Ghosts Of Crook County

The true—and unsolved—story of unabashedly greedy men, their exploitation of Muscogee land, and the hunt for the ghost of a boy who may never have existed For readers of David Grann’s award-winning Killers of the Flower Moon In the early 1900s, at the dawn of the “American Century,” few knew the intoxicating power of greed better than white men on the forefront of the black gold rush. When oil was discovered in Oklahoma, these counterfeit tycoons impersonated, defrauded, and murdered Native property owners to snatch up hundreds of acres of oil-rich land. Writer and fourth-generation Oklahoman Russell Cobb sets the stage for one such oilman’s chicanery: Tulsa entrepreneur Charles Page’s campaign for a young Muscogee boy’s land in Creek County. Problem was, “Tommy Atkins,” the boy in question, had died years prior—if he ever lived at all. Ghosts of Crook County traces Tommy’s mythologized life through Page’s relentless pursuit of his land. We meet Minnie Atkins and the two other women who claimed to be Tommy’s “real” mother. Minnie would testify a story of her son’s life and death that fulfilled the legal requirements for his land to be transferred to Page. And we meet Tommy himself—or the men who proclaimed themselves to be him, alive and well in court. Through evocative storytelling, Cobb chronicles with unflinching precision the lasting effects of land-grabbing white men on Indigenous peoples. What emerges are the interconnected stories of unabashedly greedy men, the exploitation of Indigenous land, and the legacy of a boy who may never have existed.

From reports of haunted castles, hotels, public houses, and even a prisoner of war camp, to heart-stopping accounts of apparitions, poltergeists and related supernatural phenomena, Ghostly County Durham investigates over twenty of the most haunted locations in the area today. Drawing on historical and contemporary sources, this selection includes a club-footed monk at Finchdale Priory, the Singing Lady Cauldron Snout, as well as a collection of spectres that call Durham Castle home — including a shadowy figure which haunts the Black Staircase. Illustrated with sixty photographs, together with access details for each location, this book is sure to appeal all those interested in finding out more about the area's haunted heritage.

Winner of the 2017 Eduardo Bonilla-Silva Outstanding Book Award, sponsored by the Society for the Study of Social Problems. Finalist for the C. Wright Mills Book Award, sponsored by the Society for the Study of Social Problems. Winner of the 2017 Oliver Cromwell Cox Book Award, sponsored by the American Sociological Association's Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities. Winner of the 2017 Mary Douglas Prize for Best Book, sponsored by the American Sociological Association's Sociology of Culture Section. Honorable Mention in the 2017 Book Award from the American Sociological Association's Section on Race, Class, and Gender. NAACP Image Award Nominee for an Outstanding Literary Work from a debut author. Winner of the 2017 Prose Award for Excellence in Social Sciences and the 2017 Prose Category Award for Law and Legal Studies, sponsored by the Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division, Association of American Publishers. Silver Medal from the Independent Publisher Book Awards (Current Events/Social Issues category). Americans are slowly waking up to the dire effects of racial profiling, police brutality, and mass incarceration, especially in disadvantaged neighborhoods and communities of color. The criminal courts are the crucial gateway between police action on the street and the processing of primarily black and Latino defendants into jails and prisons. And yet the courts, often portrayed as sacred, impartial institutions, have remained shrouded in secrecy, with the majority of Americans kept in the dark about how they function internally. Crook County bursts open the courthouse doors and enters the hallways, courtrooms, judges' chambers, and attorneys' offices to reveal a world of punishment determined by race, not offense. Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve spent ten years working in and investigating the largest criminal courthouse in the country, Chicago–Cook County, and based on over 1,000 hours of observation, she takes readers inside our so-called halls of justice to witness the types of everyday racial abuses that fester within the courts, often in plain sight. We watch white courtroom professionals classify and deliberate on the fates of mostly black and Latino defendants while racial abuse and due process violations are encouraged and even seen as justified. Judges fall asleep on the bench. Prosecutors hang out like frat boys in the judges' chambers while the fates of defendants hang in the balance. Public defenders make choices about which defendants they will try to "save" and which they will sacrifice. Sheriff's officers cruelly mock and abuse defendants' family members. Delve deeper into Crook County with related media and instructor resources at www.sup.org/crookcountyresources. Crook County's powerful and at times devastating narratives reveal startling truths about a legal culture steeped in racial abuse. Defendants find themselves thrust into a pernicious legal world where courtroom actors live and breathe racism while simultaneously committing themselves to a colorblind ideal. Gonzalez Van Cleve urges all citizens to take a closer look at the way we do justice in America and to hold our arbiters of justice accountable to the highest standards of equality.

A fascinating collection of ghost stories, tales of the supernatural, death beliefs and death sayings that remain as a vestige of the part in south central Kentucky's "Pennyrile" region. "This unique and extremely valuable book adds considerably to the area of folklore studies in the United States. The material which Montell obtained in his field work is superb." --Don Yoder. "This book is to be recommended to both folklorists and those non-folklorists who read folklore for enjoyment alone. It makes an important contribution to the study of deathlore and, it is to be hoped, will draw added attention to this multi-generic subject area." --David J. Hufford, Tennessee Folklore Society Bulletin. "Professor Montell's book can well be viewed as a standard of excellence: a direct, articulate and cataloged approach for future study and implementation in the fields of folklore and oral history." --Joan Perkal, Oral History Association Newsletter. "The book gives fascinating accounts of death beliefs, death omens, folk beliefs associated with the dead, and in the major section, ghosts narratives. A fine combination of scholarship and chilling narration to be relished by firelight in an old deserted house in the hills." --Book Forum. "Professor Montell has arranged beliefs and experiences about death of a particular group of people in such a way that a whole new aspect of the people's lives comes to focus." --Loyal Jones, The Filson Club HIstory Quarterly.

“Failing schools. Underprivileged schools. Just plain bad schools.” That’s how Eve L. Ewing opens Ghosts in the Schoolyard: describing Chicago Public Schools from the outside. The way politicians and pundits and parents of kids who attend other schools talk about them, with a mix of pity and contempt. But Ewing knows Chicago Public Schools from the inside: as a student, then a teacher, and now a scholar who studies them. And that perspective has shown her that public schools are not buildings full of failures—they’re an integral part of their neighborhoods, at the heart of their communities, storehouses of history and memory that bring people together. Never was that role more apparent than in 2013 when Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced an unprecedented wave of school closings. Pitched simultaneously as a solution to a budget problem, a response to declining enrollments, and a chance to purge bad schools that were dragging down the whole system, the plan was met with a roar of protest from parents, students, and teachers. But if these schools were so bad, why did people care so much about keeping them open, to the point that some would even go on a hunger strike? Ewing’s answer begins with a story of systemic racism, inequality, bad faith, and distrust that stretches deep into Chicago history. Rooting her exploration in the historic African American neighborhood of Bronzeville, Ewing reveals that this issue is about much more than just schools. Black communities see the closing of their schools—schools that are certainly less than perfect but that are theirs—as one more in a long line of racist policies. The fight to keep them open is yet another front in the ongoing struggle of black people in America to build successful lives and achieve true self-determination.

A good ghost story can make your hair stand on end, your palms sweat, and your heart race. The bone-chilling collection Tales of Kentucky Ghosts presents more than 250 stories that do just that. In his new book, William Lynwood Montell has assembled an entertaining and diverse array of tales from across the commonwealth that will keep you checking under the bed every night. The first-person accounts in this collection showcase folklore that Montell has drawn from archives, family stories, and oral traditions throughout Kentucky. The stories include that of the ghost bride of Laurel County, who appears each year on the anniversary of her wedding day; the tale of the murdered worker who haunts the Simpson County home of his killer and former employer; and the account of the lost mandolin that plays itself in a house in Graves County. These and many other chilling stories haunt the pages of Tales of Kentucky Ghosts. In the tradition of Montell's previous Kentucky ghost books (Ghosts across Kentucky and Haunted Houses and Family Ghosts of Kentucky), Tales of Kentucky Ghosts brings together a variety of terrifying narratives that not only entertain and frighten but also serve as a unique record of Kentucky's rich heritage of storytelling.

A Kentucky native and folk studies scholar presents a collection of haunting legends and stories of spirits from across the Bluegrass State. William Lynwood Montell has spent years documenting Kentucky’s rich legacy of ghostly visitations. Many of the stories were collected from elders by younger generations and are recounted here exactly as they were gathered. This volume introduces spirits such as the Tan Man of Pike County, who trudges invisibly through a house accompanied by the smell of roses, and the famed Gray Lady of Liberty Hall in Frankfort, a houseguest who never left. Montell tells the story of the ghost of Daniel Boone calling upon the statesman Henry Clay shortly before his death. He also recounts the tale of ghouls that haunt the rehearsal house of the band The Kentucky Headhunters. Readers will find accounts of haunted libraries, mansions, log cabins, bathrooms, furniture, hotels, and distilleries, as well as reports of eerie visitations from passed-on grandmothers, husbands, daughters, uncles, cousins, babies, slaves, Civil War soldiers, dogs, sheep, and even wildcats. Almost every county in Kentucky is represented. Though the book emphasizes the stories themselves, Montell offers an introduction discussing how local history, and local character, are communicated across the generations in these colorful stories.

A ghostly Figure hanging in a churchyardicy fingers that run up your neckthe Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp. From the swamps of Kershaw County to an abandoned graveyard underneath South of the Border, the South Carolina Pee Dee is home to a rich heritage and a sometimes frightening past. In this volume, storyteller and author Tally Johnson investigates the truth behind the ghostly legends of counties that have seen revolution and war, tragedy and triumph. With an attention to history and a passion for the truth behind the legends, this fascinating glimpse into the Pee Dees past reveals that it is far stranger than anyone ever imagined.

Figure out whodunnit in this clever installment in the exciting Sudoku mystery series featuring puzzle master Liza Kelly... Original Sudoku puzzles included After spending her vacation hiding from the media, Liza returns to find that the town has put her in the running for mayor. She has a feeling that the neighboring county and its dirty political machine are involved. When she turns to an old classmate to find out, she discovers that he's been murdered. A closeted Sudoku fan, he's left behind puzzles that may have hidden clues to what finished him off and who is trying to run Liza into the ground.

“A whirlwind ride through the spooky and supernatural, including a ghostly Civil War leftover” (SWVA Today). The nighttime glow of the Cameo Theatre illuminates an apparition of the infamous madam Pocahontas Hale, and the ghost of a young Confederate soldier rises from Cedar Hill to gaze mournfully on his lost homestead—these are the haunts of the Twin Cities. Local author Bud Phillips takes readers on an eerie, and sometimes humorous, journey through the ghostly lore of Bristol, Virginia and Tennessee. From the terrifying specter of a headless hobo and the spirits of a young couple parted through violence and reunited in death to the organist who played the Sunday after her funeral, Phillips’s collection of tales raises the otherworldly residents of Bristol from the shadows. Includes photos!