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An urgent book of history: The story of George Denning
Updated Feb 14, 2021;
Posted Feb 14, 2021
A Shot in the Moonlight - How a freed slave and a Confederate soldier fought for justice in the Jim Crow south. (photo courtesy Little, Brown Spark)
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By Donnamy Steele
George Denning stood before a jury of white men when he was sentenced to seven years of prison for manslaughter.
What happened after that moment became a long and surprising tale, especially for a former slave in the south in the 1800s.
His story began as a misunderstanding, which quickly turned into a fight or flight response, and prompted Denning to make a decision that would greatly impact his life and others like him. In 1897, 25 white men demanded Denning, a freed slave who had been farming on his property in southwestern Kentucky, to come out of his house based on the accusation that he was a thief. After shots began showering onto the home where his family slept, Denning ran upstairs and sen