There Is a Deep Brooding in Arkansas: The Rape Trials That Sustained Jim Crow, and the People Who Fought It, from Thurgood Marshall to Maya Angelou

Stern, Scott W.

ISBN 10: 0300273576 / ISBN 13: 9780300273571

Published by Yale University Press (edition ), 2025

About this Item

It's a well-cared-for item that has seen limited use. The item may show minor signs of wear. All the text is legible, with all pages included. It may have slight markings and/or highlighting.

Seller Inventory # 0300273576-8-1

Bibliographic Details

• Title: There Is a Deep Brooding in Arkansas: The Rape Trials That Sustained Jim Crow, and the People Who Fought It, from Thurgood Marshall to Maya Angelou
• Publisher: Yale University Press (edition )
• Publication Date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0300273576
• ISBN 13: 9780300273571
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

A sweeping study of sexual assault trials in the Jim Crow South, detailing the racial and economic inequities of rape law and the resistance of ordinary women
 
In the early years of the twentieth century, Mississippi County, Arkansas, was a brutal and profitable place. Home to starving, landless farmers, the county produced almost 2 percent of the entire world’s cotton. It was also the site of two rape trials that made national headlines: an accusation that sent two Black men, almost certainly innocent, to death row; and the case of two white men, almost certainly guilty, who were likewise sentenced to death but who would ultimately face a very different fate. Braiding together these stories, Scott W. Stern examines how the Jim Crow legal system relied on selectively prosecuting rape to uphold the racial, gender, and economic hierarchies of the segregated, unequal South. But as much as rape law was a site of oppression, it was also, Stern shows, an arena of fierce resistance.
 
Based on deep archival research, this kaleidoscopic narrative includes new information about the early career of Thurgood Marshall, who called one of the Mississippi County trials “worse than any we have had as yet,” and the anti-rape activism of Maya Angelou, who came of age in Arkansas and whose decision to write about her own sexual assault helped shape a burgeoning movement.

About the Author

Scott W. Stern is a writer, scholar, and public interest lawyer. He is a regular contributor to numerous publications and is the author of The Trials of Nina McCall, a New York Times editor’s choice selection and Boston Globe best book of the year. He lives in Oakland, CA.