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 / Scott W. Stern.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stern, Scott W., 1993- author.

Series:

Yale Law Library series in legal history and reference.

Yale Law Library series in legal history and reference

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Racism in criminal justice administration--Arkansas--History--20th century.

Racism in criminal justice administration.

Discrimination in criminal justice administration--Arkansas--History--20th century.

Discrimination in criminal justice administration.

Trials (Rape)--Arkansas--History--20th century.

Trials (Rape).

African Americans--Legal status, laws, etc--Arkansas--History--20th century.

African Americans.

African Americans--Civil rights--United States--History--20th century.

Rape--Law and legislation--Arkansas--History--20th century.

Rape.

Rape victims--Legal status, laws, etc--Arkansas--History--20th century.

Rape victims.

Racism in criminal justice administration--History--20th century.

United States--Race relations--History--20th century.

United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 450 pages).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press, [2025]

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Cover

Half Title

Title

Copyright

Dedication

Contents

Author's Note

Introduction

Part I. Down South

1. The Making of a Cotton County, 1541-1927

2. The Law of Rape, 1820-1920s

3. Vigilantism and Resistance, 1899-1930s

4. A Jim Crow Childhood, 1930s

Part II. Arrests

5. Bethel and Wallace, 1928

6. Class War, 1929-1935

7. Clayton and Carruthers, 1935

8. Mr. Freeman, Mid-1930s

Part III. Trials

9. The Trial Begins, 1929

10. The Trial Begins, 1935

11. Pearl Testifies, 1929

12. Virgie Testifies, 1935

13. Marguerite Testifies, Mid-1930s

14. The Origins of an Advocate, 1908-1933

15. The Witnesses Testify, 1929

16. The Witnesses Testify, 1935

17. The Recovery, 1930s-1953

18. The Rape Docket, 1930s

19. Bethel and Wallace Testify, 1929

20. Clayton and Carruthers Testify, 1935

21. The Ascent, 1954-1968

22. The Anti-Rape Docket, 1930s

23. The Trial Ends, 1929

24. The Trial Ends, 1935

Part IV. Appeals and Demands

25. Taking Flight, 1968-1969

26. The Appeal, 1935-1936

27. Seeking Mercy, Seeking Clemency, 1929-1936

28. The Appeal, 1937-1939

29. The End, 1939

Part V. Afterlives

30. Maya Angelou, 1970s

31. Frank Bethel, 1931-1952

32. Mike Wallace, 1931-1983

33. Pearl, 1929-

34. Virgie, 1936-2005

35. Bubbles Clayton, 1939-

36. Jim X. Carruthers, 1939-

37. Thurgood Marshall, 1977

Epilogue

Notes

Acknowledgments

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9780300281583

0300281587

OCLC:

1481793084