Tag: Paul Alexander

Noted author tackles the Curtis Flowers story

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Alan Bean

Paul Alexander is the accomplished author of eight books, numerous eBooks, and over 100 major articles written for publications ranging from Rolling Stone to the New York Times.  When he stumbled across my blogging on the Curtis Flowers story, he was immediately interested.  A native of Birmingham, AL, Alexander knows how racial bias is infused into every facet of social life, including the criminal justice system.

Still, my conclusions were too damning to be taken at face value.  Alexander visited Winona, Mississippi, re-interviewed the folks I talked to several years ago, and dug up some fascinating (and disturbing) new information.

The result is Mistried, a gripping eBook released yesterday by RosettaBooks.  You can get the Kindle version for free at Amazon if you act quickly, (or pay $2.99 if you dawdle).  Most readers can digest the contents in less than two hours; the book is of very modest length because Alexander doesn’t waste a word.

If you like the book, please leave a comment and a five-star rating on the Amazon site.

Mistried

By Paul Alexander
Paul Alexander
Paul Alexander

Can a person be tried more than once for the same crime in the United States? Under usual circumstances, no. But in Mississippi, one man was tried six times for the same brutal crime-and his ordeal still hasn’t ended. (more…)

Three amazing stories reveal the rich contradictions of Mississippi

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Chockwe Lumumba
Will Campbell
Paul Alexander

By Alan Bean

Three Mississippi stories grabbed my attention this week.  Will Campbell, the white civil rights activist and renegade Baptist preacher from Mississippi, died this week after a long and painful decline.  Chockwe Lumumba, the erstwhile Black nationalist attorney, was elected as mayor of Jackson, Mississippi.  Finally, Paul Alexander, the former TIME reporter who has written for The New York Times, the Nation, Salon, the Daily Beast, Paris Match and the Guardian, will soon be releasing Mistried an eBook on the bizarre railroading of Curtis Flowers in Winona, Mississippi.

Taken together, these stories capture the rich contradictions of the Magnolia State.  Campbell and Lumumba represent opposite poles of the civil rights movement.  Lumumba ran for mayor of Jackson as a centrist candidate who cares about economic development and job creation as much as civil rights; but there was a time when the lawyer-politician was so disillusioned with White America that he advocated the creation of a separate, predominantly Black, nation in the Southeastern United States.

Campbell, by contrast, insisted that God’s grace was offered to the Klansman as well as the oppressed.  “Mr. Jesus died for the bigots as well,” he famously said.  Acting on this belief, Campbell regularly engaged with violent white segregationists over a glass of whiskey. (more…)