YOU CAN'T KILL A MAN BECAUSE OF THE BOOKS HE READS

The man at the heart of a landmark First Amendment case.

Now all but forgotten, Angelo Herndon was a cause célèbre, often spoken of in the 1930s in the same breath as the accused Scottsboro Boys. Like his Alabama contemporaries who were imprisoned for the alleged rape of two white women, Herndon was on trial for his life before an all-white jury, accused of breaking a Georgia law against inciting insurrection that predated the Civil War, when it was used to target rebellious slaves. A Communist, Herndon aroused local officials’ ire by attempting to organize an interracial protest in segregated Atlanta against paltry unemployment payments during the early days of the Depression. An unwarranted search of his home turned up a book advocating for a Black homeland carved out of the so-called Black Belt of several Southern states, including Georgia. At his first trial, which ended in conviction, the judge “showed mercy” by sentencing Herndon to 15 years in a chain gang, a de facto (albeit slower) death sentence that only the hardiest few survived. The bulk of Georgetown Law professor Snyder’s important and timely history is devoted to the aftermath of this trial, each chapter shining a light on the courageous interracial group who took on Herndon’s case as it made its way to the Supreme Court. The bravest was Herndon himself, who, barely out of his teens, survived legalized torture by racist police, prison guards, and Ku Klux Klansmen and, after his release on bond, became an eloquent spokesman for his own cause and those of others both in print and at rallies around the United States.

An inspiring portrait from an appalling chapter in American history.