At the Hands of Persons Unknown The Lynching of Black America

Winner of the Southern Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction This extraordinary account of lynching in America, by acclaimed civil rights historian Philip Dray, shines a clear, bright light on American history's darkest stainilluminating its causes, perpetrators, apologists, and victims. Philip Dray also tells the story of the men and women who led the long and difficult fight to expose and eradicate lynching, including Ida B. Wells, James Weldon Johnson, Walter White, and W.E.B. Du Bois. If lynching is emblematic of what is worst about America, their fight may stand for what is best: the commitment to justice and fairness and the conviction that one individual's sense of right can suffice to defy the gravest of wrongs. This landmark book follows the trajectory of both forces over American historyand makes lynching's legacy belong to us all.

Philip Dray is the co-author of <i>We Are Not Afraid: The Story of Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney and the Civil Rights Campaign for Mississippi</i>, which was a <i>New York Times</i> Notable Book for 1988. Born in Chicago and raised in Minnesota, Dray now lives in New York City. He has been a contributor to many publications, including <i>Mother Jones</i>, <i>The New York Times</i>, and the <i>Los Angeles Times</i>.<br><br><br><i>From the Hardcover edition.</i>