Artistic License History: Difference between revisions
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** The book focuses on lynchings taking place in the South, stressing that this is unusual and is not happening anywhere else, even though lynchings have taken place ''everywhere'' in America—the South, the Midwest, the West and yes, in the North.
** Roosevelt sends the white hero, Ben Corbett to his hometown of Eudora, Mississippi and report on lynchings and Klan activities. The modern version of the Klan was not founded till 1915, in Georgia, and wasn't any kind of a really big deal until after World War I. The Reconstruction Klan was dissolved after ca. 1877. Patterson admits that it had been disbanded officially, but maintains that it existed at the time of the story (possible) and that its impact was so great as to merit Presidential investigation (not supported by historical record).
** Three "White Raiders" (read: Klansmen) are arrested ([[You Fail Logic Forever|by a sheriff who's a Klansman and who believes in what they're doing]]) and Roosevelt sends one Jonah Curtis to prosecute the case. Jonah is, of course, a black man. It's not that Jonah's black and practicing law; the first African-American to be admitted to a state bar was [https://web.archive.org/web/20131213133626/http://www.duhaime.org/LawMuseum/LawArticle-467/Allen-Macon-1816-1894.aspx Macon Bolling Allen] in July 1844. The problem is that Jonah is a black man who, between 1901 and 1909, apparently works for the federal government and is recognized by the state of Mississippi as an attorney. To find a situation that's more or less analogous, the first black man to serve as an assistant U.S. Attorney in Mississippi since Reconstruction was [https://web.archive.org/web/20110827124348/http://www.mssc.state.ms.us/appellate_courts/coa/bios/judgeirving.html Tyree Irving]. He was hired by the Northern District of Mississippi in 1978. NINETEEN SEVENTY-EIGHT.
** Roosevelt claims that the above lawsuit will ensure him the black vote for all time. I guess Patterson hasn't heard of common ways that white people of the period kept blacks and other minorities from voting. Like, oh, [[wikipedia:Poll tax|the poll tax]] and [[wikipedia:Literacy test|literacy tests]].
** At the end of the book, Ben takes Moody Cross (Alex's ancestor) into Eudora, walking hand in hand with her and walking into restaurants and stores demanding that they be served—and actually expecting the store owners to comply. Because it's not like segregation and Jim Crow laws existed, or that an attorney would know about either.
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