Book cover of A Lynching in the Heartland: Race and Memory in America

Book description

On a hot summer night in 1930, three black teenagers accused of murdering a young white man and raping his girlfriend waited for justice in an Indiana jail. A mob dragged them from the jail and lynched two of them. No one in Marion, Indiana was ever punished for the…

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Why read it?

1 author picked A Lynching in the Heartland as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I attended a university just down the road from Marion, Indiana, the site of an infamous lynching of two Black men (and the attempted lynching of a third) in 1930.

The prison from which these men were forcibly taken still stands on the main square in Marion. Many textbooks use the grisly photograph that Lawrence Beitler took of this event to illustrate the horrors of violence against African-Americans in postbellum United States.

Madison deftly weaves the lives, stories, and memories of resilient Black residents of Marion today with the story of the hate-filled mob that lynched Abram Smith and Thomas…

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Book cover of Aggressor

Aggressor by FX Holden,

It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.

The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…

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