David Bradley (12)Critiques

This book was no where near as interesting as the synopsis lead me to believe. I was ready to give up 50 pages in. I was expecting a riveting court room drama, instead I read how Virginia was “outraged” because some northern newspapers said how racist Virginia was. This was countered by the author explaining how a death that was ruled accidental was really a lynching. The title gives away we are dealing with a racist situation. Also, knowing that one of the victims house guests, who left was related to two senators was I felt irrelevant.

In conclusion, too much information bogged this story down before it even got started.

Caveat: I have worked in law offices for over thirty years, studied journalism and writing, and love to read histories.

That said, this story deserves a much better writer to tell it. Consider the elements: It involves murder (two women in Virginia), one suspect (an African American former employee), the NAACP, the Scottsboro Case (peripherally), and the grand jury system. Mixed in are federal case law versus state case law, mob justice versus judicial proceedings, lots and lots of prejudices (running both directions), scandal-mongering press and civil rights debates.

What could ruin such a read? A writer who cannot write a simple declarative sentence. A reporter/writer who does not know the grammatical difference between hanging up a coat and a hanged man. A writer who consistently uses "he and him went" or "it's" for "its" or insists on using the pronoun "he" in a paragraph where the defendant, his counsel, opposing counsel, judges, and leaders of the NAACP are all referenced--without saying which "he" is meant.

Because of the nature of the historical aspect of the book I am giving it to our firm library, but it was, quite simply, torture to read.

"The Historic Murder Trial of George Crawford: Charles H. Houston, the NAACP, and the Case That Put All-White Southern Juries on Trial" by David Bradley is a true and fascinating look at a regrettably forgotten episode in 1930's American history. It is a tale that is revealing, grotesque, and astounding made all the more mysterious by Mr. Crawford himself.

The story begins in Virginia with the murder of two women, Agnes Ilsley and her housekeeper, Mina Buckner. Neither woman had enemies nor were they the type of woman that attracted the wrong sort of person. Agnes, recently widowed, tried to make the best of her situation by renting out her main house and living in the guest house. Mina lived there also and kept the place up and cooked the meals for the renters who came for the fox hunts and horse races that area of Virginia is still famous for. Agnes' ne'er-do-well brother, Paul Boeing, was also living there and he was the one to discover the horrific scene that morning. Word soon spread that George Crawford had been spotted in the area and he was responsible. George had been hired by Agnes as her chauffeur but was fired for stealing, a not surprising occurrence given his reputation. In spite of the lack of solid evidence, the police made George their prime suspect and spent a year looking for him. Not everyone thought George to be the culprit; many pointed to Boeing due to his proximity to the crime scene, his alleged homosexuality (of all things), and the rumor that he was wanted in Paris for murder. These finger-pointing "allegations" about Boeing proved to be important in the upcoming trial.

What follows is a very well researched and highly detailed (sometimes too much) look at an important trial and the right to a jury of your peers. Until not that long ago, African-American's could not serve on juries and that's the central issue to this case. How can George get a fair trial with an all-white jury in 1933? He insisted that he was in Boston (where they finally caught up with him) and the Judge refused to extradite him simply because of this issue. No extradition, no trial and George walks away a free man. This proved to be just one of the monkey wrenches thrown in the case that make this case as astonishing then as it is now.

The attorneys from the NAACP and other organizations were locked into this trial but woefully unprepared. The push and pull of the police and attorneys in Virginia and those in Massachusetts fought fiercely for justice. How they made it work is truly interesting and eye-opening.

Be prepared for accounts of vile discrimination that culminate in the lynching of innocent men and women. This story from time-to-time is a no holds barred look at the southern United States during a terrible time in our history. Push through those parts to the story of determination, disingenuous confessions, and the jurisprudence system at a time when no one was really held accountable for the truth.

Highly recommended for anyone interested in reading historical non-fiction, the legal system in the early 20th century in the South, and the life, trial, and death of a man that just may not have been guilty.

I am not certain that the title of this book is accurate but it is a story that needed to be told. It is

This is the story of how in preparing to defend an accused African American murderer, a group of African American attorneys used the State of Virginia's own prejudices against minorities to ensure the murderer received a fair trial.

In 1932 two women were brutally murdered in their home. The ensuing search for the killer was extensive and exhausting. If the killer would have been caught quickly, due to the prejudices of the time, he would have been lynched. Since it took almost a year to catch the killer, and that he was caught outside of Virginia, the NAACP did their very best to make sure George Crawford was not extradited back to Virginia and to what was felt to be an unfair trial. This story explains the bias of legal wrangling to make sure the accused received a fair trial and in the course of protecting the accused rights, put the prejudices of the southern states in the news.

The end results were the accused admitted to the killings and received a fair trial, and the southern states changed their prejudices against minorities serving on juries.

In the hands of a better writer, this could have been a fascinating book. It is a story that deserved to be told, and told well. Unfortunately, The Historic Murder Trial of George Crawford is not that book and David Bradley is most certainly not that writer. The biographic blurb on the back cover of the book identifies the writer as "a journalist who spent more than a decade working at newspapers in northern Virginia." Perhaps the past tense in that statement is telling. The writing is awkward and stilted and the book is cluttered with way too much irrelevant information. We can hope that someday another more capable historian will come along and do justice to the Crawford trial. In the meantime, the best thing to do with this book is contribute it to the recycling bin. Simply put, it is not worth the time or effort to read it.

This book provides an overwhelming amount of detail about the historical context and events surrounding George Crawford's trial. At times it's difficult to track all the names and dates and how they're relevant to the trial. An appendix with a list of names and brief descriptions as well as a timeline would be a very useful addition to this book.
That said, I found the book fascinating. It paints a clear picture of the systematic, unquestioned racism that prevailed in the southern United States in the 20's and 30's, and illustrates some of the ways that fighting for civil rights consisted of two steps forward, three hundred steps back, over and over again. It's also interesting to see how a trial for someone who was almost certainly guilty could prove to be the catalyst for social change, as well as the way the media then, as now, has difficulty with ambiguity. At the time, few people viewed the trial as the victory that it was because George Crawford was not acquitted.

David Bradley, author of The Historic Murder Trial of George Crawford, The NAACP and the Case That Put All-White Southern Juries on Trial, falls into a trap many writers fall into. That is, he seems to feel he needs to put in every bit of research he did into the book. The result is that this book is a chore to read. One example is that he spends two paragraphs naming men who were excused from jury duty or asked to be excused from jury duty and the reasons why, none of them at all important to the history of the trial.

In 1933, in Virginia, George Crawford, a black man, was tried for the murders of two women, one Agnes Ilsley--a wealthy woman--and Mina Buckner--Ilsley's maid. Both were white. If you want tons of facts and details, often very minute and needless details,this is a book for you. If you are looking for an interesting, engaging book about this historic trial, the people and the time period, give this one a pass. Or just read the chapter on the actual trial and the chapter on the aftermath of the trial. Those are fairly compelling despite the writing.½

Although the full title of David Bradley’s book, “The historic murder trial of George Crawford : Charles H. Houston, the NAACP and the case that put all-white southern juries on trial” is grandiose but it is accurate. The trial is historic, it involves Charles H. Houston and the NAACP, and Jim Crow restrictions on who can serve on Southern juries start to fall. I was a little concerned when I learned that Bradley is a writer for a small town newspaper but his style was pleasant surprise. He is a talented writer and his first article on the Crawford trial was back in 2002. He has had plenty of time to do research.

The trial concerns the deaths of two women of wealth women, murdered in their home in northern Virginia. Suspicion immediately falls on George Crawford, recently fired from his position as their chauffeur, and Paul Boeing, the brother of one of the woman who the town saw as “effeminate”. Given that the murder was in the old South and Crawford was black, he was the suspect the police pursued.

Luckily for him the police could not find him, as Bradley points out this was the era, and an area known for lynchings. When Crawford is finally found and arrested in Massachusetts the NAACP’s new legal strategy to challenge Jim Crow takes up his case. This is not Dred Scott or Roe v Wade but it is an important case. Several Southern states took notice and began putting African American men into the jury pools immediately. The Scottsboro Trial in Alabama was going on at the same time as the Crawford trial and the book shows the distrust and class struggle between the “Talented Tenth’s” NAACP and the American Communist Party.

Billy Mitchell, the father of naval aviation, is a minor character in the story. He lived in the town where the murders took place and, being Billy Mitchell, felt the need to put himself into the investigation. Walter White, president of the NAACP and W. E. B. Du Bois, founder of the NAACP and editor of it’s magazine The Crisis, show up her also and the aftermath of the trial shows the fault lines in the organization and the unease with the small, slow steps their legal strategy was taking. Charles H. Houston, Crawford’s lead attorney at trial, was a law professor at Howard University. His students, including Thurgood Marshall, would bring that strategy to its high point twenty years after Crawford’s trial with Brown v Board of Education.

The persecution Houston endured after the trial was a revelation for me. Saving Crawford’s life was enough for Houston but a vocal minority of supporters were willing to put Crawford back at risk to argue against the exclusion of blacks from juries in court. They argued for this knowing that they had already won representation on juries in several Southern states and many Virginia counties directly from the efforts made on behalf of Crawford.

I enjoyed this book, it is a well written popular history that can put flesh on the bones of Depression Era history. Full disclosure I received my copy free as part of LibraryThing.com’s Early Reviewer program.

In 1932 in Leesberg, Virginia, two women were murdered in their home. Agnes Boeing Ilsley was a 39-year-old socialite. Mina Buckner was her white maid. While there was some suspicion that Ilsley’s brother had committed the crimes, the police quickly focused on George Crawford, a Negro man who had recently worked as Ilsley’s chauffeur and had been accused of theft.
Crawford had fled the area, ending up in Boston. Charles H. Houston, Dean of Howard University Law School, and the NAACP stepped in to defend Crawford. The first prong of that defense was trying to prevent Massachusetts from extraditing Crawford to Virginia for trial because no Negroes had been impaneled on any juries even though fifty years previously a Virginia circuit judge had ruled Negroes could serve on juries and the US Supreme Court ruled that statutes preventing them was unconstitutional. In addition, with a history of some horrendous lynchings in Virginia and other states, described in detail, Crawford’s lawyers were concerned about his safety if he was returned.
The trial, while getting national attention, was overshadowed by the publicity of the Scottsboro Boys Trial which was going concurrently.
While it opens with the murder, THE HISTORIC MURDER TRIAL OF GEORGE CRAWFORD examines the history, including race relations, of the area from the time of the Civil War and the history of Agnes and her family. Loudoun County, location of Leesburg, had voted against secession even though the local population supported it. “The county had been settled by Southern planters who came north from the Tidewater area and Northern Germans and Quakers who came south. The northerners opposed slavery on religious grounds [and, having less land and working as merchants and craftsmen] had little need for African field hands. The southerner plantation owners...had both the need and financial means to embrace slavery.”
The book mentions the attempts by communists to use trials of Negroes to gain support for their cause.
The book is an erudite examination of a case that had far reaching effects on the justice system. It was the first trial with an all-Negro defense team and the racial mix of juries changed in many areas because of it.
David Bradley, like many authors on historical subjects, tended to include too much unnecessary information: The costumes worn by some women at a party added nothing to the main plot. Neither did mentioning that the trial took place in the home state of a future U.S. President who allegedly fathered six children by a slave.
The font, especially in the quoted sections, was much too small for easy reading. There is some repetition including almost all of one letter from Crawford. In four locations, the pronoun “he” was used instead of the correct “him.”
It was interesting following the legal steps taken by Houston in his attempt to provide Crawford with a fair trial.
I received this book as a LibraryThing Early Reviewer.