Justice Delayed

 

Blood Justice: The Lynching of Mack Charles Parker by Howard Smead Book Description: Based on previously unreleased FBI and Justice Department documents, extensive interviews with many of the surviving principals involved in the case, and a variety of newspaper accounts, Smead meticulously reconstructs the full story of one of the last lynchings in America, detailing a grim, dramatic, but nearly forgotten episode from the Civil Rights era.  In 1959, a white mob in Poplarville, Mississippi abducted a young black man named Mack Charles Parker--recently charged with the rape of a white woman--from his jail cell, beat him, carried him across state lines, finally shot him, and left his body in the Pearl River. A massive FBI investigation ensued, and two grand juries met to investigate the lynching, yet no arrests were ever made. Smead presents a vivid picture of a small Southern town gripped by racism and distrust of federal authority, and describes the travesty of justice that followed in the wake of the lynching. Ultimately revealing more than an account of a single lynching, he offers what he calls "a glimpse at the tidal forces at work in the South on the eve of the civil rights revolution."  Paperback from Oxford University Press Book Published: March, 1988

Never Too Late : A Prosecutor's Story of Justice in the Medgar Evars Case
by Bobby DeLaughter
Listed under Medgar Evers
 

Leavenworth Train: A Fugitive's Search for Justice in the Vanishing West by Joe Jackson Renowned for violence and lawlessness, the American frontier was in reality a safe and orderly region, at least by 19th-century standards. Alcoholism and suicide were persistent troubles, and, to be sure, the occasional murder or crime against property troubled the populace. Still, such things did not happen often, and when they did, justice was swift and punishment severe. Frank Grigware, the protagonist of Joe Jackson's swift-moving Leavenworth Train, learned all this the hard way. Not particularly bright, plagued by hard luck, the young man devoted himself to petty thievery, scratching out a dishonest living in the rough mining towns of the Northwest. His fortunes turned still worse when he fell into the company of a gang of suspected train robbers. Charged as an accomplice to their crimes on what Jackson considers to be less than solid evidence, he was packed off to the Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary to serve a long sentence. He didn't remain behind bars for long, however. He and three fellow convicts escaped by hijacking a supply train, and Grigware kept running until he reached Canada, where he took up residence and lived out a long life. His identity was eventually revealed, and American officials--among them J. Edgar Hoover--demanded to have him returned. To reveal who won would spoil Jackson's story. In telling it, Jackson relies heavily on imagined dialogue, and his prose is sometimes overly mannered ("instead of a cave of gold, they found a grimy cell," "everyone danced Death's crazy reel"). Still, his tale is full of unlikely twists that keep it moving along nicely, and fans of Western history and true crime alike will enjoy reading it. --Gregory McNamee - Amazon.com Paperback from Carroll & Graf Book Published: September, 2002

Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela Paperback from Back Bay Books Book Published: 01 October, 1995

Mississippi Mud : Southern Justice and the Dixie Mafia by Edward Humes Biloxi, Mississippi, has a "strip" of nightclubs and casinos where prostitution, drugs, and crooked gambling flourish unchecked. An older couple who thought they were retiring to a quiet seaside town got too deeply involved with local politics and the Dixie Mafia and were murdered. The investigation would've sunk beneath the muddy swirl of graft and business as usual but for the tenacious efforts of the victims' daughter. Despite death threats and indifferent law enforcement officials, she hired a private detective and swore to do whatever it took to bring her parents' killers to trial. Horror/suspense writer Peter Straubfinds the story reminiscent of Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen: "Like those writers, Edward Humes can make the wild, amoral, scheming sleazoids he parades before our eyes all but sing and dance on the page. Here is America, fat and happy, both hands crammed into the till." Mississippi Mud was a 1995 finalist for the Edgar Award in Fact Crime. Amazon.com Mass Market Paperback from Pocket Books Book Published: 01 December, 1995

Phoenix: Justice Delayed: How Britain Became a Refuge for Nazi War Criminals by David Cesarani Paperback from Phoenix Press, London WC2 Book Published: June, 2001

 
 
 
 

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