Review
"The lasting significance of Jacobs's novella was not its critical and popular success—it enjoyed a measure of both—but its stark and concise encapsulation of a white worldview that today is, thankfully, seldom heard in public. By reading The Law of the White Circle, we can understand better the mind-set of the architects of Jim Crow as well as its defenders during the 1950s and 1960s."--W. Fitzhugh Brundage, from the foreword
"This reprint of The Law of the White Circle offers a rare literary treatment of the 1906 Atlanta race riot, a tragic, seminal event in Atlanta's history, yet one largely forgotten today. It illuminates racial sensibilities, attitudes, and etiquette at the time of the riot, as well as the literature of the period. The foreword and critical essay help place the work in context, as do the accompanying riot-related documents from W. E. B. Du Bois and Walter White. As we approach the centennial of the riot, this work provides a distinctive lens into this terrible episode."--Clifford M. Kuhn, Associate Professor of History, Georgia State University
"Thornwell Jacobs’s The Law of the White Circle offers a chilling insight into the mind of the South. A work of fiction in 1906 Atlanta, the work explores the class anxiety, paranoia, and racial hatred of the South’s white elite in an attempt to justify the violence and brutality of the Atlanta riot. The novel peels back the veneer of civilization espoused by southern white intellectuals, politicians, and social reformers of the era to reveal the lawless and vicious white supremacy that J. Max Barber, Henry M. Turner, and W. E. B. Du Bois knew firsthand. Students investigating the hard-fought-for transformations in law and social structure from the end of southern Reconstruction to the victories of the twentieth-century freedom movement will find The Law of the White Circle a rich, though unsettling, source document."--Allison Dorsey, author of To Build Our Lives Together: Community Formation in Black Atlanta, 1875-1906
About the Author
Thornwell Jacobs was a prolific writer of poetry, history, and fiction. He was president of Oglethorpe University in Atlanta from 1915 to 1943.
