David Bradley (12)

This book was no where near as interesting as the synopsis lead me to believe. I was ready to give up 50 pages in. I was expecting a riveting court room drama, instead I read how Virginia was “outraged” because some northern newspapers said how racist Virginia was. This was countered by the author explaining how a death that was ruled accidental was really a lynching. The title gives away we are dealing with a racist situation. Also, knowing that one of the victims house guests, who left was related to two senators was I felt irrelevant.

In conclusion, too much information bogged this story down before it even got started.… (mais)

Caveat: I have worked in law offices for over thirty years, studied journalism and writing, and love to read histories.

That said, this story deserves a much better writer to tell it. Consider the elements: It involves murder (two women in Virginia), one suspect (an African American former employee), the NAACP, the Scottsboro Case (peripherally), and the grand jury system. Mixed in are federal case law versus state case law, mob justice versus judicial proceedings, lots and lots of prejudices (running both directions), scandal-mongering press and civil rights debates.

What could ruin such a read? A writer who cannot write a simple declarative sentence. A reporter/writer who does not know the grammatical difference between hanging up a coat and a hanged man. A writer who consistently uses "he and him went" or "it's" for "its" or insists on using the pronoun "he" in a paragraph where the defendant, his counsel, opposing counsel, judges, and leaders of the NAACP are all referenced--without saying which "he" is meant.

Because of the nature of the historical aspect of the book I am giving it to our firm library, but it was, quite simply, torture to read.… (mais)

"The Historic Murder Trial of George Crawford: Charles H. Houston, the NAACP, and the Case That Put All-White Southern Juries on Trial" by David Bradley is a true and fascinating look at a regrettably forgotten episode in 1930's American history. It is a tale that is revealing, grotesque, and astounding made all the more mysterious by Mr. Crawford himself.

The story begins in Virginia with the murder of two women, Agnes Ilsley and her housekeeper, Mina Buckner. Neither woman had enemies nor were they the type of woman that attracted the wrong sort of person. Agnes, recently widowed, tried to make the best of her situation by renting out her main house and living in the guest house. Mina lived there also and kept the place up and cooked the meals for the renters who came for the fox hunts and horse races that area of Virginia is still famous for. Agnes' ne'er-do-well brother, Paul Boeing, was also living there and he was the one to discover the horrific scene that morning. Word soon spread that George Crawford had been spotted in the area and he was responsible. George had been hired by Agnes as her chauffeur but was fired for stealing, a not surprising occurrence given his reputation. In spite of the lack of solid evidence, the police made George their prime suspect and spent a year looking for him. Not everyone thought George to be the culprit; many pointed to Boeing due to his proximity to the crime scene, his alleged homosexuality (of all things), and the rumor that he was wanted in Paris for murder. These finger-pointing "allegations" about Boeing proved to be important in the upcoming trial.

What follows is a very well researched and highly detailed (sometimes too much) look at an important trial and the right to a jury of your peers. Until not that long ago, African-American's could not serve on juries and that's the central issue to this case. How can George get a fair trial with an all-white jury in 1933? He insisted that he was in Boston (where they finally caught up with him) and the Judge refused to extradite him simply because of this issue. No extradition, no trial and George walks away a free man. This proved to be just one of the monkey wrenches thrown in the case that make this case as astonishing then as it is now.

The attorneys from the NAACP and other organizations were locked into this trial but woefully unprepared. The push and pull of the police and attorneys in Virginia and those in Massachusetts fought fiercely for justice. How they made it work is truly interesting and eye-opening.

Be prepared for accounts of vile discrimination that culminate in the lynching of innocent men and women. This story from time-to-time is a no holds barred look at the southern United States during a terrible time in our history. Push through those parts to the story of determination, disingenuous confessions, and the jurisprudence system at a time when no one was really held accountable for the truth.

Highly recommended for anyone interested in reading historical non-fiction, the legal system in the early 20th century in the South, and the life, trial, and death of a man that just may not have been guilty.… (mais)

I am not certain that the title of this book is accurate but it is a story that needed to be told. It is

This is the story of how in preparing to defend an accused African American murderer, a group of African American attorneys used the State of Virginia's own prejudices against minorities to ensure the murderer received a fair trial.

In 1932 two women were brutally murdered in their home. The ensuing search for the killer was extensive and exhausting. If the killer would have been caught quickly, due to the prejudices of the time, he would have been lynched. Since it took almost a year to catch the killer, and that he was caught outside of Virginia, the NAACP did their very best to make sure George Crawford was not extradited back to Virginia and to what was felt to be an unfair trial. This story explains the bias of legal wrangling to make sure the accused received a fair trial and in the course of protecting the accused rights, put the prejudices of the southern states in the news.

The end results were the accused admitted to the killings and received a fair trial, and the southern states changed their prejudices against minorities serving on juries.… (mais)