On the laps of gods : the Red Summer of 1919 and the struggle for justice that remade a nation / Robert Whitaker.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [361]-367) and index.

September 30, 1919. The United States teetered on the edge of a racial civil war. Racial fighting had erupted in 25 cities. Deep in the Arkansas Delta, black sharecroppers formed a union to sue their white landowners, who had cheated them for years. What happened next has long been shrouded in controversy. Over several days, posses and federal troops gunned down more than 100 men, women, and children. White authorities arrested more than 300 black farmers, and in brief trials, all-white juries sentenced twelve union leaders to the electric chair. And then, a lawyer from Little Rock stepped forward. Scipio Africanus Jones, born a slave, joined with the NAACP to mount an appeal in which he argued that his clients' constitutional rights to a fair trial had been violated. Never before had the U.S. Supreme Court set aside a criminal verdict in a state court because the proceedings had been unfair.--From publisher description.