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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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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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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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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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‘No requiem, save the night wind’
One of the many things that enraged civil right advocate Ida B. Wells about lynching was the lack of remembrance for the victims. For Wells, the deaths were bad enough, but the shame and terror that accompanied those deaths were worse. “They had no requiem, save the night wind, no memorial service to bemoan their
Author & Lecturer
Jim Hall 