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 THIS
SHORT BOOK PACKS A PUNCH.
In this
page-turner, historian
Seligman doggedly digs up
seemingly every detail on
the arrest, trial,
conviction, and post-trial
experiences of John Snowden,
a Black man convicted of
murdering a pregnant white
woman in Annapolis, MD, in
1917. The murder and trial
gained national attention
due to sensationalistic
reports from the press;
fevered worries about racial
unrest amid early
mobilization for World War
I; and the persistent
efforts by Snowden's defense
lawyers, Black journalists,
clergymen, and civil rights
activists, and various white
supporters, to overturn the
conviction and save Snowden
from execution. Snowden's
defenders argued that racism
had corrupted his trial and
the appeal process.
Seligman introduces and
gives rich detail on an
interesting cast of
detectives, lawyers, judges,
government officials,
clergy, and civil rights
activists who became
involved in the story.
Seligman's principal purpose
in relating this history is
to make a case for
posthumous pardons for Black
Americans and others who,
like Snowden, were unjustly
convicted of crimes. He
closes his book with an
ardent plea to vigorously
investigate and interrogate
past judicial actions to
right past wrongs and set a
standard for justice today.
“VERDICT: Calling for
ongoing systemic change,
this short book packs a big
punch and
will resonate with
many in the 21st century.
MORE
Randall L. Miller
Library Journal
SCOTT SELIGMAN'S
LATEST NARRATIVE NONFICTION
BOOK, A Second
Reckoning: Race, Injustice,
and the Last Hanging in
Annapolis uses
historical court records,
newspaper coverage in the
Evening Capital in
1917, and interviews with
living relatives to tell the
story of John Snowden’s
legal journey, his
descendants' fight for
justice in his name, and
Maryland’s reevaluation of
unjust judicial processes in
the Jim Crow era. MORE
Lilly Price
Capital
Gazette/Baltimore Sun
WITH THE NATION
STIPP GRAPPLING WITH ITS
HISTORY OF RACIAL INJUSTICE
and debating how to move
forward on the issue of
racist violence, both
private and public, and
battling to tell such
stories in public schooling,
this book offers a
compelling intervention
revealing the role
posthumous pardons can play
in contemporary society.
Those interested in
historical work dealing with
race and criminal justice,
restorative justice, or
simply the politics of
memory and narrative, would
do well to read this book.
MORE
D. J. Polite
Journal of the
Gilded Age and Progressive
Era
SELIGMAN DOCUMENTS
YET ANOTHER RACIST
MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE
within the Jim Crow legal
system. But, as the title
implies, the importance of
A Second Reckoning
is that it clarifies how
those injustices persisted
into future generations . .
. Posthumous pardons are for
the living, Seligman argues,
but they have an important
role to play in the current
movement to remove
nationalist symbols
dedicated to the enslavers
and white supremacists. MORE
Taulby H. Edmondson
Journal of
Southern History
A GREAT READ.
A Second Reckoning is a
great read for law students,
history lovers, justice
seekers, and those who are
looking to try and gain a
better understanding of just
how hard some of our fellow
community members still have
to fight for basic justice
as a result of racial bias
still present in American
society. MORE
Megan Weiss
Reader Views
Five Star Review
SELIGMAN'S ACCOUNT
IS COMPELLING, EVEN-HANDED
AND INTELLIGENT.
In these pages we see ugly,
abandoned skeletons of white
supremacy, but we can also
recognize racist practices
still very much present
today. Seligman’s account is
compelling, even-handed, and
intelligent. It is
meticulously sourced and
artfully presented, a
page-turner. Seligman makes
a convincing argument that
to achieve racial
reconciliation we must
correct the injustices of
the past as well those of
the present.
Will Schwarz
President of the Maryland
Lynching Memorial Project
A STORYTELLER'S
SKILL AND A HISTORIAN'S EYE
FOR DETAIL. The death
penalty in America has been
plagued with racial bias since the days of slavery.
Even still, data reveal that
the race of the victim and
the perpetrator matter when
it comes to sentencing death
penalty cases. With a
storyteller’s skill and a
historian’s eye for detail,
Scott Seligman draws the
reader into this
controversial early
twentieth-century death
penalty case and tells us
why it matters today.
Jamal Simmons
Media
Commentator and Political
Analyst
AS HAUNTING AS IT IS
RELEVANT. “A
Second Reckoning is as
haunting as it is relevant.
Seligman crafts a
well-written tale that both
recounts and warns against
the immediate and chronic
damage that acts of legally
sanctioned injustice can
wreak on a community and a
people. It is both stirring
and alarming that John
Snowden’s fate in 1919
relates so directly to
today.”
Christopher H. Haley
Director, Study of the
Legacy of Slavery in
Maryland
Maryland State
Archives
SELIGMAN RESPECTS
THE READER THROUGHOUT.
“Seligman tells the story
with careful historical
accuracy, in superbly
researched detail, and in a
style that is clear, lively,
colorful, and thoroughly
engaging. . . . Seligman
respects the reader
throughout. He presents the
evidence honestly and leaves
to the reader the judgment
of whether Snowden is guilty
or not."
Michael Millemann
Jacob A. France Professor of
Law
University of
Maryland Carey School of Law
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