| Description |
416 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 381-404) and index. |
| Summary |
In December 1957, which brings a brutal freeze to Florida's orange groves, Blanche Bosanquet Knowles, the wealthy young wife of a citrus baron, is raped in her home while her husband is away. She says a "husky Negro" did it, and Lake County's infamously racist sheriff, Willis McCall, has no hesitation in rounding up a herd of suspects matching that description. But within days all are released without explanation. Just as inexplicably, McCall turns his sights on Jesse Daniels, a gentle white nineteen-year-old with the mental capacity of a ten-year-old. Every attempt to exonerate Jesse fails, and he is railroaded up north to the Florida State Hospital for the Insane. Facts are stubborn things, however, especially in the hands of crusading journalist Mabel Norris Reese. While Jesse languishes at Chattahoochee, she frets over the case and its baffling outcome. Who is protecting whom, or what? Reese recruits to the cause an inexperienced young lawyer, and together they pursue the case, winning unlikely allies and chasing down leads until at long last they begin to unravel the unspeakable truths behind a racial conspiracy that shocked a community into silence. It is only now, half a century on, that Gilbert King has been able to coax the last long-guarded secrets out of proud, private families and to bring the whole shameful story to light. Powerful and page-turning, Beneath a Ruthless Sun ripples with the tensions that still roil our own times. |
| Subject |
Daniels, Jesse Delbert, 1938-
|
|
Discrimination in criminal justice administration -- Florida.
|
| Genre |
True crime stories.
|
| ISBN |
9780399183386 (hardcover) |
|
More Resources