Murder in the Courthouse: Reconstruction & Redemption in the North Carolina Piedmont

by Jim Wise

Overview

An in-depth look at the historic murder of an infamous politician during America’s Reconstruction following the Civil War.
 
No suspect was ever indicted or tried for the murder of scalawag politician John W. “Chicken” Stephens in a North Carolina courthouse; and the Ku Klux Klan not only rid itself of a troublesome adversary, but also set up a showdown between the state’s old guard and the radical regime of Governor William Woods Holden. Follow this little-known tale from the murder, through the “Kirk-Holden War,” through the courts and to the finale, when Holden became the United States’ first governor impeached and removed from office. Newspaper reporter and historical columnist Jim Wise takes us beyond the final days of the Civil War in North Carolina, amidst the destruction and poverty and debt, to chronicle the men whose clashing agendas and personalities shaped a violent era and laid foundations for the Jim Crow century to come.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781614232285
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	07/31/2020
Series:	True Crime
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	144
Sales rank:	714,887
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Born in Georgia, raised in Florida and resident of North Carolina since 1966, Jim Wise is an alumnus of Duke University (BA, English) and the University of North Carolina (MA, folklore). He has been a reporter, editor and/or columnist for newspapers in Durham, North Carolina, for more than twenty-eight years and has taught adult classes on local and Southern history for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Duke. His previous History Press books are On Sherman's Trail: The Civil War's North Carolina Climax and Durham Tales: The Morris Street Maple, the Plastic Cow, the Durham Day that Was and More. He and his wife, Babs, live in Durham with an aging dog and cat.

Table of Contents

Author's Note 9

May 21, 1870 11

Ominous Victory 17

New Regime 25

Issues Black and White 37

The Man Who Would Be Governor 49

Bright Leaves and Impending Crisis 59

The Black Republican 71

Scalawag and Carpetbagger 83

Corruption and Ku Klux 97

The Ku Klux Experience 109

A War, of Sorts 123

Reprisals and Redemptions 133

Notes 143

Bibliography 153

About the Author 159