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

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.

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

African Americans.

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

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

Trials (Rape).

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

United States.

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.

Physical Description:

xii, 450 pages ; 25 cm.

Other Title:

Rape trials that sustained Jim Crow, and the people who fought it, from Thurgood Marshall to Maya Angelou

Place of Publication:

New Haven ; London : Yale University Press, [2025]

Summary:

"A 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 two 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" -- From publisher's website.

Contents:

The making of a Cotton County, 1541-1927

The law of rape, 1820-1920s

Vigilantism and resistance, 1899-1930s

A Jim Crow childhood, 1930s

Bethel and Wallace, 1928

Class War, 1929-1935

Clayton and Carruthers, 1935

Mr. Freeman, mid-1930s

The trial begins, 1929

The trial begins, 1935

Pearl testifies, 1929

Virgie testifies, 1935

Marguerite testifies, mid-1930s

The origins of an advocate, 1908-1933

The witnesses testify, 1929

The witnesses testify, 1935

The recovery, 1930s-1953

The rape docket, 1930s

Bethel and Wallace testify, 1929

Clayton and Carruthers testify, 1935

The ascent, 1954-1968

The anti-rape docket, 1930s

The trial ends, 1929

The trial ends, 1935

Taking flight, 1968-1969

The appeal, 1935-1936

Seeking mercy, seeking clemency, 1929-1936

The appeal, 1937-1939

The end, 1939

Maya Angelou, 1970s

Frank Bethel, 1931-1952

Mike Wallace, 1931-1983

Pearl, 1929-

Virgie, 1936-2005

Bubbles Clayton, 1939-

Jim X. Carruthers, 1939-

Thurgood Marshall, 1977.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 353-432) and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Stern, Scott W., 1993- There is a deep brooding in Arkansas.

ISBN:

9780300273571

0300273576

OCLC:

1449672488