The title of my first book is Bloody Lounds.

It tells a remarkable story of the transformation of rural Lounds County, Alabama,

from a citadel of violent white supremacy into the center of southern black militancy

during the height of the civil rights movement.

But Bloody Lounds does not begin in the 1960s, as one might expect, but rather a

century earlier at the moment of emancipation. You see to understand the African American

freedom struggle in the 20th century, you have to understand the African American freedom

struggle in the 19th century.

Like most places in the Alabama Black Belt, Lowndes County is resource poor, making

the preservation of local records of luxury the county cannot afford. So when I asked the probate judge if they still had arrest ledgers from the 19th century,

I was not surprised when he took me to a long neglected shed containing county records

scattered about and piled high in no particular order.

And after a fair bit of climbing, crawling, sifting, and sorting,

I actually found what I was searching for,

Lowndes County's Register of Arrests from the 1880s.

These turn of the century records revealed a pattern

and practice of police misconduct and judicial

malfeasance that made a mockery of criminal justice.

African Americans were routinely arrested on trumped-up charges and convicted in sham trials,

and when they could not pay the exorbitant court costs,

they were leased to plantation owners

and mine representatives who could.

...