In 1959, in Poplarville, Mississippi, a young black man charged with the rape of a white woman was abducted from his gaol cell by a white mob, beaten, carried across the state lines, and finally shot, his body being dumped in the Pearl River. A massive FBI investigation followed and two grand juries met to investigate the lynching; yet no arrests or indictments were ever made. This book meticulously reconstructs the story of one of the last lynchings in America - a grim, dramatic, but nearly forgotten episode from the Civil Rights era. Howard Smead presents a vivid picture of a small Southern town gripped by racism and distrust of federal authority, and of the travesty that followed in the wake of the lynching.