On the Laps of Gods: The Red Summer of 1919 and the Struggle for Justice That Remade a Nation by Robert Whitaker (2009-06-23) Paperback – 22 Jun. 2009

gREAT BOOK

Robert Whitaker is a Pulitzer Prize nominated journalist and author whose previous book MAD IN AMERICA is also a must read. He is featured extensively in the 2009 new documentary called GENERATION RX.In this amazing new book, Whitaker proves how diverse his talents really are. ON THE LAPS OF GODS is essential reading for anyone who is interested in the link between American history and HUMAN history. It is disturbing, but inspiring. . .and Whitaker pulls it all off with unbelievable ease.By the time he writes "The struggle for America's soul -- and its future -- was under way," you've already been hooked by this gripping story. The mere fact that he unearthed this story from 90 years ago -- and made it relevant to today -- speaks volumes about his immense talent.Whitaker is among an elite group of journalists. Buy this book and share it with friends.

The members of Turning Pages Book Club after reading this book realized that we had been educated about an historical event that we never heard of? Why, because it is not in our history books that we read throughout our educational system where we were supposedly taught History of the United States. The writers of history forgot about this rein of terror that African Americans endured during the end of Summer 1919, from September 30-October 1,1919. Known as "The Red Summer", which occurred at Hoop Spur in the vicinity of Elaine, which was located in rural Phillips County, Arkansas. A very detailed account of this horrific event has been chronicled in the book "On the Laps of Gods: The Red Summer of 1919, which Robert Whitaker writes about the event from all perspectives of the situation.Mr. Whitaker, we are truly thankful to you for writing this book, so that we can read about the buried history of this corrupt and racist country we live in.However, we also learned about hero's like Scorpio Americas that we need to know in order for us as a people to know where we are going! This is the reason why history is currently repeating itself, because the past has been buried!

“Now their was a riot down here among the wrases and it was a Good many of Negros down their killed and the white Peoples called for the troops from Little Rock and they went down their and killed Negros like they wont nothen But dogs and did not make no arest on the whites whatever while they arested and unarmed a lots of Negroes and left the white with their armes and the Negro with nothen But their Hands and face to stand all the punishment that the white wished to Give them.” —ANONYMOUS LETTER FROM A WORLD WAR I VETERAN TO EMMETT J. SCOTT, (Kindle Location 64)The red summer of 1919 was a very violent time in the history of this country; perhaps nowhere more so than in the deep south. In his book, On the Laps of Gods: The Elaine Massacre, Scipio Africanus Jones, and the Struggle for Justice That Remade a Nation, Robert Whitaker highlights that one of the least tolerated no-no’s in the Mississippi Delta was the attempt by black sharecroppers to unionize, to improve both their economic situation and the treatment that they received at the hands of the white landlords.It was one such attempt to sue for fairer treatment that precipitated the massacre of (probably) hundreds of black sharecrop farmers in the region of Elaine, Arkansas in early October of that year. The repercussions of that event reshaped the justice system in this country, resulting in the federal government exercising increased power over state courts in criminal proceedings.Recommendation: Although not always easy to follow, this story is interesting and very enlightening; and should be read by all.[Refer also to the U. S. Supreme Court case, Moore v Dempsey (1923) that put teeth into the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.]“THE STORY OF THE Elaine massacre, which for various reasons is unknown—even in its broadest details—to most Americans, serves as a reminder that the struggle to make our society, as Theodore Roosevelt put it, “juster and fairer,” was a long and hard one.” (p. 321)Crown/Archetype. Kindle Edition, 326 pages

This book is heartrending but also uplifting. It brings into focus a national hero, Scipio Jones, who was born a slave but rose to prominence. Now forgotten, he brought about--through his deft legal work--changes in our national law that we would do well to remember now in these days when habeous corpus seems to have gone by the wayside. Truly this book can be seen as examining the changes in our law that made it possible for the civil rights movement to emerge. It really is a great book and a great read. It can be hard to get through some of the gripping--but painful--accounts of the killings in the beginning of the book--but the end is worth it.