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Discomfort? Yes, that was a goal
When a friend suggested that Condemned for Love might be banned, I didn’t think much about it. When a second person said the same thing about a week later, I took note. “It struck me again and again how your book would be banned in several states because it tells an ugly truth,” my friend…
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Twice he challenged the lynchers
Of all the characters in Condemned for Love, Colly Pattie strikes me as one of the most interesting. Colly was witness to two lynchings, tried to stop them and failed both times. Colly was 17 and asleep in the family quarters in the county jail in Warrenton when the first lynching occurred. His father, Horace,…
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A single tombstone confirms the spot
One of the curious features of Dr. Augustus Horner’s drawing of the Arthur Jordan lynching is his placement of a single tombstone in his sketch. A single tombstone in the Warrenton Cemetery? The place is enormous. Perhaps Horner meant it as representative of the many other markers there. No, Horner drew what he saw. If…
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A visit to the site of Jordan’s murder
I made a promise to myself early on to be all in for this book-writing adventure, to embrace the discomfort of learning new skills. For example, I’ve had to think and rethink how to structure a 35,000-word story, how to create a worthy deck of PowerPoint slides, and how to master new computer programs. I…
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Mosby chose to defend a corrupt vision
There are more than 8,000 graves in the Warrenton Cemetery, but none is as popular as the grave of Col. John S. Mosby. Mosby’s grave is a place of pilgrimage, a tribute to the famed soldier. And I don’t understand why. Mosby was a legendary Confederate cavalry officer, the “Gray Ghost,” whose guerrilla tactics bedeviled…
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‘Night and Fog’ and Elvira Corder
When Steve Watkins described the German terror tactic, “Night and Fog,” I snapped to attention. Steve is a retired professor at the University of Mary Washington, the author of 12 books and a longtime friend. I sat beside his wife, Janet Watkins, for many years in the newsroom at the Free Lance-Star. Steve and I…
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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…
Author & Lecturer
Jim Hall 