Tuesday, October 23, 2007

New Book: Lynchings in Mississippi

Lynchings in Mississippi:
A History, 1865-1965
by Julius E. Thompson
364.134 T473L (2007)

In Julius E. Thompson’s new book, one reads of the horrors blacks in Mississippi suffered under white oppression. This book is more than a lynching of the body, but a full force demonstration of the economic, political, and social lynching carried out prior to the Civil Rights Movement.

Written in chronological order, beginning with the “Emancipation Era” and ending with the Civil Rights struggle, Thompson also includes 1966 through 2002 in his seventeen-page “Epilogue.”

This is an extensive academic text full of statistics and quotes; although, too numerical in the first five chapters, a student can easily navigate the index for quick, reference work. Unfortunately, a reader will crave more narrative in the first chapters to gather a sense of the terror and inhumane treatment suffered. Beginning in chapter six, Thompson provides case studies which students will find interesting.

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