With the trial for the three White men charged with killing Black jogger Ahmaud Arbery now underway in Glynn County, Georgia, it seems like a good time to get a little historical perspective and find out what a murder case in 1930s Mississippi reveals about race relations, criminal justice, and life in the Jim Crow South.So today, from the archives of the Working History podcast, Karen Cox, Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, discusses her book, Goat Castle: A True Story of Murder, Race, and the Gothic South, and its tale of a toxic stew of white privilege, racism, and rage.  As Cox says, “This story offers us a window into how the criminalization of black lives emerged as a means of sustaining white supremacy and control over African Americans in the post-slavery period. It's why,” she says, “so many black southerners migrated out of the region to northern cities like Detroit and Chicago hoping for better—not that they found it. Racism followed African Americans wherever they went.” Just ask Ahmaud Arbery’s family, nearly a century later.  

And, on Labor History in 2:00: The year was 1945; that was the day that 320,000 United Auto Workers went out on strike against General Motors.Music: Harmonica Shah Live at The Cove with Jack De Keyzer. 

Produced by Chris Garlock. To contribute a labor history item, email [email protected]

Labor History Today is produced by the Metro Washington Council’s Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University.

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