Join us for a book presentation by journalist Jim Hall. Hear about his new book, “Condemned for Love in Old Virginia: The Lynching of Arthur Jordan,” and learn about the history and impact of lynching in the US South, especially Virginia after the end of Reconstruction.

This event is in Rose Library room 3313 on January 25 at 3pm. No RSVP or registration necessary.

More about the book:
“Condemned for Love in Old Virginia” tells the story of Arthur Jordan and Elvira Corder and how their relationship ended tragically. He was black, she was white, and this was Virginia in 1880. When Elvira became pregnant, the couple fled Fauquier County to live in Maryland. But her father found them and recruited neighbors to help kidnap them. Four nights later, a mob dragged Arthur from the county jail in Warrenton and lynched him. Elvira, taken to a hotel in Williamsport, Maryland, was never heard from again. Stories of lynching are all too common in the postbellum South, but this one tells a unique tale of a couple who were willing to sacrifice everything to be together--and did.

More about the speaker:
Jim Hall, retired journalist and instructor at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg. Hall's first book, “The Last Lynching in Northern Virginia: Seeking Truth at Rattlesnake Mountain,” was published in 2016. Hall was a journalist for 26 years at the Free-Lance Star in Fredericksburg, VA. He received a master’s degree in mass communication at Virginia Commonwealth University with a thesis on how Virginia’s newspapers covered lynchings.

Event hosts:
Gianluca De Fazio and Howard S. Carrier

Co-sponsors:
JMU Libraries and JMU Justice Studies

Parking:

Visit our Parking Near JMU Libraries page for information.