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The university and the library: Two places I like
I remember how happy and proud I was when I found my name on the shelves at the University of Mary Washington bookstore in Fredericksburg. The year was 1993, and I had agreed to teach there. One of my responsibilities as a new adjunct was to tell the bookstore which texts I would use in…
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Why no mention of the Klan?
The first thing that Daniel de Butts said to me when we met last week was, “Why didn’t you say anything about the Klan in your book?” De Butts assumed that I had been pressured by prominent Fauquier County residents to keep any reference to the Ku Klux Klan out of The Last Lynching in Northern…
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Have thumb drive, will travel
I expected to promote The Last Lynching in Northern Virginia after publication, but I didn’t realize that promotion would take the form that it has. I thought I would go to signings, sit behind a table, and talk to those who wanted to buy the book. I’ve done that and enjoy it very much. But I’m…
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When the topic is lynching, people want to hear
The question was a familiar one, but my answer was new, an admission that I had never made before. Yesterday, at a presentation before the members of Mary Washington ElderStudy, an audience member asked, “Why did you pursue this project?” He and others before him seemed puzzled that I would devote time and energy to…
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One set of facts but two different stories
Tom Davenport and I have worked together on this project for many months. We’ve shared files and photographs and joined forces for more than a dozen interviews. But I’ve always known that the film he’s making will be different than the book I wrote, The Last Lynching in Northern Virginia. Tom has a more complicated story…
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On the flight, death and skull. New details emerge
I knew from my years as a reporter that it was not unusual to hear from key sources after publication. That is what happened with The Last Lynching in Northern Virginia. New sources came forward with new details. In September, two weeks after the book came out, a member of the Shedrick Thompson family wrote…
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The mystery of Martinsburg is solved
Of the many puzzling aspects of the Shedrick Thompson story, one of the most curious is Thompson’s connection to Martinsburg, West Virginia. Why were authorities in Fauquier County so focused on that small West Virginia city? Now, thanks to Julia Mopkins, we know. Within hours of Thompson’s attack on Henry and Mamie Baxley in July…
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‘That’s W.W. Pearson.’
I realized later that I forgot to ask the lady her name. Perhaps I was distracted by the photos she pulled from her notebook during a recent book signing at the Culpeper County Library. She had two black-and-white pictures, one of a man in an overcoat and hat, and the other of the same man,…
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Banned in Warrenton? I hope not
I expected this book to be judged on whether it is informative, entertaining and accurate. I did not expect it to be judged on whether it was “sensitive.” Sensitive? A history book? I bring this up because of an email I received last week from a publicist at History Press, the publisher. She wrote that…
Author & Lecturer
Jim Hall 