Synopses & Reviews
Foreword by Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow
Afterword by Eric Holder, former U.S. Attorney General
The president of the National Bar Association and one of the most distinguished civil rights attorneys working today reflects on the landmark cases he has battled — including representing Trayvon Martin's family — and offers a disturbing look at how the justice system is used to promote injustice in this memoir and clarion call as shocking and important as the bestsellers Just Mercy and Slavery by Another Name and Ava DuVernay's film 13th.
Benjamin Crump firmly believes in the Constitution and its legal protections — that civil rights legislation covers all Americans, not just those privileged by race, wealth, or pedigree. A fierce and passionate advocate, he has devoted his career to fighting for justice for America's marginalized. Open Season is his inspiring journey working on some of the most egregious cases that have shocked the nation, including those of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown.
Shaped by his first-hand experience handling civil litigation matters in state and federal courts throughout the country, Open Season reveals the often hidden and systemic injustices minorities face, and illuminates how discrimination in the courthouse devastates real families and communities. Chronicling some of his most memorable legal battles, this brilliant litigator shockingly makes clear how our system is devised for certain people to lose and others to win, and, using evidence and facts, exposes how it is legal to harm — with the intent to destroy — people of color.
Crump offers a cogent analysis of legal tenets, including the 13th Amendment, the 1951 Genocide Petition to the United Nations, and controversial Stand Your Ground laws. He compares how race detrimentally influences sentencing, and reveals how police unions protect officers who shoot unarmed civilians. He also makes clear how budget cuts for education, the proliferation of guns, and high unemployment rates all directly contribute to higher crime rates.
America must live up to its promise to protect the rights of its citizens equally, Crump maintains. Thoughtful, well-reasoned, and powerfully persuasive, Open Season details one man's life mission preserving the hard-won justice for all.
Synopsis
Genocide--the intent to destroy in whole or in part, a group of people.
In Open Season, award-winning attorney Ben Crump exposes a heinous truth: Whether with a bullet or a lengthy prison sentence, America is killing black people and justifying it legally. While some deaths make headlines, most are personal tragedies suffered within families and communities. Worse, these killings are done one person at a time, so as not to raise alarm. While it is much more difficult to justify killing many people at once, in dramatic fashion, the result is the same--genocide.
Taking on such high-profile cases as Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and a host of others, Crump witnessed the disparities within the American legal system firsthand and learned it is dangerous to be a black man in America--and that the justice system indeed only protects wealthy white men.
In this enlightening and enthralling work, he shows that there is a persistent, prevailing, and destructive mindset regarding colored people that is rooted in our history as a slaveowning nation. This biased attitude has given rise to mass incarceration, voter disenfranchisement, unequal educational opportunities, disparate health care practices, job and housing discrimination, police brutality, and an unequal justice system. And all mask the silent and ongoing systematic killing of people of color.
Open Season is more than Crump's incredible mission to preserve justice, it is a call to action for Americans to begin living up to the promise to protect the rights of its citizens equally and without question.
Synopsis
Genocide--the intent to destroy in whole or in part, a group of people.
TIME's 42 Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2019
Book Riot's 50 of the Best Books to Read This Fall
As seen on CBS This Morning, award-winning attorney Ben Crump exposes a heinous truth in Open Season: Whether with a bullet or a lengthy prison sentence, America is killing black people and justifying it legally. While some deaths make headlines, most are personal tragedies suffered within families and communities. Worse, these killings are done one person at a time, so as not to raise alarm. While it is much more difficult to justify killing many people at once, in dramatic fashion, the result is the same--genocide.
Taking on such high-profile cases as Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and a host of others, Crump witnessed the disparities within the American legal system firsthand and learned it is dangerous to be a black man in America--and that the justice system indeed only protects wealthy white men.
In this enlightening and enthralling work, he shows that there is a persistent, prevailing, and destructive mindset regarding colored people that is rooted in our history as a slaveowning nation. This biased attitude has given rise to mass incarceration, voter disenfranchisement, unequal educational opportunities, disparate health care practices, job and housing discrimination, police brutality, and an unequal justice system. And all mask the silent and ongoing systematic killing of people of color.
Open Season is more than Crump's incredible mission to preserve justice, it is a call to action for Americans to begin living up to the promise to protect the rights of its citizens equally and without question.
--Reginald Hudlin, writer, director, and producer
About the Author
Benjamin Lloyd Crump is an American attorney at the Tallahassee, Florida-based law firm Ben Crump Law PLLC. Mr. Crump is the current president of the National Bar Association, and is counsel for Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Tamir Rice. He was appointed as the inaugural Board Chairman of the Florida's Big Bend Fair Housing Center, Inc., a Federal Grant organization dedicated to eradicating housing discrimination. He also served as Board Chairman of the Legal Services of North Florida. Mr. Crump is the president and cofounder of MyDad 360, a mentoring program for fathers. For his work, Mr. Crump has been recognized by numerous legal and non-legal organizations. He has been named among The National Trial Lawyers Top 100 Lawyers and the Ebony Magazine Power 100. He is a recipient of the NAACP Thurgood Marshall Award, the SCLC Martin Luther King Servant Leader Award, the National Urban League's Whitney Young Award, the TV One / NAN Triumph Award, and the AKA Eleanor Roosevelt Award.