'On the Laps of Gods,' by Robert Whitaker
Dear colleagues,
On Tuesday, September 23rd, at 5:00pm in Dewberry Hall, Fall for the Book will be hosting a reading and discussion by author Robert Whitaker. Whitaker has recently published a book, On the Laps of Gods, which I found extraordinarily stimulating. He tells the story of an enormous race riot in Arkansas in 1919, which eventually led the Supreme Court in 1921 to reassert and invigorate the Fourteenth Amendment, which had been pushed aside in the Jim Crow era. I hope you and your students will consider attending this session, which I hope, will be as good as the book.
Jack R. Censer
Dean, College of Humanities
and Social Sciences
George Mason University
(703) 993-8720
On the Laps of Gods: The Red Summer of 1919 and the Struggle for Justice That Remade a Nation (By Robert Whitaker) Crown; 386 pages; $24.95
Book Review by: Katherine Marino (Sunday, July 27, 2008)
In the summer of 1919, a wave of labor strikes, lynchings and anti-communist violence swept the nation's cities, from Omaha and Chicago to Washington, D.C. The nadir of this "red summer" occurred in Phillips County, Ark., in the small town of Elaine on the Mississippi Delta, where more than 100 black sharecroppers were brutally murdered over three days. Award-winning journalist Robert Whitaker unearths this tragedy and its legal aftermath in vivid detail in his compelling new book, "On the Laps of Gods: The Red Summer of 1919 and the Struggle for Justice that Remade a Nation."
The "Elaine Massacre" erupted when the town's black sharecroppers organized to secure a more equitable price for their cotton. To counteract the unjust debt peonage system that long victimized them, they formed the Progressive Farmers and Household Union and gathered to discuss legal counsel. Hearing that sharecropper union members were meeting for "communist" purposes in a church close to Elaine, the town sheriff and his agents arrived at the site, and opened fire on the men who stood guard. When a white man was shot, Elaine's residents retaliated fiercely, not only with gruesome mob violence, but also with machine-gun-wielding U.S. federal troops instructed to kill any black people who showed signs of resistance. In the end, five white men and almost 200 black men, women and children were dead.
The town indicted more than 100 black people for the murder of the white men, and the Arkansas state court sentenced 12 sharecroppers to death by electrocution. A five-year legal battle ensued, involving trials, hearings and disclosures of prisoner confessions induced by torture. The action was led by the NAACP, which sent reporter Walter White to investigate, and brilliant black Little Rock attorney Scipio Africanus Jones, who emerges as the real hero of Whitaker's story.
Born a slave, Jones had "pulled himself up by his own bootstraps," becoming one of the country's most successful black lawyers. Using his professional clout to champion the equal rights of his race, he was driven by a life philosophy that fused the conflicting ideas of W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington. Jones recognized that the Elaine prisoners had not received their constitutionally guaranteed due process and protested the Arkansas state court's violation of the defendants' Fourteenth Amendment rights. Despite the fact that the generally conservative U.S. Supreme Court had long distanced itself from state proceedings, and never before dismissed a verdict in a state criminal trial for "unfair" proceedings, Jones' last-ditch effort to file a writ of habeas corpus was, astoundingly, successful. Guided by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Moore v. Dempsey established the principle that a mob-dominated trial in a state court was invalid, and the 12 men were ultimately freed.
Whitaker reveals the great triumph and significance of this case by richly contextualizing its place in American legal history. He roots the massacre and its national trial into the larger story of the Supreme Court's shaping of national politics. Focusing especially on Reconstruction-era Supreme Court decisions, Whitaker demonstrates how a series of 1870s cases reduced the Fourteenth Amendment to a symbolic but largely meaningless gesture for social and civic equality, and paved the way for the state-sponsored terrorism in Arkansas. He also argues, somewhat simplistically, that the most substantial factors contributing to Reconstruction's demise were these Supreme Court cases, "after [which] the other causes of America's long decline ... lined up like dominoes," obscuring a more complex alchemy of political, economic, social and cultural forces that also importantly contributed to Reconstruction's end.
Nevertheless, Whitaker's book is a deeply researched and evocatively written history that deserves to be widely read. He has uncovered a long-overlooked story that challenges triumphalist narratives of U.S. democracy. "On the Laps of Gods" begs reconsideration, as well, of America's 1960s civil rights movement. Its roots, Whitaker suggests, can be found in the political activism of Elaine's organizing sharecroppers and in Jones, a visionary figure who successfully altered the course of American justice. {sbox}
Katherine Marino is a graduate student of history at Stanford. E-mail her at books@sfchronicle.com.
From the Campus Scene
At freshmen orientation, the newest members of the Mason Nation performed a rite of passage: signing a bench on the Quad. Photo by Nicholas Tan
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Alumni Association News |
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Join members of the Black Alumni Chapter (BAC) on August 28 as they support the National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC) in introducing new students to Black Greek Life. Black Alumni Greeks can meet the current collegiate chapter members before the big “step show” in April 2009. BAC will also have book award information available. MORE>
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Alumni Association Offers Real Estate 101 Workshop Bring your home-buying questions to the experts at this interactive workshop on September 4 from 7–9 p.m. on the Fairfax campus. MORE>
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The 33rd annual Patriot Club
Fall Golf Outing takes place on September 8 at the Westfields Golf Club in
Clifton, Virginia. Registration begins at noon with a shotgun start at 1:30
p.m. The event includes lunch, a silent auction, a cocktail hour, and a
buffet dinner. All proceeds go to the Mason Student-Athlete Scholarship
Fund.
EVENT
INFORMATION> |
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Mark your
calendar for this year’s Fall for the Book Festival on September 21-26 on
the Fairfax campus. What began in 1999 as a two-day literary event organized
by Mason and the City of Fairfax has expanded into a week-long,
multiple-venue, regional festival that brings together people of all ages
and
interests.
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Two Initiatives Support Visual and Performing Arts Students Alumni are encouraged to take part in two initiatives this fall to support Mason's College of Visual and Performing Arts.
Instruments in the Attic
is a new tax-deductible instrument donation program. Music education
students must be proficient on at least eight instruments to complete their
degree; currently, there are too few department instruments for consistent
practice. All instrument donations—new, used, or in need of repair—are
welcome. Donors this fall will receive complimentary tickets to Mason's
annual Holiday Concert on
December
7.
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University News |
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New Members for Board of Visitors Announced Vincent F. Callahan Jr., former member of the Virginia House of Delegates, and Mason alumna Lovey L. Hammel, BS Marketing '88, (pictured left) president of Employment Enterprises Inc (EEI), are the two newest members of Mason's Board of Visitors. MORE>
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Mason Clock Now a Campus Landmark No matter where he is, whenever John Butler, BA Integrative Studies '99, hears a clock chime, he instantly thinks of Mason. The clock he and his classmates helped to bring to the North Plaza began a tradition of senior giving. MORE>
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New Graduate Certificate Program in Forensic Science With growing interest in forensics thanks to television dramas and a high regional demand for professionals, Mason's College of Science is now offering a Graduate Certificate in Forensics (FRSC). MORE
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Patriot Sports |
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Mason alumni are among those taking new coaching positions at universities across the country for the 2008-09 year.
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Mason Hires Alumna to Coach Lacrosse Former Patriot Lauren Rywak, BA English '02, has been hired as the head coach for women's lacrosse. Rywak played at Mason from 1998-01. She was head coach at Iona, where she earned Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) Coach of the Year honors last season. MORE>
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Two former George Mason teammates will play in different European leagues next year. Will Thomas, BS Health, Fitness, and Recreation Resources '08, has signed with a Belgian team, while Folarin Campbell, BA Communication '08, will play for an Italian squad in the 2008-09 season. MORE> |
Black
Alumni Chapter Invites You to "Meet the Greeks" 
Patriot
Club Fall Golf Outing
Fall
for the Book Festival 
Two
Men's Basketball Alumni Sign Professional Contracts
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Gunston Hall: If you need directions, please go to their website at www.gunstonhall.org. |
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