Race Reads I Recommend

I recently read a couple of books that outline some of the past failures we have had in this nation in regard to race relations. The first is The Execution of Willie Francis.

Willie Francis was arrested for the murder of a well known pharmacist in St. Martinville Louisiana in 1945. He was convicted entirely on the weight of two confessions, which were obtained by a Sheriff that was investigated by the FBI for beating, harassing and running off black citizens that were getting "sassy", including a school teacher and doctors.

His attorneys made no defense and the jury deliberated for 15 minutes before handing down a guilty verdict. Willie was sentenced to death. The time limit for the appeals passed without his attorneys filing any motions and the date was set.

A poor black kid convicted of murder on a sham trial in the deep south. So far, this story is sadly unremarkable. But it takes an intriguing turn.

When the hungover executioner and his prison trustee assistant throw the switch on the portable electric chair that the state sent to local municipalities in a truck, the current surges through Willie's body. As his body convulses he manages to call out "I am not dying". And he did not.

A year later, after Willie's father finds him an attorney who takes on the case and fights the decision to send him to his death again, Willie is executed in the same chair.

The story was especially interesting to Diane and I as it takes place in St. Martinville and New Iberia Louisiana, where we have visited. St. Martinville is also the home of the Evangeline Oak, known mostly because of the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem, Evangeline, a Tale of Acadie.


The other book is Buried in the Bitter Waters: the Hidden Story of Racial Cleansing in America. It is an account of twelve counties in the U.S. where, between 1864 and 1923, the entire black community was driven out and the counties today remain almost exclusively white. Many of the communities where this happened have largely forgotten about it as the stories were not passed down from one generation to the next.

Here is an excellent interview with the author, Eliot Jaspin, by the History News Network.

As shocking as it is to me, we still carry the scars of horrific acts that were done in the name of not wanting people with a different skin color and different culture to be be anywhere near us. The home that we purchased in West Sacramento in 2001 had a clause in the CCRs that only Caucasian people could purchase in the neighborhood. The clause was voided, but served as a reminder to me that racism is very real.

I think we still see the remains of racism socially. Do I dare say it remains, as it is still quite real? In any case, much of our lives are still segregated. Churches are still predominately one ethnic group, as are many neighborhoods and other segments of life. And we are all the poorer for it.