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
BY ROLAND KLOSE St. Louis Post-Dispatch
February 10, 2021
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“A Shot in the Moonlight: How a Freed Slave and a Confederate Soldier Fought for Justice in the Jim Crow South” by Ben Montgomery; Little Brown Spark (304 pages, $28)
About 500 St. Louisans gathered in 1914 for the dedication of a Confederate memorial in Forest Park, where Bennett H. Young, commander-in-chief of the United Confederate Veterans Association, eulogized the “bravery” and “bitter determination” of the 600,000 Southern men who fought for a “cause they believed to be right.” Young, an apologist for the Confederacy, played a key role in littering the country with memorials to the “Lost Cause,” but, as in all things, his story is complicated.
How a freed slave triumphed over a White lynch mob in the Jim Crow South kesq.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from kesq.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.