Category Archives: Prison

When Hanging Wasn’t Brutal Enough for Black Prisoners: Southern Whites Brought In “Old Sparky”

From Reading Religion:

The End of Public Execution

Race, Religion, and Punishment in the American South

By: Michael Ayers Trotti

266 Pages — $32.95

  • Published By: University of North Carolina Press

Michael Ayers Trotti’s The End of Public Execution: Race, Religion, and Punishment in the American South opens with a short transcription of a newspaper article about an Atlanta hanging. The report is about the 1891 execution of Frank Danforth, a Black man who had been convicted of the murder of his wife. The report mentions preachers saying prayers and singing, Danforth swaying to religious music, his repeated testimony to his belief in his own salvation, and white women who stood on a jailhouse fence to watch his execution. Trotti observes that the report describes Danforth’s execution as private because it was done behind jailhouse walls, even though hundreds of people were in attendance.

Continue reading When Hanging Wasn’t Brutal Enough for Black Prisoners: Southern Whites Brought In “Old Sparky”

A Weekend Read: The Atlanta Trials & Race

You Can’t Talk About Trump’s Georgia Case Without Talking About Racism

TIME Magazine — IDEAS
Janell Ross is the senior correspondent on race and identities for TIME.
Janell Ross, TIME Magazine

As the final bars of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” filled the room, former President Donald Trump took the stage in Windham, N.H. The audience, many of them white New Englanders and veterans, chanting “U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A” had to settle a bit before Trump could launch into a winding, military-themed speech at the August 8 campaign rally.

Continue reading A Weekend Read: The Atlanta Trials & Race

Would Putin Be Arrested in Johannesburg?? We May Never Know

Gwynne Dyer — July 24, 2023

“Welcome to Joburg, Vlad— Oh, you are SO BUSTED!” [Sigh, not.]
An International Criminal Court member, South Africa is obligated to execute ICC arrest warrants

Vladimir Putin will not attend an economic summit in Johannesburg in August, choosing instead to participate by video link Continue reading Would Putin Be Arrested in Johannesburg?? We May Never Know

Asa Hutchinson’s Big (But Forgotten) Good Deed; How It Failed, And Might Be Revived.

Donald Trump is not the first president Asa Hutchinson wanted, and tried, to take down.  Nor, I will contend, is he even the second.

Will the third (or fourth?) time be the charm for the man we could dub the Arkansas Charger? Continue reading Asa Hutchinson’s Big (But Forgotten) Good Deed; How It Failed, And Might Be Revived.