Race, Rights, and Rifles

Race, Rights, and Rifles

Author: Alexandra Filindra

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2023-09-26

Total Pages: 395

ISBN-13: 0226828751

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An eye-opening examination of the ties between American gun culture and white male supremacy from the American Revolution to today. One-third of American adults—approximately 86 million people—own firearms. This is not just for protection or hunting. Although many associate gun-centric ideology with individualist and libertarian traditions in American political culture, Race, Rights, and Rifles shows that it rests on an equally old but different foundation. Instead, Alexandra Frilindra shows that American gun culture can be traced back to the American Revolution when republican notions of civic duty were fused with a belief in white male supremacy and a commitment to maintaining racial and gender hierarchies. Drawing on wide-ranging historical and contemporary evidence, Race, Rights, and Rifles traces how this ideology emerged during the Revolution and became embedded in America’s institutions, from state militias to the National Rifle Association (NRA). Utilizing original survey data, Filindra reveals how many White Americans —including those outside of the NRA’s direct orbit—embrace these beliefs, and as a result, they are more likely than other Americans to value gun rights over voting rights, embrace antidemocratic norms, and justify political violence.


Book Synopsis Race, Rights, and Rifles by : Alexandra Filindra

Download or read book Race, Rights, and Rifles written by Alexandra Filindra and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2023-09-26 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An eye-opening examination of the ties between American gun culture and white male supremacy from the American Revolution to today. One-third of American adults—approximately 86 million people—own firearms. This is not just for protection or hunting. Although many associate gun-centric ideology with individualist and libertarian traditions in American political culture, Race, Rights, and Rifles shows that it rests on an equally old but different foundation. Instead, Alexandra Frilindra shows that American gun culture can be traced back to the American Revolution when republican notions of civic duty were fused with a belief in white male supremacy and a commitment to maintaining racial and gender hierarchies. Drawing on wide-ranging historical and contemporary evidence, Race, Rights, and Rifles traces how this ideology emerged during the Revolution and became embedded in America’s institutions, from state militias to the National Rifle Association (NRA). Utilizing original survey data, Filindra reveals how many White Americans —including those outside of the NRA’s direct orbit—embrace these beliefs, and as a result, they are more likely than other Americans to value gun rights over voting rights, embrace antidemocratic norms, and justify political violence.

Race, Rights, and Rifles

Race, Rights, and Rifles

Author: Alexandra Filindra

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2023

Total Pages: 395

ISBN-13: 022682876X

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"One-third of American adults-some 86 million people-own firearms. This is not just for protection or hunting. Today it is common to associate US gun-centric ideology with individualist and libertarian traditions in American political culture, but Race, Rights, and Rifles shows that gun-centric ideology rests on a very old, but different foundation-a belief system dating back to the American Revolution that fuses republican notions of civic duty with a belief in white male supremacy and a commitment to maintaining racial and gender hierarchies. Alexandra Filindra calls this belief system ascriptive martial republicanism because it combines republican ideals of civic virtue with an exclusionary vision of citizenship and an emphasis on martial preparedness over other forms of civic participation and service. Drawing on wide-ranging historical and contemporary evidence, Race, Rights, and Rifles traces how this ideology emerged during the Revolution and became embedded in America's institutions, from state militias to the National Rifle Association (NRA). Although no longer a dominant ideology, ascriptive republicanism remains a potent force in American politics, and the NRA is a critical vector of its influence. New survey data shows that many White Americans -including those outside of the NRA's direct orbit-understand citizenship in ascriptive martial republican terms. This ideology is a robust predictor of gun ownership, support for the NRA, and beliefs that guns are a sign of good citizenship. Moreover, those who embrace this ideology are more likely than others to value gun rights over voting rights, to embrace antidemocratic norms, and to justify political violence"--


Book Synopsis Race, Rights, and Rifles by : Alexandra Filindra

Download or read book Race, Rights, and Rifles written by Alexandra Filindra and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2023 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "One-third of American adults-some 86 million people-own firearms. This is not just for protection or hunting. Today it is common to associate US gun-centric ideology with individualist and libertarian traditions in American political culture, but Race, Rights, and Rifles shows that gun-centric ideology rests on a very old, but different foundation-a belief system dating back to the American Revolution that fuses republican notions of civic duty with a belief in white male supremacy and a commitment to maintaining racial and gender hierarchies. Alexandra Filindra calls this belief system ascriptive martial republicanism because it combines republican ideals of civic virtue with an exclusionary vision of citizenship and an emphasis on martial preparedness over other forms of civic participation and service. Drawing on wide-ranging historical and contemporary evidence, Race, Rights, and Rifles traces how this ideology emerged during the Revolution and became embedded in America's institutions, from state militias to the National Rifle Association (NRA). Although no longer a dominant ideology, ascriptive republicanism remains a potent force in American politics, and the NRA is a critical vector of its influence. New survey data shows that many White Americans -including those outside of the NRA's direct orbit-understand citizenship in ascriptive martial republican terms. This ideology is a robust predictor of gun ownership, support for the NRA, and beliefs that guns are a sign of good citizenship. Moreover, those who embrace this ideology are more likely than others to value gun rights over voting rights, to embrace antidemocratic norms, and to justify political violence"--

Dying of Whiteness

Dying of Whiteness

Author: Jonathan M. Metzl

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 2019-03-05

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 1541644964

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A physician's "provocative" (Boston Globe) and "timely" (Ibram X. Kendi, New York Times Book Review) account of how right-wing backlash policies have deadly consequences -- even for the white voters they promise to help. In election after election, conservative white Americans have embraced politicians who pledge to make their lives great again. But as physician Jonathan M. Metzl shows in Dying of Whiteness, the policies that result actually place white Americans at ever-greater risk of sickness and death. Interviewing a range of everyday Americans, Metzl examines how racial resentment has fueled progun laws in Missouri, resistance to the Affordable Care Act in Tennessee, and cuts to schools and social services in Kansas. He shows these policies' costs: increasing deaths by gun suicide, falling life expectancies, and rising dropout rates. Now updated with a new afterword, Dying of Whiteness demonstrates how much white America would benefit by emphasizing cooperation rather than chasing false promises of supremacy. Winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award


Book Synopsis Dying of Whiteness by : Jonathan M. Metzl

Download or read book Dying of Whiteness written by Jonathan M. Metzl and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2019-03-05 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A physician's "provocative" (Boston Globe) and "timely" (Ibram X. Kendi, New York Times Book Review) account of how right-wing backlash policies have deadly consequences -- even for the white voters they promise to help. In election after election, conservative white Americans have embraced politicians who pledge to make their lives great again. But as physician Jonathan M. Metzl shows in Dying of Whiteness, the policies that result actually place white Americans at ever-greater risk of sickness and death. Interviewing a range of everyday Americans, Metzl examines how racial resentment has fueled progun laws in Missouri, resistance to the Affordable Care Act in Tennessee, and cuts to schools and social services in Kansas. He shows these policies' costs: increasing deaths by gun suicide, falling life expectancies, and rising dropout rates. Now updated with a new afterword, Dying of Whiteness demonstrates how much white America would benefit by emphasizing cooperation rather than chasing false promises of supremacy. Winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award

This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed

This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed

Author: Charles E. Cobb

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 2014-06-03

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0465080952

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Visiting Martin Luther King, Jr. at the peak of the civil rights movement, the journalist William Worthy almost sat on a loaded pistol. “Just for self-defense,” King assured him. One of King's advisors remembered the reverend's home as “an arsenal.” Like King, many nonviolent activists embraced their constitutional right to self-protection—yet this crucial dimension of the civil rights struggle has been long ignored. In This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed, civil rights scholar Charles E. Cobb, Jr. reveals how nonviolent activists and their allies kept the civil rights movement alive by bearing—and, when necessary, using—firearms. Whether patrolling their neighborhoods, garrisoning their homes, or firing back at attackers, these men and women were crucial to the movement's success, as were the weapons they carried. Drawing on his firsthand experiences in the Southern Freedom Movement and interviews with fellow participants, Cobb offers a controversial examination of the vital role guns have played in securing American liberties.


Book Synopsis This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed by : Charles E. Cobb

Download or read book This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed written by Charles E. Cobb and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2014-06-03 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Visiting Martin Luther King, Jr. at the peak of the civil rights movement, the journalist William Worthy almost sat on a loaded pistol. “Just for self-defense,” King assured him. One of King's advisors remembered the reverend's home as “an arsenal.” Like King, many nonviolent activists embraced their constitutional right to self-protection—yet this crucial dimension of the civil rights struggle has been long ignored. In This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed, civil rights scholar Charles E. Cobb, Jr. reveals how nonviolent activists and their allies kept the civil rights movement alive by bearing—and, when necessary, using—firearms. Whether patrolling their neighborhoods, garrisoning their homes, or firing back at attackers, these men and women were crucial to the movement's success, as were the weapons they carried. Drawing on his firsthand experiences in the Southern Freedom Movement and interviews with fellow participants, Cobb offers a controversial examination of the vital role guns have played in securing American liberties.

The Second

The Second

Author: Carol Anderson

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2021-06-01

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 1635574269

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From the New York Times bestselling author of White Rage, an unflinching, critical new look at the Second Amendment and how it has been engineered to deny the rights of African Americans since its inception. In The Second, historian and award-winning, bestselling author of White Rage Carol Anderson powerfully illuminates the history and impact of the Second Amendment, how it was designed, and how it has consistently been constructed to keep African Americans powerless and vulnerable. The Second is neither a “pro-gun” nor an “anti-gun” book; the lens is the citizenship rights and human rights of African Americans. From the seventeenth century, when it was encoded into law that the enslaved could not own, carry, or use a firearm whatsoever, until today, with measures to expand and curtail gun ownership aimed disproportionately at the African American population, the right to bear arms has been consistently used as a weapon to keep African Americans powerless--revealing that armed or unarmed, Blackness, it would seem, is the threat that must be neutralized and punished. Throughout American history to the twenty-first century, regardless of the laws, court decisions, and changing political environment, the Second has consistently meant this: That the second a Black person exercises this right, the second they pick up a gun to protect themselves (or the second that they don't), their life--as surely as Philando Castile's, Tamir Rice's, Alton Sterling's--may be snatched away in that single, fatal second. Through compelling historical narrative merging into the unfolding events of today, Anderson's penetrating investigation shows that the Second Amendment is not about guns but about anti-Blackness, shedding shocking new light on another dimension of racism in America.


Book Synopsis The Second by : Carol Anderson

Download or read book The Second written by Carol Anderson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the New York Times bestselling author of White Rage, an unflinching, critical new look at the Second Amendment and how it has been engineered to deny the rights of African Americans since its inception. In The Second, historian and award-winning, bestselling author of White Rage Carol Anderson powerfully illuminates the history and impact of the Second Amendment, how it was designed, and how it has consistently been constructed to keep African Americans powerless and vulnerable. The Second is neither a “pro-gun” nor an “anti-gun” book; the lens is the citizenship rights and human rights of African Americans. From the seventeenth century, when it was encoded into law that the enslaved could not own, carry, or use a firearm whatsoever, until today, with measures to expand and curtail gun ownership aimed disproportionately at the African American population, the right to bear arms has been consistently used as a weapon to keep African Americans powerless--revealing that armed or unarmed, Blackness, it would seem, is the threat that must be neutralized and punished. Throughout American history to the twenty-first century, regardless of the laws, court decisions, and changing political environment, the Second has consistently meant this: That the second a Black person exercises this right, the second they pick up a gun to protect themselves (or the second that they don't), their life--as surely as Philando Castile's, Tamir Rice's, Alton Sterling's--may be snatched away in that single, fatal second. Through compelling historical narrative merging into the unfolding events of today, Anderson's penetrating investigation shows that the Second Amendment is not about guns but about anti-Blackness, shedding shocking new light on another dimension of racism in America.

The Hidden History of Guns and the Second Amendment

The Hidden History of Guns and the Second Amendment

Author: Thom Hartmann

Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers

Published: 2019-06-04

Total Pages: 195

ISBN-13: 1523086017

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“In this precise primer on firearms practices and policies, progressive talk-show host Hartmann examines the history of routine gun usage and extreme gun violence and assesses the influence of gun ownership on contemporary political, economic, and social norms…A brief but powerful analysis of a searing national crisis.” —Booklist Thom Hartmann, the most popular progressive radio host in America and a New York Times bestselling author, looks at the real history of guns in America and what we can do to limit both their lethal impact and the power of the gun lobby. Taking his typically in-depth, historically informed view, Hartmann examines the brutal role guns have played in American history, from the genocide of the Native Americans to the enforcement of slavery (Slave Patrols are in fact the Second Amendment's “well-regulated militias”) and the racist post–Civil War social order. He shows how the NRA and conservative Supreme Court justices used specious logic to invent a virtually unlimited individual right to own guns, which has enabled the ever-growing number of mass shootings in the United States. But Hartmann also identifies a handful of powerful, commonsense solutions that would break the power of the gun lobby and restore the understanding of the Second Amendment that the Framers of the Constitution intended. This is the kind of brief, brilliant analysis for which Hartmann is justly renowned.


Book Synopsis The Hidden History of Guns and the Second Amendment by : Thom Hartmann

Download or read book The Hidden History of Guns and the Second Amendment written by Thom Hartmann and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2019-06-04 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “In this precise primer on firearms practices and policies, progressive talk-show host Hartmann examines the history of routine gun usage and extreme gun violence and assesses the influence of gun ownership on contemporary political, economic, and social norms…A brief but powerful analysis of a searing national crisis.” —Booklist Thom Hartmann, the most popular progressive radio host in America and a New York Times bestselling author, looks at the real history of guns in America and what we can do to limit both their lethal impact and the power of the gun lobby. Taking his typically in-depth, historically informed view, Hartmann examines the brutal role guns have played in American history, from the genocide of the Native Americans to the enforcement of slavery (Slave Patrols are in fact the Second Amendment's “well-regulated militias”) and the racist post–Civil War social order. He shows how the NRA and conservative Supreme Court justices used specious logic to invent a virtually unlimited individual right to own guns, which has enabled the ever-growing number of mass shootings in the United States. But Hartmann also identifies a handful of powerful, commonsense solutions that would break the power of the gun lobby and restore the understanding of the Second Amendment that the Framers of the Constitution intended. This is the kind of brief, brilliant analysis for which Hartmann is justly renowned.

Gunfight

Gunfight

Author: Ryan Busse

Publisher: Public Affairs

Published: 2023-04-25

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781541768741

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A former firearms executive pulls back the curtain on America's multibillion-dollar gun industry, exposing how it fostered extremism and racism, radicalizing the nation and bringing cultural division to a boiling point. As an avid hunter, outdoorsman, and conservationist-all things that the firearms industry was built on-Ryan Busse chased a childhood dream and built a successful career selling millions of firearms for one of America's most popular gun companies. But blinded by the promise of massive profits, the gun industry abandoned its self-imposed decency in favor of hardline conservatism and McCarthyesque internal policing, sowing irreparable division in our politics and society. That drove Busse to do something few other gun executives have done: he's ending his 30-year career in the industry to show us how and why we got here. Gunfight is an insider's call-out of a wild, secretive, and critically important industry. It shows us how America's gun industry shifted from prioritizing safety and ethics to one that is addicted to fear, conspiracy, intolerance, and secrecy. It recounts Busse's personal transformation and shows how authoritarianism spreads in the guise of freedom, how voicing one's conscience becomes an act of treason in a culture that demands sameness and loyalty. Gunfight offers a valuable perspective as the nation struggles to choose between armed violence or healing.


Book Synopsis Gunfight by : Ryan Busse

Download or read book Gunfight written by Ryan Busse and published by Public Affairs. This book was released on 2023-04-25 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A former firearms executive pulls back the curtain on America's multibillion-dollar gun industry, exposing how it fostered extremism and racism, radicalizing the nation and bringing cultural division to a boiling point. As an avid hunter, outdoorsman, and conservationist-all things that the firearms industry was built on-Ryan Busse chased a childhood dream and built a successful career selling millions of firearms for one of America's most popular gun companies. But blinded by the promise of massive profits, the gun industry abandoned its self-imposed decency in favor of hardline conservatism and McCarthyesque internal policing, sowing irreparable division in our politics and society. That drove Busse to do something few other gun executives have done: he's ending his 30-year career in the industry to show us how and why we got here. Gunfight is an insider's call-out of a wild, secretive, and critically important industry. It shows us how America's gun industry shifted from prioritizing safety and ethics to one that is addicted to fear, conspiracy, intolerance, and secrecy. It recounts Busse's personal transformation and shows how authoritarianism spreads in the guise of freedom, how voicing one's conscience becomes an act of treason in a culture that demands sameness and loyalty. Gunfight offers a valuable perspective as the nation struggles to choose between armed violence or healing.

The Six-Shooter State

The Six-Shooter State

Author: Jonathan Obert

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018-10-18

Total Pages: 291

ISBN-13: 1316515141

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Public and private forms of violence have co-evolved rather than competed in America's political development since the nineteenth century.


Book Synopsis The Six-Shooter State by : Jonathan Obert

Download or read book The Six-Shooter State written by Jonathan Obert and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-18 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Public and private forms of violence have co-evolved rather than competed in America's political development since the nineteenth century.

The Second

The Second

Author: Carol Anderson

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2023-03-07

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 1635574285

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From the New York Times bestselling author of White Rage, an unflinching, critical new look at the Second Amendment and how it has been engineered to deny the rights of African Americans since its inception-now with a new introduction and afterword from the author. In The Second, historian and award-winning, bestselling author of White Rage Carol Anderson powerfully illuminates the history and impact of the Second Amendment, how it was designed, and how it has consistently been constructed to keep African Americans powerless and vulnerable. The Second is neither a “pro-gun” nor an “anti-gun” book; the lens is the citizenship rights and human rights of African Americans. From the seventeenth century, when it was encoded into law that the enslaved could not own, carry, or use a firearm whatsoever, until today, with measures to expand and curtail gun ownership aimed disproportionately at the African American population, the right to bear arms has been consistently used as a weapon to keep African Americans powerless--revealing that armed or unarmed, Blackness, it would seem, is the threat that must be neutralized and punished. Throughout American history to the twenty-first century, regardless of the laws, court decisions, and changing political environment, the Second has consistently meant this: That the second a Black person exercises this right, the second they pick up a gun to protect themselves (or the second that they don't), their life--as surely as Philando Castile's, Tamir Rice's, Alton Sterling's--may be snatched away in that single, fatal second. Through compelling historical narrative merging into the unfolding events of today, Anderson's penetrating investigation shows that the Second Amendment is not about guns but about anti-Blackness, shedding shocking new light on another dimension of racism in America.


Book Synopsis The Second by : Carol Anderson

Download or read book The Second written by Carol Anderson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-03-07 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the New York Times bestselling author of White Rage, an unflinching, critical new look at the Second Amendment and how it has been engineered to deny the rights of African Americans since its inception-now with a new introduction and afterword from the author. In The Second, historian and award-winning, bestselling author of White Rage Carol Anderson powerfully illuminates the history and impact of the Second Amendment, how it was designed, and how it has consistently been constructed to keep African Americans powerless and vulnerable. The Second is neither a “pro-gun” nor an “anti-gun” book; the lens is the citizenship rights and human rights of African Americans. From the seventeenth century, when it was encoded into law that the enslaved could not own, carry, or use a firearm whatsoever, until today, with measures to expand and curtail gun ownership aimed disproportionately at the African American population, the right to bear arms has been consistently used as a weapon to keep African Americans powerless--revealing that armed or unarmed, Blackness, it would seem, is the threat that must be neutralized and punished. Throughout American history to the twenty-first century, regardless of the laws, court decisions, and changing political environment, the Second has consistently meant this: That the second a Black person exercises this right, the second they pick up a gun to protect themselves (or the second that they don't), their life--as surely as Philando Castile's, Tamir Rice's, Alton Sterling's--may be snatched away in that single, fatal second. Through compelling historical narrative merging into the unfolding events of today, Anderson's penetrating investigation shows that the Second Amendment is not about guns but about anti-Blackness, shedding shocking new light on another dimension of racism in America.

Arc of Justice

Arc of Justice

Author: Kevin Boyle

Publisher: Henry Holt and Company

Published: 2007-04-01

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 1429900164

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An electrifying story of the sensational murder trial that divided a city and ignited the civil rights struggle In 1925, Detroit was a smoky swirl of jazz and speakeasies, assembly lines and fistfights. The advent of automobiles had brought workers from around the globe to compete for manufacturing jobs, and tensions often flared with the KKK in ascendance and violence rising. Ossian Sweet, a proud Negro doctor-grandson of a slave-had made the long climb from the ghetto to a home of his own in a previously all-white neighborhood. Yet just after his arrival, a mob gathered outside his house; suddenly, shots rang out: Sweet, or one of his defenders, had accidentally killed one of the whites threatening their lives and homes. And so it began-a chain of events that brought America's greatest attorney, Clarence Darrow, into the fray and transformed Sweet into a controversial symbol of equality. Historian Kevin Boyle weaves the police investigation and courtroom drama of Sweet's murder trial into an unforgettable tapestry of narrative history that documents the volatile America of the 1920s and movingly re-creates the Sweet family's journey from slavery through the Great Migration to the middle class. Ossian Sweet's story, so richly and poignantly captured here, is an epic tale of one man trapped by the battles of his era's changing times. Arc of Justice is the winner of the 2004 National Book Award for Nonfiction.


Book Synopsis Arc of Justice by : Kevin Boyle

Download or read book Arc of Justice written by Kevin Boyle and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2007-04-01 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An electrifying story of the sensational murder trial that divided a city and ignited the civil rights struggle In 1925, Detroit was a smoky swirl of jazz and speakeasies, assembly lines and fistfights. The advent of automobiles had brought workers from around the globe to compete for manufacturing jobs, and tensions often flared with the KKK in ascendance and violence rising. Ossian Sweet, a proud Negro doctor-grandson of a slave-had made the long climb from the ghetto to a home of his own in a previously all-white neighborhood. Yet just after his arrival, a mob gathered outside his house; suddenly, shots rang out: Sweet, or one of his defenders, had accidentally killed one of the whites threatening their lives and homes. And so it began-a chain of events that brought America's greatest attorney, Clarence Darrow, into the fray and transformed Sweet into a controversial symbol of equality. Historian Kevin Boyle weaves the police investigation and courtroom drama of Sweet's murder trial into an unforgettable tapestry of narrative history that documents the volatile America of the 1920s and movingly re-creates the Sweet family's journey from slavery through the Great Migration to the middle class. Ossian Sweet's story, so richly and poignantly captured here, is an epic tale of one man trapped by the battles of his era's changing times. Arc of Justice is the winner of the 2004 National Book Award for Nonfiction.