Blood on the Suwannee, C. Arthur Ellis, Jr., Ph.D.
Blood on the Suwannee, C. Arthur Ellis, Jr., Ph.D.
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Blood on the Suwannee

Author: C. Arthur Ellis, Jr., Ph.D.

Narrator: Trei Taylor

Unabridged: 12 hr 45 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/22/2021

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included


Synopsis

Many African Americans living along the banks of North Florida’s Suwannee River still refuse to eat catfish caught from its murky waters, knowing that these bottom feeders had at some point dined on the decaying corpses of their lynched relatives.This book chronicles how the illegal gambling game of bolita, from its birth in segregationist Suwannee County in the 1930s to its death in the 1950s, led to Blood on the Suwannee. Necessarily, the cast of characters changes over the course of three decades.Bolita’s first casualty was the surreptitious murder of a prominent white bolita queen in the 1930s that inadvertently led to the expansion of bolita and bootleg liquor in the county.The second casualty—the untimely drowning death of fifteen-year-old Willie James Howard at the hands of Klansmen for the crime of sending a Christmas card to a white girl—is the little-known legacy of an African American Everyman in the segregationist South.The third casualty is the nationally publicized 1952 murder of Dr. C. LeRoy Adams, a white physician and state senator-elect, by Ruby McCollum, the black wife of the county’s bolita king.These three stories take readers down memory lane, portraying a time in history when law enforcement originated in slave patrols formed to return "property" to plantation owners. The book foreshadows how the past continues to reflect in the present and the unfortunate decay of the justice system—especially as it affects African Americans—and how a white police force can hold the power over the breath of life.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Sophie

This is the first book that I have read by this author and I must say that it hooked me straight away, although some bits were hard to read due to the images it puts in your head, it is a true story and it certainly makes you look back at how the world used to be. The author manages to paint the ima......more

Goodreads review by C.

This book chronicles three murders on the banks of the Suwannee River from the 1930s to the 1950s in the Jim Crow Segregationist South. All three murders were connected to bolita, the illegal game of numbers. The stories delve into a time when there was no recourse to the law for African Americans,......more

Goodreads review by C.

This is a well-written tale of three murders on the banks of the Suwannee River ranging over the course of three decades. All occurred in the Jim Crow Segregationist south, and all were racially motivated. The story of the murder of Willie James Howard is particularly poingnant, since he was a 15-yea......more

Goodreads review by John

First I was somewhat skeptical as the other is new .But Later I have found that his way of writing is so great .I definitely recommend this book for everyone without any second thought.......more

Goodreads review by Nischay

The book has a very good theme on the African American living near the Suwannee river.......more