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‘Impossible Love’ will arrive soon
The page proofs arrived last week, so my contribution to a new book on lynching in Virginia will soon be a reality. The University of Virginia Press will publish Lynching in Virginia: Racial Terror and its Legacy this spring. Prof. Gianluca De Fazio, an associate professor at James Madison University, is the editor. De Fazio
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Book is latest requiem for lynch victims
Ida Wells-Barnett, a fierce, 19th-century critic of lynching, once listened to a reading of lynching victim names and said, “They had no requiem save the night wind, no memorial service to bemoan their sad and horrible fate.” Now, in many corners of the region and in many different ways, lynch victims are being remembered. Silence
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Library of Virginia adds lynching site
Researchers who study lynchings in Virginia have a new database to work with. The Lynching and Racial Violence Collection went online in May. It is a collaboration of the Library of Virginia and Gianluca De Fazio, an associate professor of justice studies at James Madison University. The collection spans 1866-1932 and includes court records and
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With a thump, the books arrive
I checked at the front door several times last week to see if the package had arrived. Finally, on Friday morning, I heard a thump on the steps and looked out to see the brown UPS truck at the curb. My books were there. My contract with History Press says I am to receive five
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Hoping readers enjoy a good mystery
One of the uncomfortable moments in a newspaper reporter’s life is when you’re out somewhere, say grocery shopping at Giant, and a reader approaches. “I liked your story about my mother,” the reader might say. When this happened to me, I braced because I could hear a “but” coming. “I liked your story about my
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Evil, unrelenting evil
The research I did for Condemned for Love in Old Virginia took me to some of the darkest corners of our state’s history, places I had heard about but never explored. When a student at Germanna Community College asked me recently what surprised me most about this journey, I answered with two words, “the evil.”
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Let’s (not) talk about money
I was surprised when the librarian in Hagerstown, Md., asked about my speaking fee. That almost never happens. I have agreed to talk at the Washington County Free Library this October as part of its McCauley Lecture Program. The library is interested in Condemned for Love, my new book, because a portion of it takes
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Slavery and Nathan Corder
Nathan Corder was the person most responsible for Arthur Jordan’s murder. He was also an enslaver from a long line of enslavers. Was there a link between the two? Did Corder’s past lead to his later cruelty? In his 1845 autobiography, Frederick Douglass, a former enslaved person, said that slavery was harmful to both enslaver
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I wish I’d said that
One of the curious aspects of book publishing occurs toward the end of the process, when the publisher sends you copies of the pages of your new book. The pages look exactly as they will in the finished book. The author’s job is to read them one more time and sign a statement saying that
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Can a white man talk about the Black experience?
During a talk at Germanna Community College in February, a student asked me a question I have long considered. She wanted to know if I as a white man had the standing to talk about the prejudice experienced by Black people. I answered, yes, I believe I do. I realize that as a white man
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Handwriting so bad even AI can’t crack it
It happens often, as it did this month in Hagerstown, Md., when a person asked me, “What about Elvira? What happened to her?” Elvira and her disappearance are the most mysterious aspect of the Arthur Jordan story. For me, however, Dr. Gustavus Horner has second place locked down. As I recounted in Condemned for Love,
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New U.Va. book to include Jordan story
I know the rule: Don’t draw conclusions from a small sample size. But I’m tempted to do so, given my experience with two types of publishers, a commercial publisher and an academic one. I see the one, the commercial publisher, as similar to a rocket-docket court system: Move ’em in, move ’em out. The other,
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The Maryland connection
As the title says, Condemned for Love is a Virginia story. But after preparing for last night’s talk in Hagerstown, I realized how much it is also a Maryland story. I revised my deck of PowerPoint slides before appearing at the Washington County Free Library. I was part of its McCauley Lecture Program, and I
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The start is somewhere in the middle
“The rumble of the horses woke the dog first, and the dog woke Charles Martin.” I started Condemned for Love in Old Virginia with that sentence and decided last week to start my talk that way too. I was to speak at the Afro-American Historical Association of Fauquier and wanted to try something different. Usually,
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Elvira? To her, only one possibility
I tried, goodness knows I tried. I spent months if not years trying to figure out what happened to Elvira Corder. The best I could do was an educated guess, speculation born of all that research. That’s why I’m so surprised when I meet someone who speaks with certainty about Elvira’s fate. It’s happened twice,
Author & Lecturer
Jim Hall 