Rating: 
Summary: Don't skip the Notes at the end!
Review: After reading the other reviews of "Lay This Body Down : The 1921 Murders of Eleven Plantation Slaves", I noticed not one mentioned the Notes at the end. I found Freeman's extensive documention one of the most important aspects of the book. Finally, the author of a "true story" backs up his facts with references! In addition to providing sources, many of the Notes introduce relevant information not included in the body of the book.I highly recommend "Lay This Body Down..." to anyone interested in "true crime", southern history, or just a good read. And don't forget the Notes!
Rating:
Summary: Don't skip the Notes at the end!
Review: After reading the other reviews of "Lay This Body Down : The 1921 Murders of Eleven Plantation Slaves", I noticed not one mentioned the Notes at the end. I found Freeman's extensive documention one of the most important aspects of the book. Finally, the author of a "true story" backs up his facts with references! In addition to providing sources, many of the Notes introduce relevant information not included in the body of the book. I highly recommend "Lay This Body Down..." to anyone interested in "true crime", southern history, or just a good read. And don't forget the Notes!
Rating:
Summary: Don't skip the Notes at the end!
Review: After reading the other reviews of "Lay This Body Down : The 1921 Murders of Eleven Plantation Slaves", I noticed not one mentioned the Notes at the end. I found Freeman's extensive documention one of the most important aspects of the book. Finally, the author of a "true story" backs up his facts with references! In addition to providing sources, many of the Notes introduce relevant information not included in the body of the book. I highly recommend "Lay This Body Down..." to anyone interested in "true crime", southern history, or just a good read. And don't forget the Notes!
Rating:
Summary: Engrossing!
Review: After reading this book (due to the contrast in opinions I'm seeing here) I did some research of my own and found Freeman to be CORRECT about the history of Covington, GA. After reading this book I found some old newspaper articles which backed up the story and erased any reservations (I still had) that the book was a mixture of fiction and fact. It was eerie reading the accounts for the first time in the book. But, what really sent the hair standing on the back of my neck was seeing the same accounts in the newspaper articles. Freeman is able to give scope and a framework to use as window for viewing our past. Sad as it is... Freeman's correct.
Rating:
Summary: Stunning and Shocking!!!
Review: After reading this book (due to the contrast in opinions I'm seeing here) I did some research of my own and found Freeman to be CORRECT about the history of Covington, GA. After reading this book I found some old newspaper articles which backed up the story and erased any reservations (I still had) that the book was a mixture of fiction and fact. It was eerie reading the accounts for the first time in the book. But, what really sent the hair standing on the back of my neck was seeing the same accounts in the newspaper articles. Freeman is able to give scope and a framework to use as window for viewing our past. Sad as it is... Freeman's correct.
Rating: 
Summary: horrible
Review: Anyone with above a fifth grade education will find this book elementary and pedantic. Do yourself a favor and save your money.
Rating:
Summary: The bood should be read; its story remembered.
Review: By strategically weaving quotes from the participants, Mr. Freeman creates a spectacularly vivid narrative that makes the reader acutely aware of mankind's seemingly timeless inhumanity and the need for ongoing vigilance to ensure that other inhumanities are recognized and acted against. In telling us of the life and actions of Williams and Manning, the author has rescued, from the obscurity of infrequently read local history books and forgotten historical footnotes, a poignant story of human cruelty in an early 1920's small Georgia town. This particular form of cruelty existed within an abusive system known technically as peonage - slave labor. Unlike with the Jewish Holocaust of WWII, the victims of the Soviet Gulag, the British extermination of the Australian aborigine or other similar atrocities where the powerful inflict massive suffering for self-serving reasons, this story's immediate victims number just eleven. However, as in the retelling of these better known and larger mass killings from the twentieth century, this focused narrative exposes how an abusive system of terror can be used to effectively subjugate and mercilessly kill at will. As briefly outlined in "King Leopold's Ghost," a book by Adam Horchschild on the greed and terror found in Colonial Africa, three keys elements must exist for a system of terror like peonage to thrive. First, the functionary of the terror must see the victim(s) as less than human. Second, the act of terror must become part of the community - everyone must covertly or overtly participate in, benefit from and, hence, sanction the system. Third, in order for the functionaries to become used to the inhumanity, there must be a symbolic distance established between the official and the physical act of terror. All of these aspects of systematic terror are unearthed in "Lay this Body Down." Although individually horrific and tragic, the murders committed by Williams and Manning, and the spotlight these discovered murders placed on the system of terror which allowed these murders to be contemplated and executed, assisted in breaking peonage in the south. The book should be read; its story remembered; its lessons used as a graphic touchstone from which institutionalized evil in all its forms can be identified and suppressed.
Rating:
Summary: pseudo-history
Review: I am convinced that the "reader from Ironwood, MI" has little understanding of what makes good historical writing. Freeman's book is a quality work for the feeble-minded, but those who want real history should look elsewhere. Freeman's book is not only poorly documented, it is frequently dead wrong.
Rating:
Summary: Michigan Reader
Review: I am convinced that the "reader from Oct.4," who could not leave anymore information than just "reader" surely did not take the time to get past the title. "Lay this Body Down" is a fabulous read. It brings forth a bit of history that has not had the attention that it should have. Freeman portrays this event in a way that brings you right into Jasper County, GA. The hair stands up on the back of your neck with the descriptions of the horrorable murders. The trial is unbelievable. It is hard to believe that these events had happened within only the last eighty years. If you like U.S. history, this is a must.
Rating:
Summary: Double Standard
Review: I felt the fear coming out in Freeman's 'Lay This Body Down'. This true story gives you an idea of what blacks had to endure in the south before the civil rights movement began. It's a chilling account of how 11 plantation slaves were brutally murdered by the hand of one of their own and the white plantation owner. It confirms through the fact of peonage-slave labor, and brutal punishment, just how unjust the south was in the early part of the 20th century. There are gruesome details that left me a bit uneasy, but....justice does prevail. As unsettling as this true story may be, it is a subject that should be recognized and remembered.
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