Rural histories often explode onto city streets. In an excellent new book, K. Stephen Prince illustrates this phenomenon for the American South at the dawn of the twentieth century. The defiance of one rural migrant, a Black Mississippian named Robert Charles, convulsed New Orleans, Louisiana, and the New South's Jim Crow racial order in the summer of 1900. On July 23, Charles defended himself against members of the New Orleans Police Department who first attacked him with nightsticks and then attempted to arrest him. Over five days, Charles killed seven white men, including four policemen. In retaliation, white mobs indiscriminately killed at least six Black men and women, injuring countless more. White law enforcement proved indifferent to or incapable of protecting Black life and property despite the deputization of 1,500 citizen policemen.
But Prince doesn't stop there. In admirably accessible prose suitable for graduate and undergraduate students, he has written...
