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JFK Has Been Shot
by Charles A. Crenshaw Jens Hansen J. Gary ShawThe &“thrilling, dramatic, historic&” #1 New York Times bestseller by the Parkland Hospital surgeon who fought to save President John F. Kennedy (Robert K. Tanenbaum). On November 22, 1963, Dr. Charles Crenshaw, an accomplished surgeon, tried to save John F. Kennedy&’s life—and then days later, the life of the alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. His gripping, firsthand account contradicts the Warren Commission and years of public misperception to illuminate a chapter in American history long cloaked in conspiracy. Writing with eye-opening immediacy, Dr. Crenshaw takes readers into the emergency room to share the critical events at Parkland Hospital as he lived them. Now updated, his searing testimony punctures myths and shatters a cover-up of massive proportions. &“Hard-hitting, courageous, and correct in every respect.&”—Cyril Wecht, M.D., J.D. "Dr. Crenshaw offers his expert opinion with persuasive evidence. Read this page-turning account of the Kennedy assassination.&”—Robert K. Tanenbaum, Deputy Chief Counsel, Congressional Committee Investigation into the Assassination of President KennedyIncludes revealing photos Previously published as JFK Conspiracy of Silence
JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass
by James DiEugenioBased on Oliver Stone's documentary, JFK Revisited, read the transcripts and interviews that will change the way you think about the John F. Kennedy assassination.JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass contains the two working original screenplays for Oliver Stone&’s JFK Revisited; both the two-hour version, Through the Looking Glass, and the four-hour version, Destiny Betrayed. These films are the first documentaries to feature the work of the Assassination Records Review Board. The Assassination Records Review Board worked from 1994–98 releasing records that the government has classified in whole or in part on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. They ended up releasing about two million pages or approximately sixty thousand documents. They also pursued an investigation into the autopsy and medical evidence in the JFK case. Although their releases and discoveries were quite important to the evidentiary record, they received very little exposure in the mainstream media. They also released documents relating to Kennedy&’s foreign policy in both Cuba and Vietnam. In the former case, these were plans by the Pentagon to create a pretext to invade Cuba. In the latter, documents proved Kennedy was implementing a withdrawal plan from Vietnam. This book is unprecedented. It contains a compendium of information originating from the widest range of authorities on the JFK case ever assembled. This includes luminaries from several fields: pathology, surgery, ballistics, criminal investigation, neurology, history, and journalism. Never before have people like forensic pathologist Cyril Wecht, criminalist Henry Lee, Professor James Galbraith, author David Talbot, journalist Jefferson Morley, intelligence analyst John Newman, Professor Robert Rakove, and more appeared in one book; never have this many illustrious authorities been interviewed about their views on the policies and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The book also includes important witness interviews with Dr. Donald Miller about his colleague Malcolm Perry, Jim Gochenaur of the Church Committee, and Edwin McGehee of both the House Select Committee on Assassinations and the Jim Garrison investigation. The combination of this newly released information plus expert interviews changed the database and calculus of the JFK case. The scripts are included in this book, which were the backbone for Oliver Stone's films. It also includes important excerpts from the many interviews which did not make it into the final cuts of the films. JFK Revisited will challenge everything you thought you know about the JFK assassination.
JFK & UFO
by Kenn ThomasIn 1947 six flying saucers circled above a harbor boat in Puget Sound near Tacoma, Washington, one wobbling and spewing slag. The falling junk killed a dog and burned a boy's arm. His father, Harold Dahl, witnessed it all and brought his partner, Fred Crisman, down the next day to see yet another UFO. The Maury Island incident became the first UFO event of the modern era. In 1968 New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison subpoenaed Fred Crisman as part of his investigation into the JFK assassination, which became the subject of Oliver Stone's 1992 movie JFK. Garrison believed that Crisman was the infamous grassy knoll shooter. He's also the central figure in the "Mystery Tramp" photo of the Dallas rail yard hobos. Illustrated with rare images, JFK & UFO interconnects the lingering mysteries of America's most notorious assassination and its weird ufological subculture. It examines the denizens of the bizarre, semi-spook underground reflecting a stranger and more true history than offered by the mainstream.
Jiaohua: Chinese Ideas and Practices of Moral Transformation (Chinese Culture #13)
by Yingjie GuoThis book explores the single Chinese concept and practice of “shaping the mind through education”—jiaohua—from multi-disciplinary perspectives, with a view to furthering the understanding of jiaohua, and of China more broadly. It proceeds from the assumption that the concept has played a critical role over at least two millennia in what Benjamin Schwartz described as China’s “common socio-political patterns and common cultural orientations” and holds a key to understanding Chinese culture and societies as a whole. Though a large body of scholarship in Chinese and English has shed light on various aspects of the concept, its shifting sociological significance, as it is oriented toward social questions and functions, remains under-examined. The book develops a better understanding of jiaohua on the basis of greater conceptual clarity and a broader perspective than can be found in the extant literature. In considering a range of social domains and various schools of thought on the one hand, and on the other, major shifts in the meaning, functions, and significance of jiaohua from the past to the present, this book is indispensable to students and scholars researching the various facets of Chinese society, philosophy, and culture.
Jihad and Genocide (Studies In Genocide: Religion, History, And Human Rights Ser. #1)
by Richard L RubensteinA study of Islamic fundamentalism, its violent and deadly history, and the questions it raises today. This book examines the relationship between jihad and genocide, past and present. Richard L. Rubenstein takes a close look at the violent interpretations of jihad and how they have played out in the past hundred years, from the Armenian genocide through current threats to Israel. Rubenstein&’s unflinching study of the potential for fundamentalist jihad to initiate targeted violence raises pressing questions in a time when questions of religious co-existence, particularly in the Middle East, are discussed urgently each day. Praise for Jihad and Genocide&“Provocative, important reading for all interested in Arab-Israeli peace and religious coexistence worldwide. Highly recommended.&” —Choice Reviews&“Rubenstein&’s analysis stands the test of time. Thus, attention must be paid to Rubenstein's new work, Jihad and Genocide, which offers a searing analysis of Islamic thought and bleak predictions of its impact. Even those of us who do not share his pessimism, his sense of the inevitability of the path to genocide and war, or his predilection for the political right, must confront the issues he raises.&” —Foreword Reviews
Jihad and its Interpretation in Pre-Colonial Morocco: State-Society Relations during the French Conquest of Algeria
by Amira K. BennisonThis book investigates the importance of waging jihad for legitimacy in pre-colonial Morocco. It counters colonial interpretations of the pre-colonial Moroccan sultanate as hopelessly divided into territories of 'obedience' and 'dissidence' by suggesting that state-society warfare was one aspect of a constant process of political negotiation. Detailed analysis of state and society interpretations of jihad during the critical period of the French conquest of Algeria clearly shows this process at play and its steady evolution in the context of increasing European pressure, which culminated in the imposition of the French protectorate in 1912.
Jihad and the West: Black Flag over Babylon (Encounters: Explorations in Folklore and Ethnomusicology)
by Mark Silinsky&“Expertly weaves the story of the current conflict through the points of view of perpetrators, victims, and nations.&”—Journal of Military History U.S. Department of Defense analyst Mark Silinsky reveals the origins of the Islamic State&’s obsession with the Western world. Once considered a minor irritant in the international system, the Caliphate is now a dynamic and significant actor on the world&’s stage, boasting more than 30,000 foreign fighters from eighty-six countries. Recruits consist not only of Middle-Eastern-born citizens, but also a staggering number of &“Blue-Eyed Jihadists,&” Westerners who leave their country to join the radical sect. Silinsky provides a detailed and chilling explanation of the appeal of the Islamic State and how those abroad become radicalized, while also analyzing the historical origins, inner workings, and horrific toll of the Caliphate. By documenting the true stories of men, women, and children whose lives have been destroyed by the radical group, Jihad and the West presents the human face of the thousands who have been abducted, raped, tortured, and murdered by the Islamic State, including Kayla Mueller, who was kidnapped, given to the Caliphate&’s leader as a sex slave, and ultimately killed.
Jihad Beyond Islam
by Gabriele MarranciJihad' is a highly charged word. Often mistranslated as 'Holy War', it has become synonymous with terrorism. Current political events have entirely failed to take account of the subtlety and complexity of jihad. Like many concepts with a long history, different cultural ideas have influenced the religious aspects of jihad. As a result its original meaning has been adapted, modified and destabilized - never more than at the present time. How does jihad manifest itself in Muslims' everyday lives? What impact has 9/11 and its backlash had on jihad? By observing the current crisis of identity among ordinary Muslims, this timely book explores why, and in what circumstances Muslims speak of jihad. In the end, jihad is what Muslims say it is. Marranci offers us a nuanced and sophisticated anthropological understanding of Muslims' lives far beyond the predictable cliches.A PDF version of this book is available for free in open access via the OAPEN Library platform, www.oapen.org
Jihad in Palestine: Political Islam and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Israeli History, Politics and Society)
by Shaul BartalThe 21st century exists in the shadow of the return of extremist Islam to the center of the world’s political stage, a process that began at the end of the previous century. While researchers have focused on the rise of Hamas, this return has in fact manifested itself in a range of independent Islamic extremist groups with their own philosophies. Jihad in Palestine provides a comprehensive study of the variety of Islamic extremist groups operating inside Israel/Palestine today, examining their philosophies and views concerning martyrdom, as well as their attitudes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. These ideologies are presented in their own words, thanks to the author’s extensive translations and commentary of primary sources in Arabic, including the writings of the Islamic Jihad, al-Jama’a al-Islamiya, Hizbal-Tahrir al-Islami, Hamas and the Islamic Movement. The book studies the attitudes of these organisations towards the fundamental issues surrounding Jihad, including the concept of personal obligation, the relationship of the movement to the peace agreements and attitudes towards Jews expressed in the movement’s writings. Exploring the basic theories of sacrifice and analysing modern day Palestinian society, it promotes a greater understanding of the religious angle of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of Middle East Studies, Jewish Studies, Political Islam and Terrorism & Political Violence.
Jihad in Paradise: Islam and Politics in Southeast Asia
by Mike MillardWritten in an accessible, journalistic style, Jihad in Paradise focuses on Southeast Asia's struggle to deal with Islamic extremists and terrorism at the hands of Jemah Islamiyah, al Qaeda's Southeast Asian arm. Although the book gives particular attention to Singapore's attempts to deal with these issues, the story extends into Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. All of these countries have significant Muslim populations, and recent violent events have affected the business environment, tourism, and the region's tradition of religious tolerance. The author draws on personal interviews with experts in the field as well as key political and religious figures in Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia, including Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, Minister for Muslim Affairs Jaacoub Ibrahim, and expelled Muslim dissident Zulfikar Mohamad Sharif. Millard examines the Bali bombing, Malaysia's conservative Islamic party PAS, the Malaysian province of Kelantan which is a Muslim political hotbed, Abu Saayaf of the Philippines, and Fateha.com and the use of the Internet. He also provides a glimpse of how Singapore, the region's most developed nation, has engineered its society in order to impose a degree of racial and religious tolerance.
Jihad in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Role of Digital Media
by Jonathan Matusitz Doris WesleyThis book examines how jihadist groups in sub-Saharan Africa have managed to advance their extremist agenda and recruit new followers thanks to digital media fueled by the information revolution since the dawn of the 21st century. This examination is based on a mixture of historical accounts, contemporary descriptions, case studies, theoretical applications, and an in-depth applied study (in the late chapters of the manuscript). An important conclusion is that the progress of jihadism in sub-Saharan Africa has been commensurate with the development and availability of digital media. This book breaks new ground in three ways. It is the first major academic work to devote most of its content exclusively to the use of digital media by jihadist groups in that region. Examples of jihadist digital media include social networking sites, online instructional videos, propaganda videos, and online jihadist magazines―among others. Secondly, it provides detailed case studies of both well-knownAfrican groups (e.g., Al-Shabaab, Boko Haram) and lesser-known ones― e.g., the Allied Democratic Forces in the Congo (which have, nevertheless, wreaked so much damage). Lastly, it is the first book to include an in-depth thematic analysis of online jihadist magazines―Inspire, Dabiq, Rumiyah, and Gaidi Mtaani―on their content dedicated to sub-Saharan Africa.
Jihad vs. McWorld
by Benjamin R. BarberJIHAD VS. MCWORLD is an essential text for anyone who wants to understand the challenges facing us after the tragic events of September 11, 2001 and in light of the current conflict in the Middle East. In a groundbreaking work, political scientist Benjamin R. Barber offers a penetrating analysis of the central conflict of our times: consumerist capitalism versus religious and tribal fundamentalism. These diametrically opposed but intertwined forces are tearing apart - and bringing together - the world as we know it, undermining democracy and the nation-state on which it depends. On the one hand, capitalism on the global level is rapidly dissolving the social and economic barriers between nations, transforming the world's diverse populations into a blandly uniform market. On the other hand, ethnic, religious, and racial hatreds are fragmenting the political landscape into smaller and smaller tribal units. JIHAD VS. MCWORLD is the term that Barber has coined to describe the powerful and paradoxical interdependence of these forces. In this important book, now more timely than ever before, he explores the alarming repercussions of this potent dialectic and in his new introduction sketches a democratic response to terrorism.
The Jihadi Next Door: How ISIS Is Forcing, Defrauding, and Coercing Your Neighbor into Terrorism
by Kimberly Mehlman-Orozco Chris SampsonThe recruitment of ISIS terrorists may have begun as an extremist crusade in Iraq, but it has quickly become a global phenomenon that is taking hold of people from diverse backgrounds, cultures, and belief systems. The iconic image of a terrorist as an old, angry, middle-eastern man is long gone. It has since been replaced by young men and women of all races and religious upbringings, in tactical gear and ski masks, carrying heavy artillery. From the outside looking into the Islamic State, most people see these men and women as nothing more than evil terrorists with a psychotic penchant for violence. Internally, they perceive themselves as freedom fighters or mujahedeen, who violate the laws of men to protect their community according to the will of Allah. Ultimately, neither of these perceptions are based in reality. While some experts claim that terrorist recruitment is completely random, criminologist Kimberly Mehlman-Orozco has identified clear patterns which can be used to explain how regular people are being conscripted into terrorism. Using interviews with convicted terrorists, in-depth research and analysis of extremist propaganda, and case-specific details, Dr. Mehlman-Orozco provides nuanced theories into the methods of terrorist recruitment—methods which can be used to identify persons at high risk of being targeted.The Jihadi Next Door provides unprecedented information that can be used to actually combat terrorism. By laying bare the tactics used by ISIS to deceive and exploit new recruits and exposing the veneer these extremists operate under, Dr. Mehlman-Orozco hopes to empower readers with the knowledge needed to prevent future recruitment and thereby preventing acts of terrorism.
Jihadism in the Russian-Speaking World: The Genealogy of a Post-Soviet Phenomenon (Imperial Transformations – Russian, Soviet and Post-Soviet History)
by Danis GaraevThis book contends that the discourses of jihadism in Russia's North Caucasus, and their offshoots in other parts of the Russian Federation, are not just reflections of jihadi ideologies that came from abroad, rather that post-Soviet jihadism is a phenomenon best understood when placed in the broader cultural environment in which it emerged, an environment which comprises the North Caucasus, the whole of Russia, and beyond. It examines how post-Soviet jihadism is also part of global processes, in this case, global jihadism, explores how post-Soviet jihadism bears the imprint of the preceding Soviet context especially in terms of symbols, discursive tools, interpretational frameworks, and dissemination strategies, and discusses how, ironically, Russian-speaking jihadism is an expansionist idea for uniting all Russian regions on a supra-ethnic principle, but an idea that was not born in Moscow or St. Petersburg. Overall, the book demonstrates that Russian-speaking jihadism is a completely new ideology, which nevertheless has its origins in the intellectual and cultural heritage of the Soviet era and in the broader trends of post-Soviet society and culture.
Jihadists and Weapons of Mass Destruction
by Gary Ackerman Jeremy TamsettExplores the Nexus Formed When Malevolent Actors Access Malignant MeansWritten for professionals, academics, and policymakers working at the forefront of counterterrorism efforts, Jihadists and Weapons of Mass Destruction is an authoritative and comprehensive work addressing the threat of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the hands of jihadists,
Jill Johnston in Motion: Dance, Writing, and Lesbian Life
by Clare CroftPerformer, activist, and writer Jill Johnston was a major queer presence in the history of dance and 1970s feminism. She was the first critic to identify postmodernism’s arrival in American dance and was a fierce advocate for the importance of lesbians within feminism. In Jill Johnston in Motion, Clare Croft tracks Johnston’s entwined innovations and contributions to dance and art criticism and activism. She examines Johnston’s journalism and criticism—in particular her Village Voice columns published between 1960 and 1980—and her books of memoir and biography. At the same time, Croft attends to Johnston’s appearances as both dancer and audience member and her physical and often spectacular participation at feminist protests. By bringing together Johnston’s criticism and activism, her writing and her physicality, Croft emphasizes the effect that the arts, particularly dance, had on Johnston’s feminist thinking in the 1970s and traces lesbian feminism’s roots in avant-garde art practice.
Jim and Jap Crow: A Cultural History of 1940s Interracial America
by Matthew M. BrionesFollowing Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the U.S. government rounded up more than one hundred thousand Japanese Americans and sent them to internment camps. One of those internees was Charles Kikuchi. In thousands of diary pages, he documented his experiences in the camps, his resettlement in Chicago and drafting into the Army on the eve of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and his postwar life as a social worker in New York City. Kikuchi's diaries bear witness to a watershed era in American race relations, and expose both the promise and the hypocrisy of American democracy. Jim and Jap Crow follows Kikuchi's personal odyssey among fellow Japanese American intellectuals, immigrant activists, Chicago School social scientists, everyday people on Chicago's South Side, and psychologically scarred veterans in the hospitals of New York. The book chronicles a remarkable moment in America's history in which interracial alliances challenged the limits of the elusive democratic ideal, and in which the nation was forced to choose between civil liberty and the fearful politics of racial hysteria. It was an era of world war and the atomic bomb, desegregation in the military but Jim and Jap Crow elsewhere in America, and a hopeful progressivism that gave way to Cold War paranoia. Jim and Jap Crow looks at Kikuchi's life and diaries as a lens through which to observe the possibilities, failures, and key conversations in a dynamic multiracial America.
Jim Crow Capital: Women and Black Freedom Struggles in Washington, D.C., 1920–1945
by Mary-Elizabeth B. MurphyLocal policy in the nation's capital has always influenced national politics. During Reconstruction, black Washingtonians were first to exercise their new franchise. But when congressmen abolished local governance in the 1870s, they set the precedent for southern disfranchisement. In the aftermath of this process, memories of voting and citizenship rights inspired a new generation of Washingtonians to restore local government in their city and lay the foundation for black equality across the nation. And women were at the forefront of this effort.Here Mary-Elizabeth B. Murphy tells the story of how African American women in D.C. transformed civil rights politics in their freedom struggles between 1920 and 1945. Even though no resident of the nation's capital could vote, black women seized on their conspicuous location to testify in Congress, lobby politicians, and stage protests to secure racial justice, both in Washington and across the nation. Women crafted a broad vision of citizenship rights that put economic justice, physical safety, and legal equality at the forefront of their political campaigns. Black women's civil rights tactics and victories in Washington, D.C., shaped the national postwar black freedom struggle in ways that still resonate today.
Jim Crow (LOA #376): 1876 - 1919: Reconstruction to the Red Summer
by Jim CrowThis collection of 80 dramatic firsthand writings by Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, and others brings to life the struggle for racial justice from the Civil War to World War IA vital resource for the teaching of the history of race in America that traces the ascendency of white supremacy after Reconstruction—and the outspoken resistance to it led by Black Americans and their alliesW.E.B. Du Bois famously identified "the problem of the color-line" as the defining issue in American life. The powerful writings gathered here reveal the many ways Americans, Black and white, fought against white supremacist efforts to police the color line, envisioning a better America in the face of disenfranchisement, segregation, and widespread lynching, mob violence, and police brutality.Jim Crow: Voices from a Century of Struggle, Part One brings together speeches, pamphlets, newspaper and magazine articles, public testimony, judicial opinions, letters, and poems and song lyrics—more than eighty essential texts in all—from the end of Reconstruction in 1876 to the bloody &“Red Summer&” of 1919.The volume includes writing by both famous and lesser known individuals, including:Ida B. Wells on the scourge of lynchingRichard T. Greener&’s scathing critique of America&’s &“White Problem"Charles Chesnutt on the nullification of the Fifteenth AmendmentBooker T. Washington&’s historic Atlanta addressJohn Marshall Harlan&’s eloquent and prophetic dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson;Mary Church Terrell on segregation in the nation&’s capital and the convict lease systemWilliam Monroe Trotter&’s dramatic White House confrontation with Woodrow WilsonJeanette Carter&’s tribute to the men and women who fought back against white mobs in 1919The volume also presents revealing examples of white supremacist advocacy by Nathaniel Shaler and Benjamin Tillman; testimony about the &“Exoduster&” migration to Kansas in the 1870s; celebrations of pathbreaking Black musicians and stage performers; writing about the Wilmington insurrection of 1898, the founding of the NAACP, and Black soldiers in World War I; and contrasting editorials from the Black and white press on prizefighter Jack Johnson and the outlaw Robert Charles.As the teaching of our nation&’s history, especially the history of race in America, becomes increasingly contested, this book will serve as a vital resource, a crucial reminder of where we&’ve been, how far we&’ve come, and how long the road ahead remains.
The Jim Crow Routine
by Stephen A. BerreyThe South's system of Jim Crow racial oppression is usually understood in terms of legal segregation that mandated the separation of white and black Americans. Yet, as Stephen A. Berrey shows, it was also a high-stakes drama that played out in the routines of everyday life, where blacks and whites regularly interacted on sidewalks and buses and in businesses and homes. Every day, individuals made, unmade, and remade Jim Crow in how they played their racial roles--how they moved, talked, even gestured. The highly visible but often subtle nature of these interactions constituted the Jim Crow routine.In this study of Mississippi race relations in the final decades of the Jim Crow era, Berrey argues that daily interactions between blacks and whites are central to understanding segregation and the racial system that followed it. Berrey shows how civil rights activism, African Americans' refusal to follow the Jim Crow script, and national perceptions of southern race relations led Mississippi segregationists to change tactics. No longer able to rely on the earlier routines, whites turned instead to less visible but equally insidious practices of violence, surveillance, and policing, rooted in a racially coded language of law and order. Reflecting broader national transformations, these practices laid the groundwork for a new era marked by black criminalization, mass incarceration, and a growing police presence in everyday life.
Jim Crow Wisdom
by Jonathan Scott HollowayHow do we balance the desire for tales of exceptional accomplishment with the need for painful doses of reality? How hard do we work to remember our past or to forget it? These are some of the questions that Jonathan Scott Holloway addresses in this exploration of race memory from the dawn of the modern civil rights era to the present. Relying on social science, documentary film, dance, popular literature, museums, memoir, and the tourism trade, Holloway explores the stories black Americans have told about their past and why these stories are vital to understanding a modern black identity. In the process, Holloway asks much larger questions about the value of history and facts when memories do violence to both.Making discoveries about his own past while researching this book, Holloway weaves first-person and family memories into the traditional third-person historian's perspective. The result is a highly readable, rich, and deeply personal narrative that will be familiar to some, shocking to others, and thought-provoking to everyone.
Jim Crow's Children
by Peter IronsIn 1954 the U. S. Supreme Court sounded the death knell for school segregation with its decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. So goes the conventional wisdom. Weaving together vivid portraits of lawyers and such judges as Thurgood Marshall and Earl Warren, sketches of numerous black children throughout history whose parents joined lawsuits against Jim Crow schools, and gripping courtroom drama scenes, Irons shows how the erosion of the Brown decision--especially by the Court's rulings over the past three decades--has led to the "resegregation" of public education in America. .
Jim Crow's Last Stand: Nonunanimous Criminal Jury Verdicts in Louisiana
by Thomas AielloThe last remnant of the racist Redeemer agenda in the Louisiana's legal system, the nonunanimous jury-verdict law permits juries to convict criminal defendants with only ten out of twelve votes. A legal oddity among southern states, the ordinance has survived multiple challenges since its ratification in 1880. Despite the law's long history, few are aware of its existence, its original purpose, or its modern consequences. At a time when Louisiana's penal system has fallen under national scrutiny, Jim Crow's Last Stand presents a timely, penetrating, and concise look at the history of this law's origins and its troubling legacy. The nonunanimous jury-verdict law originally allowed a guilty verdict with only nine juror votes, funneling many of those convicted into the state's burgeoning convict lease system. Yet the law remained on the books well after convict leasing ended. Historian Thomas Aiello describes the origins of the statute in Bourbon Louisiana-a period when white Democrats sought to redeem their state after Reconstruction-its survival through the civil rights era of the 1950s and 1960s, and the Supreme Court's decision in Johnson v. Louisiana (1972), which narrowly validated the state's criminal conviction policy. Spanning over a hundred years of Louisiana law and history, Jim Crow's Last Stand investigates the ways in which legal policies and patterns of incarceration contribute to a new form of racial inequality.
Jim Crow’s Last Stand: Nonunanimous Criminal Jury Verdicts in Louisiana
by Thomas AielloA remnant of the racist post-Reconstruction Redeemer sociopolitical agenda, Louisiana’s nonunanimous jury-verdict law permitted juries to convict criminal defendants with only nine, and later ten, out of twelve votes: a legal oddity. On the surface, it was meant to speed convictions. In practice, the law funneled many convicts—especially African Americans—into Louisiana’s burgeoning convict lease system. Although it faced multiple legal challenges through the years, the law endured well after convict leasing had ended. Few were aware of its existence, let alone its original purpose. In fact, the original publication of Jim Crow’s Last Stand was one of the first attempts to call attention to the historical injustice caused by this law. This updated edition of Jim Crow’s Last Stand unpacks the origins of the statute in Bourbon Louisiana, traces its survival through the civil rights era, and ends with the successful effort to overturn the nonunanimous jury practice, a policy that officially went into effect on January 1, 2019.
The Jim Dilemma: Reading Race in Huckleberry Finn
by Jocelyn A. ChadwickEspecially in academia, controversy rages over the merits or evils of Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, in particular its portrayal of Jim, the runaway slave. Opponents disrupt classes and carry picket signs, objecting with strong emotion that Jim is no fit model for African American youth of today. In continuing outcries, they claim that he and the dark period of American history he portrays are best forgotten. That time has gone, Jim's opponents charge. This is a new day. But is it? Dare we forget? The author of The Jim Dilemma argues that Twain's novel, in the tradition of all great literature, is invaluable for transporting readers to a time, place, and conflict essential to understanding who we are today. Without this work, she argues, there would be a hole in American history and a blank page in the history of African Americans. To avoid this work in the classroom is to miss the opportunity to remember. Few other popular books have been so much attacked, vilified, or censored. Yet Ernest Hemingway proclaimed Twain's classic to be the beginning of American literature, and Langston Hughes judged it as the only nineteenth-century work by a white author who fully and realistically depicts an unlettered slave clinging to the hope of freedom. A teacher herself, the author challenges opponents to read the novel closely. She shows how Twain has not created another Uncle Tom but rather a worthy man of integrity and self-reliance. Jim, along with other black characters in the book, demands a rethinking and a re-envisioning of the southern slave, for Huckleberry Finn, she contends, ultimately questions readers' notions of what freedom means and what it costs. As she shows that Twain portrayed Jim as nobody's fool, she focuses her discussion on both sides of the Jim dilemma and unflinchingly defends the importance of keeping the book in the classroom.