Bibliograph

Deer Creek Drive, a reckoning of memory and murder in the Mississippi Delta, Beverly Lowry

Type

Label

Deer Creek Drive, a reckoning of memory and murder in the Mississippi Delta, Beverly Lowry

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references (pages 347-354)

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

no index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

Deer Creek Drive

Nature of contents

bibliography

Responsibility statement

Beverly Lowry

Sub title

a reckoning of memory and murder in the Mississippi Delta

Summary

"In 1948, in the most stubbornly Dixiefied corner of the Jim Crow south, society matron Idella Thompson was viciously murdered in her own home: stabbed at least 150 times and left facedown in one of the bathrooms. Her daughter, Ruth Dickins, was the only other person in the house. She told authorities a Black man she didn't recognize fled the scene, but no evidence of the man's presence was uncovered. When Dickins herself was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, the community exploded. Petitions pleading for her release were drafted, signed, and circulated, and after only six years the governor of Mississippi granted Ruth Dickins an indefinite suspension of her sentence and she was set free. In Deer Creek Drive, Beverly Lowry -- who was ten at the time of the murder and lives mere miles from the Thompsons' home -- tells a story of white privilege that still has ramifications today, and reflects on the brutal crime, its aftermath, and the ways it clarified her own upbringing in Mississippi."--, Dust jacket

Classification