THE WOMAN IN THE SUWANNEE JAIL

by William Bradford Huie ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 27, 1955

Again (Eddie Slovik, Mamie Stover) an individual becomes an issue, and the little known case of Ruby McCollum which was walled off in silence as a ""community problem"" provides a dramatic defense which is fundamentally an attack against discrimination. Ruby McCollum, the well-educated, well-behaved wife of a Negro numbers banker who earned $50,000 a year, walked into the office of Dr. Clifford LeRoy Adams, a local legend as the ""pore man's friend"", and shot him, allegedly because he'd been dunning her. In the trial which followed, none of the more pertinent facts were heard: that Adams had used his practice as a means to secure political power; that he was involved in all kinds of other malpractices- from milking the V.A. to health insurance plans; that he -- while maintaining a white woman along with his wife- had also fathered Ruby's last child and had gotten her pregnant again and put her on dope; that she'd been the victim of repeated nervous depressions. In Huie's fight against a Judge also named Adams, a ""cracker character"" who refused him ""access"" in his attempt to get a new trial, had him jailed for criminal contempt, as well as in the accumulation of evidence of the facts in this case- there is a quod erat demonstrandum of suppression and injustice and intolerance. It's an aroused and arresting narrative.

Pub Date: July 27, 1955

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown-D.S.P.

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1955

Categories: NONFICTION