"Calling for ongoing systemic change, this short book packs a big punch and will resonate with many in the 21st century."—Randall M. Miller, Library Journal
"Those interested in historical work dealing with race and criminal justice, restorative justice, or simply the politics of memory and narrative, would do well to read this book."—Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era
“In these pages we see ugly, abandoned skeletons of white supremacy, but we can also recognize racist practices still very much present today. Seligman’s account is compelling, even-handed, and intelligent. It is meticulously sourced and artfully presented, a page-turner. Seligman makes a convincing argument that to achieve racial reconciliation we must correct the injustices of the past as well as those of the present.”—Will Schwarz, president of the Maryland Lynching Memorial Project
“The death penalty in America has been plagued with racial bias since the days of slavery. Even still, data reveal that the race of the victim and the perpetrator matter when it comes to sentencing death penalty cases. With a storyteller’s skill and a historian’s eye for detail, Scott Seligman draws the reader into this controversial early twentieth-century death penalty case and tells us why it matters today.”—Jamal Simmons, media commentator and political analyst
“A Second Reckoning is as haunting as it is relevant. Seligman crafts a well-written tale that both recounts and warns against the immediate and chronic damage that acts of legally sanctioned injustice can wreak on a community and a people. It is both stirring and alarming that John Snowden’s fate in 1919 relates so directly to today.”—Christopher H. Haley, director, Study of the Legacy of Slavery in Maryland, Maryland State Archives
“Seligman tells the story with careful historical accuracy, in superbly researched detail, and in a style that is clear, lively, colorful, and thoroughly engaging. . . . Seligman respects the reader throughout. He presents the evidence honestly and leaves to the reader the judgment of whether Snowden is guilty or not.”—Michael Millemann, Jacob A. France Professor of Law, University of Maryland Carey School of Law
