JIM EMISON at Books Inc. Palo Alto
About this Event
Jim Emison will be reading from his narrative nonfiction, M**der on the Hatchie, the first book to tell the whole story of the local NAACP's 1940 effort to register black voters in Brownsville, Tennessee, the campaign of white terror that followed, which culminated in the death of Elbert Williams.
Join us to learn about the NAACP's 1st voting rights martyr; a reluctant FBI's faux investigation; sabotage by the US Attorney & FBI in Memphis; and a timid DOJ's reversal of its decision to prosecute the killers who were never brought to justice. The book reorients the timeline and geography of the Civil Rights Movement's origins.
M**der on the Hatchie uncovers one of the earliest and most consequential crimes in America's long struggle for Black voting rights: the 1940 lynching of Elbert Williams in Brownsville, Tennessee. A founding member of the local NAACP, Williams was murdered for attempting to register Black voters, decades before the more famous murders of Emmett Till and Medgar Evers.
Through rigorous research and gripping narrative, retired trial attorney Jim Emison reconstructs the events surrounding Williams's lynching and the federal government's failure to prosecute his killers. Drawing on FBI files, Department of Justice correspondence, and eyewitness accounts, Emison reconstructs how white officials conspired to silence a community, implicating local law enforcement, federal agents, and even national NAACP leadership.
Emison repositions Brownsville as a pivotal site in civil rights history and exposes how voter suppression, racial terror, and government complicity shaped the American democracy we inherit today. With a foreword by Margaret A. Burnham, M**der on the Hatchie challenges liberal assumptions about justice and the embedded character of Jim Crow. For readers of Blood Done Sign My Name and By Hands Now Known, this is both a gripping true-crime investigation and a vital work of historical restoration.
At a time of accelerated pushback to hard-won gains of the modern American civil rights movement, this book illuminates the human cost paid to secure voting rights for Black Americans. Expertly researched, it invites us to better comprehend the raw courage of individuals determined to exercise full American citizenship rights in the face of violent white supremacy." --Lecia J. Brooks, Southern Poverty Law Center
"A powerful and necessary reminder of the courage and sacrifice that shaped the NAACP's earliest fight for justice. Jim Emison brings to light a painful but pivotal chapter in our history with clarity and care." --Derrick Johnson, president and CEO, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
"Jim Emison brings to light the largely forgotten killing of NAACP organizer Elbert Williams. Through years of research, he reconstructs the violence that followed Black citizens' attempts to register to vote. M**der on the Hatchie restores this story to the history of the civil rights movement." --Gilbert King, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Devil in the Grove
"In a day when just being a member of the NAACP could get you killed in the South, Elbert Williams and five other members stood up against the Jim Crow system and attempted to register to vote. Jim Emison captures the courage of Williams and the others in his insightful book, which reminds us why the right to vote remains critical to the survival of our American democracy." --Jerry Mitchell, investigative reporter
"A searing excavation of terror and truth, a thunderous reminder that the right to vote has always been paid for in blood. This is not just buried history; it is a reckoning blazing into the light." --Keith A. Beauchamp, filmmaker, The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till and Till
"This powerful book is no mere cold investigative report of the past, but a warmly inspiring story of a lawyer and a community seeking to find answers for the present and our future. Painstaking research and a poignant story make this book a must-read--and a must-heed." --Rev. Cornell William Brooks, Esq., 18th president and CEO, NAACP, and professor, Harvard Kennedy School
"M**der on the Hatchie exposes how racism, fear, and abuse of power shaped both the crime and the community's response to it. More than a true-crime narrative, it serves as a moral reckoning while challenging readers to confront the enduring legacy of racial terror, systemic discrimination, and the importance of historical memory." --India A. Artis, archivist for NAACP, and former business manager of The Crisis magazine
"With M**der on the Hatchie,we have it--the right man writing the right book at the right time.... In this invigorating, groundbreaking narrative, Jim Emison recounts the history as can only one who has lived close to it." --Margaret A. Burnham,director, Northeastern University Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Center, and author of By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow's Legal Executioners
"Emison importantly confers on Elbert Williams the greater notoriety he deserves for his heroic efforts as an early civil rights pioneer and member of the NAACP. Williams can now take his place in the pantheon of civil rights martyrs." --Matt Gonzalez, chief attorney of the San Francisco Public Defender's Office
"This book is a magnificent legacy that shows how a mighty few can expose our worst behaviors of the past, then come together decades later to win redress." --Hank Klibanoff, director of the Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project at Emory University and coauthor of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Race Beat: The Press, The Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation
After forty-three years as a Tennessee trial attorney, Jim Emison devoted his retirement to investigating the 1940 M**der of NAACP leader Elbert Williams. Emison's work has been featured by the Associated Press, NPR, and Nashville Public Television, and led to a renewed Department of Justice review under the Emmett Till Act. Emison is the co-founder of Tennesseans for Historical Justice and a board member of the Tennessee Historical Society.
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
USD 0.00
