Roadhouse Justice - by Trent Brown (Hardcover)

About the Book

"In 1951, Hattie Lee Barnes, a twenty-one-year-old Black woman working as an overnight caretaker and maid at a county-line beer joint in southwestern Mississippi, shot and killed a white intruder. That man, twenty-two-year-old Lamar Craft, was breaking into the bar in the early morning hours, most likely to assault Barnes sexually. She confessed immediately to shooting him, at which point local police charged her with murder. Craft's family, one of prominence and influence, rejected Barnes's story that she was Lamar Craft's killer. Embarrassed by the circumstances in which he died, they asserted that Rob Lee, the white bar owner, was the actual murderer. Two of Craft's brothers thereafter tried to assassinate Lee but failed. Lee, concerned that Barnes might implicate him in the killing, shot her multiple times but failed to kill her. In Roadhouse Justice Trent Brown examines the long-forgotten circumstances surrounding Craft's death, revealing not only the details of his death and the lengthy court proceedings that followed, but also the precarious nature of Black lives under 1950s Mississippi justice. Barnes's court-appointed lawyer was twenty-five-year-old Joe Pigott. He and Charles Gordon, a reporter for the local newspaper, believed the prosecutors would attempt to unjustifiably convict Barnes of murder, sending her to state prison for life if not to the electric chair. Both men became strong advocates of her cause. At her murder trial later that year, the judge was Thomas Brady, a staunch segregationist who would become in the mid-1950s the leading intellectual light of the white supremist Citizens' Councils. Surprising nearly everyone, Pigott persuaded Brady to instruct the jury to deliver a directed verdict of not guilty. Hattie Barnes, however, was still not free. Despite her acquittal, Mississippi authorities continued to hold her in jail so that she would be available to testify against Rob Lee, the bar owner who shot her. At Lee's trial, which occurred over a year later, Barnes testified against him. A jury found Lee guilty, and a judge sentenced him to ten years in prison. The Craft family nonetheless continued to press authorities into indicting Lee for Lamar Craft's murder. They also filed suit against a life insurance company to construct an alternate explanation of his death. Two years after Barnes defended herself against Lamar Craft in the roadhouse, authorities finally freed her. As Brown points out, the broader story of the case illuminates the capricious nature of Mississippi justice, in which race, personal connections, and community pressures mattered a great deal. He rightly shows that Barnes was an uncommonly determined woman for not buckling under the enormous pressures she faced. Told here for the first time, the story of her tribulations and ultimate victory will attract readers interested in civil rights, legal studies, and Mississippi history"--

Book Synopsis

In 1951, a young Black woman, working as an overnight caretaker at a county-line beer joint in southwestern Mississippi, shot and killed a white intruder who was likely intending to assault her. Hattie Lee Barnes's killing of Lamar Craft threw the courts into a whirlwind of conflicting stories and murder attempts, illuminating the capriciousness of Mississippi justice, in which race, personal connections, and community expectations mattered a great deal.

In Roadhouse Justice, Trent Brown examines the long-forgotten circumstances surrounding this case, revealing not only the details of Craft's death and the lengthy court proceedings that followed, but also the precarious nature of Black lives under the 1950s southern justice system. Told here in full for the first time, the story of Barnes's tribulations and ultimate victory demonstrates her intense determination and refusal to buckle under the enormous pressures she faced.

Review Quotes

"Brown's meticulous research tracks with precision a complex and bewildering series of events across three counties in southwest Mississippi on the eve of the civil rights movement. Readers will find in Roadhouse Justice a true crime narrative that seems at once familiar and mystifying; an authentic and fascinating reveal of the strange interplay of race, class, and sex in the segregated South."--Stephanie R. Rolph, author of Resisting Equality: The Citizens' Council, 1954-1989

"This diligently researched, absorbing, and clearly written study tells the story of Hattie Lee Barnes on its own terms, clarifying its linkages to the modern civil rights movement. It is the byproduct of a painstaking research process that takes us to the scene of the crime she allegedly committed in 1951, killing a white man attempting to rape her, while also taking its readers on a journey back in time to the local community where it happened. Brown draws portraits of all the key players, while clarifying insurgent practices in law and journalism that helped to establish truth in a time when justice was so frequently denied to Black people, whose lives and experiences were less likely to be documented. This fine study's methodology illustrates historiography at its best."--Riché Richardson, author of Emancipation's Daughters: Reimagining Black Femininity and the National Body

About the Author

Trent Brown is professor of American studies at Missouri University of Science and Technology. Brown is the author of multiple books, including Murder in McComb: The Tina Andrews Case.