It portrays how times have changed for white and African Americans in the American justice system. Suzanne Lebsock did a very thorough job of explain through a story of how different the courts acted depending on a person’s race. It shows the discrimination people showed to other people who were not like them. The way that Lebsock wrote the book is a little confusing at times, because she goes back and forth between ways of explaining a subject. Also, she repeats the same trial base line throughout the entire book, in thus repeating a majority of the book multiple times.
She wrote the book from her personal perspective of a political activist and member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which she joins while at Tougaloo College. During her time at college, three of her most personally impactful university experiences with regard to her social and political consciousness were her joining the NAACP, the particularly violent incident at the bus station, and the historical sit-in at the Woolworth's counter.
A quote from the book is”But as it was, we also had to worry about the Jefferson Davis school bus sooming from behind and splashing us with the murky waters of the road”. This quote is important because it shows a lot about how they treated people back than just because of a color. It is also important because it shows how much racism there was back in the day. Little Man got it by the bus and was so mad he came home and said “They
Many may believe that black men are the spark of the movement, but they are brainless figureheads that are praised off the backs of black women. Black women are the match that started the fire but aren’t given credit. What I love most about this book is that it gives credit to those fearless black women such as Rosa Parks, who basically organized the entire civil war movement. She did all this for what? To be belittle by a man?
"A Murder in Virginia: Southern Justice on Trial" by Suzanne Lebsock is a compelling and thought-provoking book that explores the murder of Lucy Pollard, a white woman, in 1895 in rural Virginia. The book offers a detailed examination of the trial and the events that followed, shedding light on the complexities of race, gender, and justice in the American South during this time period. The author retells the events leading up to the murder, the investigation, and the trial. The book offers insight into the legal system at the time, including the role of juries, the prosecution and defense, and the role of the press.
In today’s court system, you are innocent until proven guilty. However, this is not how it always was, and in the times of the Salem witch trials, many innocent people were accused of witchcraft and unjustly punished. This event repeated itself during the “Red Scare” that took place in America due to the cold war. During that time, people were not accused of witchcraft, but rather siding with the communists; an equally heinous crime for the time period. Whether proven guilty or not, the accused people lost their jobs and way of life.
She was ridiculed by the police officers and they swore at her. (NPR) Claudette was treated as a "thing". Colvin was a strong person and a huge risk-taker. Colvin was scared because she knew there were punishments like lynchings and cross-burnings for what she did. (NPR)
According to Lia Parisyan of Literature Analysis, “a turning point of the Civil Rights struggle came when a woman named Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of a bus.” The use of a bus as a setting alludes to one of the key points of the historical context. According to Enotes.com , the bus “[allows] …passengers to reveal their various social prejudices.” Even Julian, who “[is] free of prejudice” is not immune: “he [has tried] to strike up an acquaintance on the bus with some of the better types.” By doing so, the author shows that there was still underlying tension in society despite the desegregation.
Mamie specifically wrote this book to tell her son’s story, representing hope and forgiveness, which revealed the sinister and illegal punishments of the south. She wanted to prevent this horrendous tragedy from happening to others. The purpose of the book was to describe the torment African Americans faced in the era of Jim Crow. It gives imagery through the perspective of a mother who faced hurt, but brought unity to the public, to stand up for the rights of equal treatment. This book tells how one event was part of the elimination of racial segregation.
To support how overwhelmed with pleasure she also writes, ”. . .not only confronting the one white man whose seat you took, not only confronting the bus driver, not only for confronting the law. . .” She utilizes repletion in order to emphasize the importance of Parks’ actions. The repetition displayed helps the reader realize the massive impact Rosa Parks had on the African Americans.
Not everybody has the ability to attain liberty and justice when corruption exists. Arthur Miller, the author of the play The Crucible, corrupts several characters although the court has absolute power over the people of Salem. For example, the Putnams speak to Parris about the murders of their seven babies, and Mrs. Putnam pleads with Reverend Parris, “I take it on my soul, but who else may surely tell us what person murdered my babies? [...] They were murdered, Mr. Parris!
Although, many people that were condemned weren’t actually apart of the Communist Party, (under McCarthyism around 1950-1954) they got blacklisted or lost their jobs. This social injustice is also portrayed in The Crucible as its characters face the Salem Witch Trials. Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible as his own reaction to the injustice of McCarthyism. Miller’s purpose was to show how people accused each other with false denunciations because of their fear, jealousy and solely hatred of one another under McCarthyism.
(Source A). This shows that Rosa Parks was arrested because she was standing up against segregation. This also shows that because of segregation she was forced to sit in the back of the bus to give white people the front seats. In addition in the reading its states that all black people had to sit away from white people and even had to take different routes than white people (Source A). This shows that Segregation was common in everyday life and they were treated unfairly.
With the development of a huge surplus population living in these concentration camps, the German officials had to figure out what to do with these people. First, they tried to use the concentrated Jews as labor slaves for the German War Machine. They were worked to death in factories built on-site at the concentration camps. The German company I. G. Farben invested over one million dollars (converted into 1978 dollars) into Auschwitz (Rubenstein 59). If the Jews refused to work, they would have been killed anyways in the camp for various reasons.
The lynching of Jube Benson The Short story, “The lynching of Jube Benson”, by the African-American writer Paul Laurence Dunbar, takes place in the southern parts of the USA in the 1900s, which is at the same time as the emancipation of the slaves. More accurately, the story takes place in Gordon Fairfax’s library, where three men were present; Handon Gay, who is an educated reporter, Gordon Fairfax, who is an library owner and Doctor Melville, who is a doctor. The author collocate these three men at jobs which is powerful in the society. The story is about a white narrator, Doctor Melville, who explains, to the two others, that he has been involved in a lynching of his black friend, Jube Benson.
