Items related to The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, the Supreme...
Synopsis
America after the Civil War was a land of shattered promises and entrenched hatreds. In the explosive South, danger took many forms: white extremists loyal to a defeated world terrorized former slaves, while in the halls of government, bitter and byzantine political warfare raged between Republicans and Democrats. In The Day Freedom Died, Charles Lane draws us vividly into this war-torn world with a true story whose larger dimensions have never been fully explored. Here is the epic tale of the Colfax Massacre, the mass murder of more than sixty black men on Easter Sunday 1873 that propelled a small Louisiana town into the center of the nation s consciousness. As the smoke cleared, the perpetrators created a falsified version of events to justify their crimes. But a tenacious Northern-born lawyer rejected the lies. Convinced that the Colfax murderers must be punished lest the suffering of the Civil War be in vain, U.S. Attorney James Beckwith of New Orleans pursued the killers despite death threats and bureaucratic intrigue - until the final showdown at the Supreme Court of the United States. The ruling that decided the case influenced race relations in the United States for decades.An electrifying piece of historical detective work, The Day Freedom Died brings to life a gallery of memorable characters in addition to Beckwith: Willie Calhoun, the iconoclastic Southerner who dreamed of building a bastion of equal rights on his Louisiana plantation; Christopher Columbus Nash, the white supremacist avenger who organized the Colfax Massacre; William Ward, the black Union Army veteran who took up arms against white terrorists; Ulysses S. Grant, the well-intentioned but beleaguered president; and Joseph P. Bradley, the brilliant justice of the Supreme Court whose political and legal calculations would shape the drama s troubling final act.Charles Lane captures every exciting element of this electrifying saga, from the horror at Colfax, to the political battles that threatened the Grant presidency, to the dramatic courtroom battles that changed history. The Day Freedom Died is a gripping account of the events that gave the Civil War a monumental final chapter and an era in which the often brutal struggle for equality moved from battlefields into communities across the nation.
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Review
“One of the most memorable opening lines in English literature, from Ford Maddox Ford's novel "The Good Soldier", is: ‘This is the saddest story I have ever heard.’ That could be the epigraph for Charles Lane's shattering account of the post-Civil War betrayal of African Americans and the bloody collapse of Reconstruction.”—George F. Will
"A highly impressive, deeply researched, engagingly written account of one of the lowest chapters in U.S. Supreme Court history."—David J. Garrow, author of "Bearing the Cross"
“If you want to understand twentieth century politics, you have to begin at the end of the nineteenth, when the battle lines were drawn not just over civil rights for African Americans, but over what kind of nation this country would become. It all starts here, with the unkept promise of Reconstruction, and Charles Lane has found the perfect narrative—meticulously researched and wonderfully told—to bring the
"One of the most memorable opening lines in English literature, from Ford Maddox Ford's novel "The Good Soldier," is: 'This is the saddest story I have ever heard.' That could be the epigraph for Charles Lane's shattering account of the post-Civil War betrayal of African Americans and the bloody collapse of Reconstruction."--George F. Will
"A highly impressive, deeply researched, engagingly written account of one of the lowest chapters in U.S. Supreme Court history."--David J. Garrow, author of "Bearing the Cross"
"If you want to understand twentieth century politics, you have to begin at the end of the nineteenth, when the battle lines were drawn not just over civil rights for African Americans, but over what kind of nation this country would become. It all starts here, with the unkept promise of Reconstruction, and Charles Lane has found the perfect narrative--meticulously researched and wonderfully told--to bring the story to life."--Nate Blakeslee, author of "Tulia"
"Lane has unearthed a tragic story that shows the real strength of human character and courage, and delivers a riveting account of the bloody struggle for racial equality after the smoke cleared the battlefields in the post-Civil War South."--Jan Crawford Greenburg, author of "Supreme Conflict"
"Charles Lane is one of the most astute observers of the Supreme Court. In this gripping narrative, he proves to be a first rate historical sleuth as well. With psychological and political insight, Lane unforgettably brings to life one of the most shameful episodes in American constitutional history."--Jeffrey Rosen, author of "The Supreme Court"
"In page after riveting page Charles Lane brings to life a massacre and its legal consequences that have been forgotten, ignored, or papered over by history. You'll put this book down amazed at how much you didn't know about race, Reconstruction, and the courts, and profoundly grateful that Lane had both the curiosity and skill to so powerfully fill in
One of the most memorable opening lines in English literature, from Ford Maddox Ford's novel "The Good Soldier," is: This is the saddest story I have ever heard.' That could be the epigraph for Charles Lane's shattering account of the post-Civil War betrayal of African Americans and the bloody collapse of Reconstruction. "George F. Will"
A highly impressive, deeply researched, engagingly written account of one of the lowest chapters in U.S. Supreme Court history. "David J. Garrow, author of Bearing the Cross"
If you want to understand twentieth century politics, you have to begin at the end of the nineteenth, when the battle lines were drawn not just over civil rights for African Americans, but over what kind of nation this country would become. It all starts here, with the unkept promise of Reconstruction, and Charles Lane has found the perfect narrative--meticulously researched and wonderfully told--to bring the story to life. "Nate Blakeslee, author of Tulia"
Lane has unearthed a tragic story that shows the real strength of human character and courage, and delivers a riveting account of the bloody struggle for racial equality after the smoke cleared the battlefields in the post-Civil War South. "Jan Crawford Greenburg, author of Supreme Conflict"
Charles Lane is one of the most astute observers of the Supreme Court. In this gripping narrative, he proves to be a first rate historical sleuth as well. With psychological and political insight, Lane unforgettably brings to life one of the most shameful episodes in American constitutional history. "Jeffrey Rosen, author of The Supreme Court"
In page after riveting page Charles Lane brings to life a massacre and its legal consequences that have been forgotten, ignored, or papered over by history. You'll put this book down amazed at how much you didn't know about race, Reconstruction, and the courts, and profoundly grateful that Lane had both the curiosity and skill to so powerfully fill in the blanks. "Dahlia Lithwick, Slate legal correspondent"
Brilliantly lays bare one of the most unknown but significant contributing events in the fatal collapse of Reconstruction. By transforming exhaustive historical research and detail into a dramatic portrayal of the high-stakes tug of war between racial, political, cultural, and sociological forces of the time, Charles Lane brings insight, urgency, and clarity to the Colfax Massacre. A vital and important contribution to our understanding of our country's history. "Lalita Tademy, author of Red River and Cane River""
"One of the most memorable opening lines in English literature, from Ford Maddox Ford's novel The Good Soldier, is: 'This is the saddest story I have ever heard.' That could be the epigraph for Charles Lane's shattering account of the post-Civil War betrayal of African Americans and the bloody collapse of Reconstruction." --George F. Will
"A highly impressive, deeply researched, engagingly written account of one of the lowest chapters in U.S. Supreme Court history." --David J. Garrow, author of Bearing the Cross
"If you want to understand twentieth century politics, you have to begin at the end of the nineteenth, when the battle lines were drawn not just over civil rights for African Americans, but over what kind of nation this country would become. It all starts here, with the unkept promise of Reconstruction, and Charles Lane has found the perfect narrative--meticulously researched and wonderfully told--to bring the story to life." --Nate Blakeslee, author of Tulia
"Lane has unearthed a tragic story that shows the real strength of human character and courage, and delivers a riveting account of the bloody struggle for racial equality after the smoke cleared the battlefields in the post-Civil War South." --Jan Crawford Greenburg, author of Supreme Conflict
"Charles Lane is one of the most astute observers of the Supreme Court. In this gripping narrative, he proves to be a first rate historical sleuth as well. With psychological and political insight, Lane unforgettably brings to life one of the most shameful episodes in American constitutional history." --Jeffrey Rosen, author of The Supreme Court
"In page after riveting page Charles Lane brings to life a massacre and its legal consequences that have been forgotten, ignored, or papered over by history. You'll put this book down amazed at how much you didn't know about race, Reconstruction, and the courts, and profoundly grateful that Lane had both the curiosity and skill to so powerfully fill in the blanks." --Dahlia Lithwick, Slate legal correspondent
"Brilliantly lays bare one of the most unknown but significant contributing events in the fatal collapse of Reconstruction. By transforming exhaustive historical research and detail into a dramatic portrayal of the high-stakes tug of war between racial, political, cultural, and sociological forces of the time, Charles Lane brings insight, urgency, and clarity to the Colfax Massacre. A vital and important contribution to our understanding of our country's history." --Lalita Tademy, author of Red River and Cane River
About the Author
Charles Lane discovered the Colfax Massacre case while covering the Supreme Court for The Washington Post. His journalism career has taken him from Washington to Tokyo, Berlin and Bosnia, Havana to Johannesburg. A former editor of The New Republic, Lane has written for Foreign Affairs, The New York Review of Books, and The Atlantic. he graduated Phi Beta Kappa from harvard and studied law at Yale. He lives in the Washington, D.C. area.
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