John Grisham's New Book Revisits Mississippi; The Land of Emmett Till

NEWS RELEASE

(Editor's Note: This is such good news for avid readers of John Grisham books. It will be hard to wait for this newest novel. Meanwhile, The Plan, is set for June release. More to come. sk)

MAY 3, 2013 12:00 PM

John Grisham set to release 'Sycamore Row,' sequel to 'A Time to Kill,' in October

BY ILIA BLINDERMAN

What Billy Mays did for OxiClean, John Grisham has been doing for the legal thriller since his first book, “A Time To Kill,” came out in 1988. It was therefore — to put it mildly —  kind of a big deal when Grisham’s publisher Knopf Doubleday announced that the former jurist would be publishing a sequel later this year.

Grisham, then a lawyer and member of the Mississippi House of Representatives, had witnessed the testimony of a 12-year-old rape victim a quarter-century ago; the shock spurred him to spend the next three years rising at 5 a.m. and working on the novel before work.

Although the book was initially rejected by numerous publishers (and first paled in comparison to his second release, “The Firm”), Grisham’s story of Jake Brigance — a white lawyer defending a black man charged with murdering his daughter’s rapists — was later adapted into the widely successful Joel Schumacher film starring Matthew McConaughey and Sandra Bullock (fun fact: Grisham’s first-ever reading for “A Time To Kill” was in Oxford, Miss’ Square Books, which recently won the Publishers Weekly Bookstore of the Year award).

In Grisham’s latest, titled "Sycamore Row" and set for release on October 22, the author returns Brigance to his  “Time to Kill” stomping ground. The sequel, according to Grisham, “will have [Brigance fighting] for justice in a trial that could tear the small town of Clanton apart.”

Whoa, man..

JFK Assassination Author, John Beviliqua, Thanks Colleagues For Research Efforts

John Bevilaqua, authorJFK - The Final Solution (Red Scares, White Power and Blue Death)

Let's hear it for the proverbial 'Bull in the China Shop', yours truly, without whose persistence, this entire JFK Conundrum could have gone on for yet another 50 years. And let us thank John Simkin for opening up this thread again at Spartacus because he realized how important the role of Guy Banister actually was in the entire JFK proceedings, not only in New Orleans, but through the Southern US and Latin America. And let us also thank Susan Klopfer, who works with a group of Civil Rights Cold Case volunteers as well. Without her, it might not have become so abundantly clear that among other things, William 'Guy' Banister was first and foremost the private detective of choice for every single pro-Segregation, anti-Semitic, anti-Civil Rights proponent throughout the Southern States touching the Gulf of Mexico. 

She also pointed out that Banister was on the payroll of the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission for Senator James O. Eastland, along with Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker during both the Ole Miss Riots and the Little Rock, Arkansas school desegregation crisis. Recall also that it was Walker who often visited Byron De La Beckwith in prison following the murder of Medgar Evers, Jr. and that it was none other than Jack Ruby who fingered Walker in his Warren Commission testimony. 

And how long was it the Banister's role in the Anti-Communist League of the Caribbean was totally ignored, almost deliberately, 40+ years, perhaps? And how many of you knew that Banister played a role with E. H. Hunt in the 1954 Guatamala coup of Arbenz run with 'Rip' Robertston and Allen Dulles, along with his United Fruit Company client which was less than a mile from his offices on Lafayette Street on St. Charles? Not many, I would venture to say. 

And when the information about 'Operation Red Cross', also run by Senators Eastland and Goldwater, and NOT the CIA was painstakingly extracted from Nathaniel Weyl, how many of you said: "Wow, everyone always said that one of the main keys to the understanding of the sponsors of the JFK hit was 'Operation Red Cross', now that we know it was done by SISS, under the auspices of Senator James Eastland from Mississippi who was on Draper's payroll, for the benefit of Senator Barry Goldwater from YAF and organized by Robert Morris from SISS and The China Lobby, who was the real force behind McCarthyism, this puts the entire JFK Assassination in a much clearer, brighter light!" No one besides me. 

Why does it take a Civil Rights Activist to bring us all back to our senses to realize that the JFK murder and the other 3 acts of violence done between the Summer of 1963 and the Summer of 1964 were all done by the SAME forces, paid for by the SAME person, Wickliffe Draper, for the SAME reasons using the power behind Senator James O. Eastland, the Senator from The Pioneer Fund? 

Even Jackie Kennedy said something to the effect: "What a shame that he had to die at the hands of a little nobody like Oswald instead of at least for a more nobler cause like 'The Civil Rights Movement'."

Looks like Jackie was right after all, and it looks like those like Bill Baggs, Editor of The Miami News whom I had the privilege to work for at the age of 16, and Ralph McGill, Editor of the Atlanta Constitution were also right when they said the JFK murder was first and foremost perpetrated by those in the Civil Rights movement for their own sinister purposes.

Sure, it also served the purposes of the Viet Nam lobby, the MIC, the anti-Semites, the anti-Papists, the anti-Catholics, but who actually represented ALL of these interests and was in a position to reach deep down into his pockets and deep down into his hierarchy of KKK stormtroopers and the Gestapo of the Southern Civil Rights opponents? 

Only Wickliffe Preston Draper, using Senator James O. Eastland from the MSC, the KKK and the Draper Genetics Committee and Robert J. Morris whose history included Rapp-Coudert, McCarranism, The China Lobby, the Liberty Lobby, McCarthyism, MacArthurism and then SISS with Eastland as well. Trust me, without my contributions, Robert Morris, Charles Willoughby, Wickliffe Draper, Edwin Walker and even James Eastland and Guy Banister would have gone totally scot free. And both Army Intel and ONI would have gotten off clean as a whistle, too.

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"I'm sorry" -- Former KKK Supporter Elwin Wilson Says Before He Dies

KKK Doesn't Go Away

Who's sorry now?

Elwin Wilson has died at the age of 76, leaving behind a legacy of a man who was able to admit the error of his ways. Wilson was formerly a supporter of the Ku Klux Klan, which is frequently misspelled as Klu Klux Klan. During his affiliation with the KKK, he participated in hate crimes which haunted him in his later life, so he bravely decided to apologize, according to a March 31, 2013 report by The Huffington Post.

After a lifetime that included burning crosses and assaulting African Americans, Wilson finally found peace in forgiveness. After President Barack Obama's inauguration in 2009, he decided to apologize for his many hateful indiscretions, which included the 1961 beating of U.S. Rep. John Lewis at a Rock Hill bus station.

Elwin Wilson dies with a clear conscience and the blessing of forgiveness from the very man he assaulted on that day 50 years earlier. In 2009, Wilson offered Lewis an apology for the brutal beating, and Lewis graciously accepted. As a result, both men were honored on Worldwide Forgiveness Day later that year, and both men received the Common Ground Award for Reconciliation in Canada. Wilson even had the opportunity to honor his victim with an award in Maryland.

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Appeals Court Affirms Conviction Of Reputed Klansman In Civil Rights Era Cold Case In Miss.

James Ford Seale (Daily Mail, UK)

A federal appeals court has upheld the 2007 conviction of a reputed Ku Klux Klan member in the kidnapping of two black men who were abducted and killed in rural Mississippi in 1964.

In a 2-1 ruling, the panel of judges said the evidence in the case against James Ford Seale was sufficient for the jury conviction in the trial that took place 43 years after the crimes. Friday's decision came from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in New Orleans.

The judge who dissented said that too much time had elapsed to try Seale and that incriminating statements Seale made should have been barred from his trial.

Seale, now 74, is in federal prison in Indiana. A Mississippi jury convicted him of two counts of kidnapping and one count of conspiracy to commit kidnapping, and he was given three life sentences.

CBS News reports--
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Klan Protests Song Change at University of Mississippi

Members of the Ku Klux Klan dress in full robes for a protest on the steps of Fulton Chapel at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Miss., Saturday, Nov. 21, 2009.(AP Photo/The Clarion-Ledger, Ryan Moore)

The Ku Klux Klan protested before a University of Mississippi and LSU game today. The focus of the Ku Klux Klan’s protest was a line that is chanted at the end of the University of Mississippi’s fight song: From Dixie with Love. The line that is chanted is, “The South will Rise Again.”

The song From Dixie with Love has its roots in the civil war and has been used as the Ole Miss fight song for many years. At the end of the song, however, many chanters openly shout, “The South will Rise Again.”

The chant has been deemed racist and offensive by the many African American students who attend the University of Mississippi. In fact, the chant has become so troublesome, that University of Mississippi Chancellor, Dan Jones had ordered students to stop chanting. After they continued chanting, he ordered the song From Dixie with Love to cease being played. The Ku Klux Klan came out to rally in lieu of the chant “The South Will Rise Again.”

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