A Game Called Salisbury: The Spinning of a Southern Tragedy and the Myths of Race
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by:
ISBN:
©
Price:
$23.95
Category/Subject:
Setting out to solve the mystery of her relatives’ axe murder, Wells uncovered a sinister political strategy that stole black Americans’ rights, enjoyed decades before Martin Luther King marched on Montgomery.
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Customer Reviews
Truth Will Set Us Free
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12/31/2007
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Reviewer:
marilyn harrison
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I believe that this remarkable book extends beyond the locale, beyond the region,
in it's steadfast pursuit of justice. It is a remarkable journey, a riveting read,
an eye opener for all of us that somehow grew up with our history deleted and
distorted. My school bus passed the Lyerly homeplace twice a day, and twice a
day I would remember the things spoken about the murders, the murdered
family and the murdered accused. It was many years later after returning to
my home town that I met Susan Barringer Wells, while she was doing research
on location. John Redwine Barringer is my great great grandfather also.
This book is about more than Salisbury's game, tragically these scenarios played
across our country and not exclusively in the south...the hateful politics of
Jim Crow, the contrived propaganda, the damning and manipulating press
left us with a legacy of pain still present. This book gives us the opportunity to
expand our knowledge of ourselves and others. Many families experience
similar if not the same schisms. Aside from being a page turner, and it is,
her research is impeccable, matched by her compassion for all of the victims,
those left behind, self righteous in perverse vindication, she writes also
for the generations that have followed, wading through a history sullied with an ommision of the truth. This book gives hope and wings to the adage that the
truth will set us free. I would like to thank the author, the time could never
be more perfect for us to examine the climate of then and now. Read On!
Next book please!
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Excerpts from publications
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07/24/2009
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Reviewer:
Susan B. Wells
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From THE NORTH CAROLINA HISTORICAL REVIEW:
"The study’s emphasis on the media’s role in the lynchings is of particular interest.... Wells’s description of the scant punishment mob members faced...is notable for its exposure of the class prejudice that coexisted with racial prejudice in early twentieth-century North Carolina. A Game Called Salisbury makes for engaging, albeit disturbing, reading. "—Elizabeth Crowder, Raleigh, North Carolina
From Writer/English Professor Tex Wood:
…Faulknerian in its revelations and observations of human nature, clearly spotlighting the question of real responsibility not just for active human evil, but also for spawning its activity.... Wells shows us that lynchings were (and are) the tip of the iceberg, the cruel result of calculated manipulation of our base human natures and our cowardliness in not confronting evil when we see it, either now or then.
While this book lacks Twain’s humor, it rivals his incisiveness.”
From Rob Neufeld, ASHEVILLE CITIZEN-TIMES:
Author does dogged detective work about a family murder
Rob Neufeld
Columnist
February 17, 2008 12:15 am
“One of the most chilling recent books about local history comes to our eyes via self-publication. In “A Game Called Salisbury” (Infinity Publishing), Susan Barringer Wells presents the story of a series of murders and retributive lynchings that had taken place within her family a century ago.
The book is exhaustively researched and compellingly related. To be passionate about a subject is one thing; to tell the story in a fresh and focused way, as Wells does, is a rarer achievement.”
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