Philip Dray also tells the story of the men and women who led the long and difficult fight to expose and eradicate lynching, including Ida B. Wells, James Weldon Johnson, Walter White, and W.E.B. Du Bois. If lynching is emblematic of what is worst about America, their fight may stand for what is best: the commitment to justice and fairness and the conviction that one individual’s sense of right can suffice to defy the gravest of wrongs. This landmark book follows the trajectory of both forces over American history—and makes lynching’s legacy belong to us all.
Praise -
“An important and courageous book, well written, meticulously researched, and carefully argued.”—The Boston Globe
“You don’t really know what lynching was until you read Dray’s ghastly accounts of public butchery and official complicity.”—Time
