Summary Of Dr. Smead's Blood Justice

Dr. Smead’s book, Blood Justice: The Lynching of Mack Charles Parker gives an investigative and in-depth account of one the last lynchings in America. The book tells the story of Mack Charles Parker, an African-American victim of lynching in Poplarville, Mississippi during 1959. Parker is accused of raping a pregnant white woman named June Walters. He is also accused of abducting Walters and her four-year-old daughter Debbie. Eventually, Parker is apprehended and later murdered by an angry mob of the town residents in order to prevent a trial. An immense FBI investigation occurs and two grand juries meet to investigate the case. However, no charges are ever made, even though the identity of all mob members is figured out. In fact, Dr. Smead interestingly points out that since lynchings were not a federal crime,

Smead not only effectively describes the events surrounding Poplarville, Mississippi, but also their context in the larger national pertaining to the political climate of America around the time of 1959, at the eve of the Civil Rights Movement. This can be seen in Chapter 7, “Don’t Let Them Kill Me”. Dr. Smead states that “most Americans already believed Parker guilty if for no other reason than the color of his skin. But Parker's guilt made little difference to the public in its view of the lynching. The nation was outraged by the lynching, not the rape”. He then continues on to say “Southern Mississippians found it very difficult to come to grips with this. Their desperate pleas about interracial rape fell on deaf ears and left them even more isolated in their insistence that rape justified lynching”. In this sense, Blood Justice does an excellent job of portraying the turmoil of America during this time period. One can argue that this event however forgotten know, played if not a significant role, a domino effect role in bringing about the civil rights movement. Dr. Smead shows how the politics of the times gave this case national