During the decades of Bourbon ascendancy after 1874, Alabama institutions - like those in other southern states - were dominated by whites. Former slave and sharecropper Jack Turner refused to accept a society so structured. Highly intelligent, physically imposing, and an orator of persuasive talents, Turner was fearless before whites and emerged as a leader of his race. He helped to forge a political alliance between blacks and whites that defeated and humiliated the Bourbons in Choctaw County, the heart of the Black Belt, in the election of 1882. That summer, after a series of bogus charges and arrests, Turner was accused of planning to lead his private army of blacks in a general slaughter of the county whites. Justice was forgotten in the resultant fear and hysteria.
- ISBN13 9780817351199
- Publish Date 30 June 2004 (first published 31 December 1973)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint The University of Alabama Press
- Format Paperback
- Pages 207
- Language English