Bøger af Grif Stockley

"...all the things I look for in a mesmerizing story - personal resonance, history, excellent construction, and a desire to have actually met the characters..." - Janis F. Kearney, diarist to President Bill Clinton"In our current state of national crisis, ... we need books like this more than ever..." - Guy Lancaster, editor of the Encyclopedia of ArkansasGrif Stockley grew up the "rotten-spoiled" son of white landowners in post-WWII eastern Arkansas, "an agricultural paradise or hell, depending on your perspective." Hypogrif in Bubbaville is more than a memoir, for Stockley opens "a window on the dominant white culture" of the Jim Crow-era Mississippi River Delta, exposing his childhood home, his family, and especially himself, to unblinking scrutiny.Stockley weaves a deeply personal narrative into the most formative events of his generation. Through accounts of his service as a Peace Corps volunteer in rural Colombia, a state-side Army draftee during the Vietnam War, a legal advocate for the poor and mentally ill, a civil rights activist, a novelist and award-winning author of books on the history of race relations in Arkansas, Stockley examines "the advantages and consequences of Southern white male heterosexual privilege" as they manifested in his own life.For those seeking greater insight into the legacy of racism and white supremacy that continues to haunt the South, Hypogrif in Bubbaville is an essential testament."...honest, intimate ... examines the injustice of his rigidly segregated society..." - Leon Dash, Professor of Journalism, University of Illinois College of Law"Stockley's memoir renews the belief that we can overcome racism and atone for our nation's sins." - Brian K. Mitchell, Assistant Professor of History, University of Arkansas Little Rock

"GRIPPING . . . [Stockley] writes with wit, irony, and a good lawyer's intimate understanding of the daily life of the defense bar and the dynamics of trial. Illegal Motion reads like a thriller and reverberates like the news." *Entertainment Weekly When small-time lawyer Gideon Page agrees to defend Dade Cunningham against charges of rape, he doesn't realize what he's taken on. Dade, a star wide receiver for the University of Arkansas, is poor and black; his accuser, a pretty co-ed, is wealthy and white. And Gideon is suddenly at the center of a racially and sexually charged case that will earn him enemies on campus and off. Before he even gets to trial, he'll be dodging the media and the wrath of feminists, contending with naked bigotry and university politics, dealing with the divided loyalties of his daughter, Sarah, and facing long hidden secrets from the past that will put the truth *and his own conscience *on trial. . . . "[The] richness of place and character gives punch to the climactic courtroom scene . . . Illegal Motion will give courtroom drama fans a pleasantly tense few hours." *San Jose Mercury News "STOCKLEY KNOWS HIS STUFF." *Detroit Free Press

Leigh Wallace, the knockout daughter of a big-time minister, is behind bars, accused of murdering her wealthy husband. Defending her is the county's legendary and dying trial lawyer, Chet Bracken, who now asks none other than lowly lawyer Gideon Page to help him on the case. Page is ecstatic -- a victory would solidify his career. Thoughts of victory quickly dissipate as hidden truths about the serpentine case begin to emerge: that Chet has something up his sleeve...that whatever is up Chet's sleeve, Page's own daughter doesn't want him to find it...that everyone from bimbos to bible thumpers seem to fit into this case...and that jealousy, lust, and religious loyalty can be effective roadblocks to rightful conviction....

"Entertaining...Fast, fascinating."THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNEWhen the profits of his law firm dip too low, ex-public defender Gideon Page is fired--but not before he steals a case that has all the makings of a media nightmare. Dr. Andrew Chapman, a black psychiatrist, is charged with manslaughter when a severely retarded girl dies in his care during a risky--and some say barbaric--elctro-shock procedure. When it turns out that the doctor and the girl's mother were having an affair, the press is about to have a field day. That is, unless Gideon can unravel the many twisted threads of truth, battle a county steeped in racial strife, and lock horns with a tough, ambitious, female prosecutor in a courtroom set to explode....

On March 5, 1959, Luvenia Long was listening to gospel music when a news bulletin interrupted her radio program. Fire had engulfed the Arkansas Negro Boys Industrial School in Wrightsville. Her son was among the twenty-one boys who burned to death. Black Boys Burning presents a focused explanation of how systemic poverty perpetuated by white supremacy sealed the fate of those students.

Daisy Bates (1914-1999) is renowned as the mentor of the Little Rock Nine, the first African Americans to attend Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. For guiding the Nine through one of the most tumultuous civil rights crises of the 1950s, she was selected as Woman of the Year in Education by the Associated Press in 1957 and was the only woman invited to speak at the Lincoln Memorial ceremony in the March on Washington in 1963. But her importance as a historical figure has been overlooked by scholars of the civil rights movement. Daisy Bates: Civil Rights Crusader from Arkansas chronicles her life and political advocacy before, during, and well after the Central High School crisis. An orphan from the Arkansas mill town of Huttig, she eventually rose to the zenith of civil rights action. In 1952, she was elected president of the NAACP in Arkansas and traveled the country speaking on political issues. During the 1960s, she worked as a field organizer for presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson to get out the black vote. Even after a series of strokes, she continued to orchestrate self-help and economic initiatives in Arkansas. Using interviews, archival records, contemporary news-paper accounts, and other materials, author Grif Stockley reconstructs Bates's life and career, revealing her to be a complex, contrary leader of the civil rights movement. Ultimately, Daisy Bates paints a vivid portrait of an ardent, overlooked advocate of social justice.