A Murder in Virginia: Southern Justice on Trial
Suzanne Lebsock, 2003
W.W. Norton & Company
442 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780393326062
Summary
It is 1895 in rural Virginia and a white woman lies in her farmyard, hacked to death with a meat ax. Suspicion soon falls on a young black laborer, who tries to flee the county.
He, in turn, accuses three local black women of plotting the murder and wielding the ax.
Through vivid courtroom scenes and gripping personal stories, Bancroft Prize-winning historian Suzanne Lebsock takes us deep into this world when Reconstruction is slowly fading and Jim Crow is on the rise. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1949
• Awards—MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowships;
Bancroft Prize in History; Francis Parkman Prize
• Currently—lives in New Brunswick, New Jersey
Suzanne Lebsock is a recipient of a MacArthur fellowship and professor of history at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Her work The Free Women of Petersburg received the Bancroft Prize. She lives in New Brunswick, New Jersey. (From the publisher and Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Suzanne Lebsock...has documented what happened in a case that rivaled O. J. Simpson's for fame in its day, but that then faded into oblivion.... Honest-to-goodness, 100 percent-genuine facts in an age of docudramas and fictionalized histories. With nearly 80 pages of footnotes, Ms. Lebsock has done an impressive job of historical re-creation. Unfortunately, what is an impressive achievement of historical reconstruction that might dazzle a dissertation committee makes for a less compelling work for the general reader. What's lacking is the sweep and analysis that would knit this unusual case to the larger historical tapestry. That doesn't mean making it up, but it does mean stepping back.
Patricia Cohen - New York Times
Lebsock—a professor of history at the University of Washington at Seattle—is right to insist that it deserves at least a footnote in history, and she has provided just that in A Murder in Virginia.
Jonathan Yardley - Washington Post
[Makes] history, with all its messiness, ugliness, and even humanity, come vividly alive.
Dallas Morning News
So much happens—and so much of it is unexpected—in Suzanne Lebsock's gripping study of the sensational ax murder of Lucy Jane Pollard...that we can only urge readers to read for themselves the acclaimed author's brilliant descriptions of racial politics (four African Americans were accused), the constant threat of lynching, the vicious court battles and how it all ended.
Dallas Morning News
In recounting a 1895 murder investigation and trial in Lunenberg County, Va., Lebsock (The Free Women of Petersburg) meticulously brings to life a lost episode of a small, segregated Southern town and frames it against the backdrop of racial strife in the country as a whole. When the wife of a prominent Lunenberg man is murdered with an ax, a black farmhand, Solomon Marable, is immediately arrested. He shocks everyone by accusing three black women of the crime, and a dramatic set of trials ensues. Lebsock recounts the improbable roles of lawyers, judges, politicians, the black community and the defendants themselves in the case, thanking "the archivists, librarians, county clerks, the clerks' clerks, and packrats of all descriptions," who allowed her to recreate the investigations and five trials in astonishing detail. Mary Abernathy (tried twice), Mary Barnes and her daughter Pokey Barnes were eventually exonerated, to the relief of many. Marable paid for the crime with his life, but Lebsock, a professor of history at the University of Washington, is not sure he did it; she presents the case from both sides, allowing readers to draw their own conclusions. Throughout, Lebsock employs a clear, precise prose, and packs the book with the sort of detail that will satisfy procedural junkies. For history buffs, the book provides a fascinating, microcosmic glimpse into the politics and law of late Reconstruction, at a moment when the U.S. was poised on the brink of the 20th century. Moreover, Lebsock perfectly captures the manner in which the town mobilized to give the women (if not Marable) a fair trial, and the ways in which individual personalities influenced that process, lending this book a human interest beyond its time and place.
Publishers Weekly
On a warm afternoon in June 1895, a 56-year-old white woman was brutally murdered in Lunenburg County, VA. Despite the absence of any truly incriminating eye-witness testimony or physical evidence, four blacks-three women and one man-were arrested and tried for the murder. Lebsock (history, Univ. of Washington, Seattle), author of the Bancroft Prize-winning The Free Women of Petersburg: Status and Culture in a Southern Town, 1784-1860), re-creates the subsequent trials, introducing the defendants, their prosecutors, and the witnesses and placing the proceedings within the context of the black and white communities and deteriorating conditions for African Americans in the post-Reconstruction South. Here historical narrative is every bit as intriguing as fictional mystery but more edifying for the information it gives its readers concerning race relations and criminal justice in the latter part of the 19th century. As readable and riveting as John Berendt's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil; recommended for public and academic libraries of all sizes. —Theresa R. McDevitt, Indiana Univ. of Pennsylvania.
Library Journal
Lebsock is particularly adept at portraying the individuals and interests involved: the accused murderers, the unsympathetic widower, the crusaders, the vested interests of those who supported the lynchers, and the fierce newspaper rivalries fueled by the trial. She also explores the social and racial undercurrents in the small town, which signified the changed relationship between blacks and whites in the post-Civil War era.
Booklist
Bancroft Prize-winner Lebsock (The Free Women of Petersburg, 1984) takes us to a sweltering Dixie courtroom where African-Americans stand accused of murdering a white woman. It would be a cliché as fiction, but this case really happened. More than a century ago, in 1895, when slavery had been dead only one generation, deep in Virginia tobacco country in a place no longer on any map, a farmer’s wife was struck down with several brutal blows of an ax. The farmer, it should be noted, had a hoard of $800 in $20 bills. Soon Solomon, a black mill worker caught spending a couple of $20 bills, was arrested. He promptly implicated three black women: Mary, a mother of nine who "looked a lot more like a mammy than a murderer"; another Mary, also a mother of nine; and her quick-witted daughter Pokey. They had planned the whole thing, he claimed, but every time Solomon told the tale, it changed. His only consistency concerned a lone white man who had forcibly enlisted him in the grisly murder and robbery, but if that man existed he certainly never went on trial. The four unlettered blacks did, surrounded by an armed militia; they were quickly convicted with scarce, tainted evidence and without counsel. The inevitable verdicts were just the beginning of this narrative, which also covers the women’s eventual release, Solomon’s execution, and the bizarre journey of his remains. Retrials in a racially divided courtroom with speechifying southern lawyers waxing rhetorical as only they could, feuding sheriffs, eager reporters, and a stalwart governor all play integral roles in this deeply researched chronicle. Lebsock (History/Univ. of Washington, Seattle) reconstructs the story of an admirable African-American newspaper publisher and depicts the personalities of all the other important players with considerable understanding and intelligence. Finally, she offers a reasoned argument regarding the identity of the most likely perp. True-crime with continued resonance, given America’s troubled racial history.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for A Murder in Virginia:
1. Lebsock's book is much more than an historical recounting of a murder: it is an exploration into race and class. While white Virginians at the time were rushing to segregate "everything that wasn't already segregated," color lines in Lunenburg County, scene of the murder, were not so sharply drawn. Discuss the complicated nature of the interrelationships between black and white southerners that A Murder in Virginia reveals. What was surprising, for instance, about Mary Abernathy's relationship with Lucy Pollard? Consider, too, how Richmond Planet editor, John Mitchell, played up the mammy stereotypes for Mary's benefit.
2. Speaking of the press, talk about the role it played in this murder case. In what way did newspapers function, in Lebsock's words, as the "thirteenth juror"? Compare the press's influence then to that of the media today.
3. Discuss the court room events of the first trial and the degree to which the deck was stacked against the defendants. What was the surprising twist that allowed the accused to be granted new trials in Farmville?
4. In what ways did the second trial differ from the first—consider the jury, lawyers, and testimony. How did the testimonies of two "unlettered" black women, especially Pokey Barnes, impact the case—and how did the two overturn expectations of race, class and gender?
5. There are surprising real-life heroes in this account—those who stood up boldly for justice. Talk about the roles played by Governor O'Ferrall, John Mitchell, Jr., and Rosa Dixon Bowser. Are there others?
6. Although the mystery of Lucy Pollack's death remains unsolved, do you have any theories? Is Solomon Marable's last minute deathbed-of-sorts confession believable?
7. Talk about the practice of lynching, the subject of which—the hows and whys—is woven throughout this work. Also, what does Lebsock say about the myth that lynching was perpetrated only in the deep southern states, not Virginia?
8. At the time of Lucy Pollack's murder, the trials dominated local news—a media spectacle comparable to the attention given to the O.J. Simpson trial 100 years later. Since then the event has sunk into obscurity—almost all memory of it erased. What does Lebsock see as the reason for its erasure?
9. Extend to the present day this book's revelations about the legal system and racism at the end of the 19th century. To what degree has the situation changed in the 21st century? Is justice still race-based?
10. This is an historical work complete with footnotes. Yet Lebsock has attempted to make it as engrossing as a work of fiction. Was she successful...is her narrative compelling...did she sustain your interest? Consider the qualities that go into making a work of fiction: colorful description, evocative settings, strong characters, and page-turning suspense. Which, if any, of these qualities are present in A Murder in Virginia?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)