Overview

As a child, Joseph Beck heard the stories-when other lawyers came up with excuses, his father courageously defended a black man charged with raping a white woman. Now a lawyer himself, Beck reconstructs his father's role in State of Alabama vs. Charles White, Alias, a trial that was much publicized when Harper Lee was twelve years old. On the day of Foster Beck's client's arrest, the leading local newspaper reported, under a page-one headline, that ""a wandering negro fortune teller giving the name Charles White"" had ""volunteered a detailed confession of the attack"" of a local white girl. However, Foster Beck concluded that the confession was coerced. The same article claimed that ""the negro accomplished his dastardly purpose,"" but as in To Kill a Mockingbird, there was evidence at the trial to the contrary. Throughout the proceedings, the defendant had to be escorted from the courthouse to a distant prison ""for safekeeping,"" and the courthouse itself was surrounded by a detachment of sixteen Alabama highway patrolmen. The saga captivated the community with its dramatic testimonies and emotional outcome. It would take an immense toll on those involved, including Foster Beck, who worried that his reputation had cast a shadow over his lively, intelligent, and supportive fiancé, Bertha, who had her own social battles to fight. This riveting memoir, steeped in time and place, seeks to understand how race relations, class, and the memory of southern defeat in the Civil War produced such a haunting distortion of justice, and how it may figure into our literary imagination.

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9780393285826

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Reviews

JoeBeck's vivid account of a racially charged rape case in South Alabama in 1938 is a loving tribute to his father's courage as a young attorney standing up to the evils of Jim Crow. It is also a gripping courtroom drama with trial evidence and testimony based on facts, not fiction that draws a haunting portrait of a search for justice.--Morris Dees, Southern Poverty Law Center founder

JoeBeck's vivid account of a racially charged rape case in South Alabama in 1938 is a loving tribute to his father's courage as a young attorney standing up to the evils of Jim Crow. It is also a gripping courtroom drama with trial evidence and testimony based on facts, not fiction that draws a haunting portrait of a search for justice.--Morris Dees, Southern Poverty Law Center founder [A] a powerful telling of injustice in a less tolerant time.--Seth Kantner While this case may or may not have subconsciously influenced Harper Lee, [the author's father] Foster Beck's story is one worth knowing and full of lessons valuable three quarters of a century later. A poignant and warmly engaging memoir. Joseph Beck's book is based on facts... and those details make his story fresher and more alive than [Harper Lee's] justifiably oft-told narrative. --Johnathan Ringel Joseph Madison Beck's enthralling memoir on humanity, justice, and the world we live in is one full of emotion and suspense in equal measure.--Blake Fournoy As a lawyer himself, author Beck lays out the circumstances of the case with gripping, almost cinematic detail... [F]ascinating.--Bridget Thoreson An insightful window into the everyday life of small-town Alabama in the 1930s... A sad but gripping account.--Ryan Claringbole It is organized and written so effectively, with insider narratives and therapy transcripts as driving forces, that the structure is almost invisible, and the reader is pretty much swept along by the content--which is well worth engaging with. . . . [T]he book is a fresh and inspiring start for this new approach. Full of different voices and creativities, in practice as well as in therapy, it gives hope.--Martin Luther King III This is a powerful book, written in extremely strong language reflecting the strong feelings of its authors. . . . [A]n absolute must-have for anyone working to help sufferers from these killing disorders.--Seth Kantner [A]fter over 20 years of battling with anorexia/bulimia, I have found something that speaks my language. . . . I have been asked over the years (and have often asked myself) what is it going to take to get out of this torture. I never really attempted answering this question until we finally got the book.

Joseph Madison Beck's enthralling memoir on humanity, justice, and the world we live in is one full of emotion and suspense in equal measure.--Blake Fournoy

Author Information

Joseph Madison Beck is an Atlanta attorney. He also teaches at Emory Law School and has lectured at universities throughout the United States and abroad.

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