{"product_id":"book-fwla","title":"A Lynching at Port Jervis","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAn account of a lynching that took place in New York in 1892, forcing the North to reckon with its own racism\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOn June 2, 1892, in the small, idyllic village of Port Jervis, New York, a young Black man named Robert Lewis was lynched by a violent mob. The twenty-eight-year-old victim had been accused of sexually assaulting Lena McMahon, the daughter of one of the town's well-liked Irish American families.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe incident was infamous at once, for it was seen as a portent that lynching, a Southern scourge, surging uncontrollably below the Mason-Dixon Line, was about to extend its tendrils northward. What factors prompted such a spasm of racial violence in a relatively prosperous, industrious upstate New York town, attracting the scrutiny of the Black journalist Ida B. Wells, just then beginning her courageous anti-lynching crusade? What meaning did the country assign to it? And what did the incident portend?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eToday, it's a terrible truth that the assault on the lives of Black Americans is neither a regional nor a temporary feature but a national crisis. There are regular reports of a Black person killed by police, and Jim Crow has found new purpose in describing the harsh conditions of life for the formerly incarcerated, as well as in large-scale efforts to make voting inaccessible to Black people and other minority citizens.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe \"mobocratic spirit\" that drove the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol-a phrase Abraham Lincoln used as early as 1838 to describe vigilantism's corrosive effect on America-frightfully insinuates that mob violence is a viable means of effecting political change. These issues remain as deserving of our concern now as they did a hundred and thirty years ago, when America turned its gaze to Port Jervis.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAn alleged crime, a lynching, a misbegotten attempt at an official inquiry, and a past unresolved. In \u003cem\u003eA Lynching at Port Jervis\u003c\/em\u003e, the acclaimed historian Philip Dray revisits this time and place to consider its significance in our communal history and to show how justice cannot be achieved without an honest reckoning.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Blackstone Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Audiobook","offer_id":49290279485744,"sku":"BDfwla","price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Audio CD","offer_id":49290279518512,"sku":"ZEfwla","price":36.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Audio MP3-CD","offer_id":49290279551280,"sku":"ZMfwla","price":31.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0879\/2784\/9264\/files\/fwla-Square-cover.jpg?v=1775956153","url":"https:\/\/downpour.com\/products\/book-fwla","provider":"Downpour","version":"1.0","type":"link"}