman, author of Redefining Rape