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Summary
Summary
On December 9, 1938, the state of Georgia executed six black men in eighty-one minutes in Tattnall Prison's electric chair. The executions were a record for the state that still stands today. The new prison, built with funds from FDR's New Deal, as well as the fact that the men were tried and executed rather than lynched were thought to be a sign of progress. They were anything but. While those men were arrested, convicted, sentenced, and executed in as little as six weeks - E. D. Rivers, the governor of the state, oversaw a pardon racket for white killers and criminals, allowed the Ku Klux Klan to infiltrate his administration, and bankrupted the state. Race and wealth were all that determined whether or not a man lived or died. There was no progress. There was no justice.David Beasley's Without Mercy is the harrowing true story of the Great Depression, the New Deal, and the violent death throes of the Klan, but most of all it is the story of the stunning injustice of these executions and how they have seared distrust of the legal system into the consciousness of the Deep South, and it is a story that will forever be a testament to the death penalty's appalling inequality that continues to plague the nation.
Author Notes
David Beasley is a former editor for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the co-author of Inside Coca-Cola. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
On Dec. 9, 1938, six black men were executed within 81 minutes in Georgia's new Tattnall Prison. A seventh man, white, was pardoned by Gov. E.D. Rivers. Race seemingly played a major role in who lived and who died. Beasley focuses on the corruption and deceit of the Klansman governor and the Klan imperial wizard, Hiram Wesley Evans. Rivers used the New Deal to institute major reforms in education and public health, as well as prisons, although, as Beasley observes, "It was sad that of all things, a single new prison [Tattnall] would be a major symbol of progress." Rivers facilitated crime and corruption, setting up fellow Klansman Evans as "the state's asphalt king," and selling pardons. Beasley, coauthor of Inside Coca-Cola and former editor for the Atlanta Journal Constitution, effectively juxtaposes the lives of the black men who were executed with white men who were not, following their passage through the judicial system. Beasley's well-documented and vivid account ultimately puts capital punishment itself on trial. 8-page b&w photo insert. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
A story of racism, injustice, corruption and greed run rampant in 1930s Georgia. Former Atlanta Journal Constitution editor Beasley (co-author: Inside Coca-Cola: A CEO's Life Story of Building the World's Most Popular Brand, 2011) digs into some shameful events in Georgia's history, focusing mostly on a judicial system that swiftly arrested, tried, convicted and sent six black men to the electric chair while two white "thrill killers" escaped that fate. The author provides details of the known facts behind their crimes and of the mass execution on the night of Dec. 9, 1938. To add insult to injury, five of the six bodies were not even given burial but were turned over to medical schools as cadavers. The racist bent of all-white Southern juries is a familiar story, but the close ties between the Ku Klux Klan and the state government will perhaps be news. According to Beasley, the Klan infiltrated the state government. E.D. Rivers, governor from 1937 to 1941, had been named a Grand Titan for the state of Georgia by Hiram Wesley Evans, the Klan's Imperial Wizard. After his inauguration, Rivers gave Evans a monopoly on the state's asphalt business, a venture that later expanded into other lucrative businesses. Beasley writes that besides handing Evans a "license to print money" at the government's expense, the corrupt Rivers had his own racket of selling pardons to convicted gangsters, murderers and other criminals. Unfortunately, the author's account is diffuse and repetitive, losing focus by overly detailing minor characters and wandering off into side issues such as the eugenics movement. Missing here is the firm hand of an editor that might have shaped a verbose and rather shapeless narrative into a compelling story, for the facts of the matter deserve a better telling.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
In December 1938, a Klansman sat in the Georgia governor's chair and, in under 81 minutes, ordered the executions of six black men-some just weeks after their arrest-by electrocution. Atlanta journalist Beasley exposes this gross miscarriage of justice and connects it to the racially biased use of the death penalty today. (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
