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This title in other formats:Fire in a Canebrake: The Last Mass Lynching in Americaby Laura Wexler
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments: On that July evening in 1946, the leader counted aloud and the mob of white men fired. Seconds later, the leader counted again, "One, two, three," and the mob fired once more. After the third and final volley of gunshots, the white men got into their cars and drove off, leaving the bullet-ridden bodies of two young black men and two young black women lying in the dirt near Moore's Ford Bridge in rural Walton County, Georgia. Since that summer evening, there have never been as many victims lynched in a single day in America. Now, more than a half century later, Laura Wexler offers the first full account of the Moore's Ford lynching, a murder so brutal it stunned the nation and motivated President Harry Truman to put civil rights at the forefront of his national agenda. With the style of a novelist, the authority of a historian, and the tenacity of a journalist, Wexler recounts the lynching and the resulting four-month FBI investigation. Drawing from interviews, archival sources, and an uncensored FBI report, she takes us deep into the landscape of 1946 Georgia, creating unforgettable portraits of sharecroppers, sheriffs, bootleggers, the victims, and the men who may have killed them. Fire in a Canebrake pursues the legacy of the Moore's Ford lynching into the present, exploring the conflicting memories of Walton County's black and white citizens and examining the testimony of a white man who claims he was a secret witness to the crime. In 2001, the governor of Georgia issued a new reward for information leading to the arrest of the lynchers. Several suspects named in the FBI's 1946 investigation are still alive, and there is no statute of limitations on the crime of murder. Fire in a Canebrake — a phrase local people used to describe the sound of the fatal gunshots — is a moving and often frightening tale of violence, sex, and lies. It is also a disturbing snapshot of a divided nation on the brink of the civil rights movement and a haunting meditation on race, history, and the struggle for truth. Review:"Smart and highly readable, if much less broad than other recent books, Wexler's account uncovers compelling personal and historic material in equal measure." Publishers Weekly Review:"Fire in a Canebrake is in the tradition of the very best history of American race relations. It's also in the tradition of crime writing so vivid that it surpasses fiction. This is Truman Capote's In Cold Blood with the added fuel of race, sex, and the quirks of Southern culture." Juan Williams, author of Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965 Review:"Only a few daytime feet separated the consciences of the white lynchers from the four bound blacks they were eager to kill. And it is precisely in that tense space where Laura Wexler's disturbing account of the Moore's Ford murders resides. In that terrifying and familiar place we call home." James Allen
author of Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America Review:"Laura Wexler's insightful, well-researched account of the Moore's Ford lynchings of 1946 is a stone that has long been missing from the edifice of modern Southern history." Philip Dray, author of At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America Review:"The power of history is its shelf life, its radioactivity once exposed to light. Laura Wexler's Fire in a Canebrake is an excellent case in point." John Egerton, author of Speak Now Against the Day: The Generation Before the Civil Rights Movement in the South Review:"A searing, masterfully written, meticulous work that shines a brutally honest light on a dark moment from our not-so-distant past. Laura Wexler's page-turner is vivid, engrossing, and stunningly sad. A must-read." David Isay, public radio producer and author of Flophouse: Life on the Bowery Review:"Wexler restores an all-but-forgotten event to our memories and our bones. The details — from the weave of the rope to what the victims ate that day — are so exact and terrible that I winced as I read." Pagan Kennedy
author of Black Livingstone: A True Tale of Adventure in the Nineteenth-Century Congo Synopsis:With this masterfully written historical narrative, a gifted new author chronicles one of the most horrific racial crimes in 20th-century America and offers an unforgettable portrait of a time, a place, and a culture. Photos throughout. Synopsis:Includes bibliographical references (p. [245]-264).
About the AuthorLaura Wexler has published work in The Oxford American, DoubleTake, Utne Reader, and elsewhere. She has taught writing at the University of Georgia and Johns Hopkins University and lives in Baltimore.
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