Howard Smead is a lecturer in History and Afro-American Studies at the University of Maryland and Director of
Night Research at The Washington Post.
Summary
Based on previously unreleased FBI and Justice Department documents, extensive interviews with many of the surviving
principals involved in the case, and a variety of newspaper accounts, Smead meticulously reconstructs the full
story of one of the last lynchings in America, detailing a grim, dramatic, but nearly forgotten episode from the
Civil Rights era.
In 1959, a white mob in Poplarville, Mississippi abducted a young black man named Mack Charles Parker -- recently
charged with the rape of a white woman -- from his jail cell, beat him, carried him across state lines, finally
shot him, and left his body in the Pearl River. A massive FBI investigation ensued, and two grand juries met to
investigate the lynching, yet no arrests were ever made. Smead presents a vivid picture of a small Southern town
gripped by racism and distrust of federal authority, and describes the travesty of justice that followed in the
wake of the lynching. Ultimately revealing more than an account of a single lynching, he offers what he calls "a
glimpse at the tidal forces at work in the South on the eve of the civil rights revolution."
"An engaging study of a shocking crime. It will be a revelation to students reared in our own time with more
enlightened views on race. I'm sure most students will find this book a real page-turner."
-- Daniel P. Murphy, Hanover College
"This meticulous account of an almost forgotten event fills a significant gap in the history of the civil
rights era."
