Closed Ranks: The Whitehurst Case in Post-Civil Rights Montgomery
()
About this ebook
On a chilly December afternoon in 1975, Bernard Whitehurst Jr., a 33-year-old father of four, was mistaken for a robbery suspect by Montgomery, Alabama, police officers. A brief foot chase ensued, and it ended with one of the pursuing officers shooting and killing Whitehurst in the backyard of an abandoned house. The officer claimed the fleeing man had fired at him; police produced a gun they said had been found near the body. In the months that followed, new information showed that Whitehurst, who was black, was not only the wrong man but had been unarmed, a direct contradiction of the white officer's statement. What became known as the Whitehurst Case erupted when the local district attorney and the family's attorney each began to uncover facts that pointed to wrongdoing by the police, igniting a year-long controversy that resulted in the resignation or firing of police officers, the police chief, and the city's popular New South mayor. However, no one was ever convicted in Whitehurst's death, and his family's civil lawsuit against the City of Montgomery failed. Now, more than four decades later, Whitehurst's widow and children are waging a 21st-century effort to gain justice for the husband and father they lost. The question that remains is: who decides what justice looks like?
In this latter-day exploration of the Whitehurst Case, author Foster Dickson reviews one of Montgomery’s never-before-told stories, one which is riddled with incompatible narratives. Closed Ranks brings together interviews, police reports, news stories, and other records to carry the reader through the fraught post-civil rights movement period when the "unnecessary" shooting of Bernard Whitehurst Jr. occurred.
In our current time, as police shootings regularly dominate news cycles, this book shows how essential it is to find and face the truth in such deeply troubling matters.
Foster Dickson
FOSTER DICKSON is a writer, editor, and teacher in Montgomery, Alabama. He is the author of Closed Ranks, the editor of Nobody’s Home and level:deepsouth, and the coordinator of the Fitzgerald Museum’s annual Literary Contest.
Related to Closed Ranks
Related ebooks
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sworn to Silence: The Truth Behind Robert Garrow and the Missing Bodies Case Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Lingering Evil: The Unsolved Murder of Buford Lolley Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSeattle's Forgotten Serial Killer: Gary Gene Grant Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Lynching in Northern Virginia: Seeking Truth at Rattlesnake Mountain Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmerican Time Bomb: Attica, Sam Melville, and a Son's Search for Answers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRape Revolvers & Ropes: The heinous 1930 lynching of two black youths and the elusive pursuit of justice Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAfrican American: The Opposition Court Case My experience as a black man in America refusing to be identified as African American Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Color of Law: Ernie Goodman, Detroit, and the Struggle for Labor and Civil Rights Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMurder in Minnesota: A Collection of True Cases Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Speak Truth to Power: The Story of Charles Patrick, a Civil Rights Pioneer Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNotorious Missouri: 200 Years of Historic Crimes Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Blood of Emmett Till Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Appealing For Justice: One Lawyer, Four Decades and the Landmark Gay Rights Case: Romer v. Evans Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Good American Family: The Red Scare and My Father Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Good Kids, Bad City: A Story of Race and Wrongful Conviction in America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlood in the Streets: Racism, Riots and Murders in the Heartland of America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWashington Babylon: From George Washington to Donald Trump, Scandals that Rocked the Nation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Lynchings in Duluth: Second Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Willis Newton: The Last Texas Outlaw Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGilded Age Murder & Mayhem in the Berkshires Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLetters To A Lost Nation: A Watergate Chronicle Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Devil's Triangle: Mark Judge vs the New American Stasi Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe MOB Lynching of Frank Fisher Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThis Day in Civil Rights History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRoad Through Midnight: A Civil Rights Memorial Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Values Matter Most: How Republicans, or Democrats, or a Third Party Can Win and Renew the American Way of Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTrue Crime in the Civil War: Cases of Murder, Treason, Counterfeiting, Massacre, Plunder & Abuse Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Devil's Defender: My Odyssey Through American Criminal Justice from Ted Bundy to the Kandahar Massacre Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
United States History For You
The Great Reset: And the War for the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just Kids: A National Book Award Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Awakening: Defeating the Globalists and Launching the Next Great Renaissance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the Guys Who Killed the Guy Who Killed Lincoln: A Nutty Story About Edwin Booth and Boston Corbett Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A People's History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer: An Edgar Award Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Library Book Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Red, White, and Black: Rescuing American History from Revisionists and Race Hustlers Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/51776 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing England: The Brutal Struggle for American Independence Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Benjamin Franklin: An American Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fifties Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Waco: David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and A Legacy of Rage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Closed Ranks
0 ratings0 reviews