One Night of Madness [Paperback]

Stokes McMillan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 11, 2009

On the cusp of the civil rights movement, tragedy and injustice in rural Southern towns was not uncommon, but the wickedness as retold by author Stokes McMillan in One Night of Madness is shocking and utterly desperate. The year was 1950. Mary Ella Harris, a mother of five, works hard sharecropping alongside her husband, a man with a penchant for gambling, drinking, and associating with unsavory white people. When she is cornered in her home by Leon Turner, a white man who refuses to take no for an answer, Mary Ella narrowly avoids an attempted rape. After his arrest, Leon escapes jail and enacts a bloody revenge with two accomplices. The sheriff, a former bookkeeper, leads the biggest manhunt in Mississippi history, which ends in a blazing shootout. With the eyes of the nation watching, the state itself is on trial. The jury's controversial decision is rebuffed by many, including William Faulkner, and a battle line is drawn that ultimately serves as a catalyst for change.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Stokes McMillan is fourth generation born and raised in Attala County, Mississippi, the scene of the story. His great-grandfather started the local newspaper, the Kosciusko Star-Herald, which his grandfather and father later published. Presently an engineer with NASA at the Johnson Space Center, McMillan lives with his family in Houston, Texas. One Night of Madness is his first book.

Product Details

• Paperback: 426 pages
• Publisher: Oak Harbor Publishing; 1st edition (November 11, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0982529104
• ISBN-13: 978-0982529102
• Product Dimensions: 0.9 x 5.4 x 8.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #758,450 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars My Family Story Comes To Life Again November 30, 2009

By Prentice P. Johnston

Format:Paperback

One Night Of Madness retells the story of what some members of my family endured that night in 1949. I had been told this story many times growing up in my 35 years, but to see it come to life in print is amazing! I recommend this book to anyone! It is very real & the people involved were like characters....they were powerful & captivating. I think Mr.McMillan did a good job in presenting this forgotten chapter in American history! It can very well become a screenplay for a hollywood film!

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A sensitively told story of the heinous murder of three black children June 22, 2010

By Robert R. Regl

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I was a professor of Aeronautical Engineering at Mississippi State University in the 1970s, and Stokes McMillan was one of my students. I recently became aware that he had written a book, "One Night of Madness".

McMillan has written a meticulously researched book chronicling the heinous murder of three black children in rural Mississippi by three white racists in the winter of 1950.

The book is in the style of a non-fiction novel like Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood", and the story is told with a sensitivity for the people that reminded me of Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird". The many characters leap from the pages and bring to life a part of Mississippi history that many would like to ignore, and some would even deny ever happened.

The interaction of the characters, the unfolding of the tragic events leading up to the murders, and the capture and trial of the murderers are skillfully described. After introducing us to the main players in Part 1 McMillan writes in his introduction to Part 2:

"Fate is a weaver. With the world her loom and eternity her timetable, she is emotionless in creating the intricate fabric of our lives. Drawing from her lap the colorful threads that are people's flesh and souls, the masterful embroiderer interlaces them into a living tapestry of the human condition - awash with infinitely contrasting shades and qualities. Individual threads may fray with time, but the story told in their warp and weft endures as memory.

` After decades of patient preparation, as an otherwise unexceptional winter approached, Fate began weaving the threads of a new creation, a tapestry of select filaments of peace and conflict, joy and sorrow, prosperity and poverty, black and white, skillfully woven.... This unique composition was not to be a masterpiece of beauty to evoke cries of admiration and wonder, but a work of tragedy to call forth wails of anguish and sorrow."

I can't improve on that discourse except to say that I thoroughly enjoyed every page of "One Night of Madness" and enthusiastically recommend it to those who appreciate skillful writing about historical events that become as fresh as the days they happened. Read more ›

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A must-read for creative non-fiction lovers December 7, 2009

By George Coyer

Format:Paperback

While the story line centers on a tragic and violent act in rural Mississippi, Stokes McMillan gives us uncommon and masterful insight into the lives of ordinary people living in the grip of segregation that remains today as a scar on U.S. history, if not an open wound in the deep south. The biographies of famous people would seem easy to write, but McMillan opens the lives of Mary Ella Harris, Verlene Thurman, Leon Turner, Windol Whitt, and others who we would otherwise never meet. He fashions a colorful thread from each of these very real persons, and skillfully weaves them together into the fabric of a community that was Attala County in the 1940's.

Taken from the front pages of newpapers long forgotten, this is a story, which as Stokes explains, "Must be told." Exceptionally well written and easy to read; don't miss the drama of "One Night of Madness". This is a must read for history buffs and anyone who enjoys a great story with unforgettable characters.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars This story will stay with me. December 13, 2009

By Heath Scott

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I really enjoyed reading this book about this portion of our Mississippi History. I thought the telling was very thorough and I'm relieved that Mr. McMillan was called to recount this tale. Each life that was involved in this story was well researched and carefully represented. This story will stay with me.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Captivating. Intense. Great read! November 19, 2009

By txreader

Format:Paperback

This book really grabbed my attention from the start and I didn't want to put it down. The people in the story are all so interesting and unique at times it feels like you are reading a fiction. I really enjoyed this book and I would recommend it to anyone!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, Excellent Read August 29, 2010

By Avid Reader

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This outstanding telling of a crime in 1950s Mississippi is difficult to set down. With a vivid description of the players, crime, manhunt, and trial, the author not only lays out a stunning picture of this horrific crime, but also captures the nature and environment of Mississippi during the critical period before the civil rights movement. Highly recommended.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An Important Step in Mississippi History February 3, 2010

By R. Hardy HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Paperback

The unpleasant history of racism in Mississippi through the 1950s has plenty of familiar stories of black people persecuted and white people allowed to persecute because that was just the way things were done back then. All-white juries could be counted upon to come to the conclusion that a white man could not be guilty of a crime against a black one. There was, however, a case famous in its time in which the courts, and Mississippi in general, knew of the guilt of a white man who had murdered three black children in 1950, horrifying the nation and the state. It resulted in the sort of justice that was far from universal at the time. The importance of this story was forgotten, even by Stokes McMillan whose father had played an important role in the way it was reported. McMillan is an engineer who has never before been an author, but his _One Night of Madness_ (Oak Harbor Publishing) represents a superb recounting of the lead up to a crime, the crime itself, and the aftermath.

Much of the story is distressing to read. The main characters are sharecroppers, moonshiners, good-old-boys and low-lifes, but the way McMillan goes into their histories like a good novelist produces a sense of inevitability about the crime and the outcome. Central is Leon Turner, a charming and dangerous moonshiner who often had black men merchandizing his liquor. In 1949, he was joined by was joined by the brothers Malcolm and Windol Whitt, who came by chance from out of town. All got liquored up, and Turner led the brothers to the house of a black sharecropper and highway worker, Thomas Harris. Harris had sold moonshine for Turner before, but this time Turner went for drunken malice and an attempt to rape McMillan's wife.... The three miscreants were arrested before serious mischief occurred, but were able to break out of the deteriorating local hoosegow, and lay low while Turner plotted some sort of mistaken idea of revenge. When they returned in drunken vengeance to Harris's home, Turner shot Harris in the back, and killed three of his children. A huge manhunt followed, allowing McMillan to introduce us to the colorful character Hogjaw Mullen. Hogjaw is one of the most likeable characters in the book, despite his taking the revolving door in and out of Parchman, sentenced for various crimes including murder. He could not handle being on the outside, but in his time in Parchman, he had become a trustee. "Hogjaw was in his element," writes McMillan, "As the prison's chief dog handler, he had authority over dozens of men; he had a pearl-handled revolver in a strap-on holster to wear during manhunts; he had all the food he wanted... Parchman was where he belonged; the one place in the world where he fit in perfectly." It was Hogjaw and his dogs that tracked the three criminals down, an exciting capture that includes the best line of dialogue in the book: "Leon, this is Hogjaw Mullen. You know I'm badder than you. Come on out." The resulting trial was a sensation. Testimony included that from Thomas Harris, on a stretcher because of the bullet injury to his back; he was to die three weeks after the trial. In the final argument, the District Attorney had to remind the all-white jury of basics, and it shows perfectly the attitude of the time and place: "The law says the crime is killing a human being and it doesn't say what color. Oh, yes, they're just Negroes, but gentlemen, this family was in its home; and no matter how humble, a man has no right to be safe if not in his home."

The jury convicted Turner, who was to die in Parchman eighteen years later. There was considerable approval that he had been found guilty, but many felt he deserved the death penalty. Among them was William Faulkner, who wrote a letter to a Memphis paper praising the conviction but not the sentence. Faulkner's letter, reproduced here, became a focus of discussion and debate after the sentencing was all settled. It appears in the last part of the book; it is fitting that Faulkner winds up doing a star turn here in a story filled with characters that would have fit nicely into Yoknapatawpha County. Stokes McMillan has produced a fine book. He has a good eye for important detail, and peppers his prose with the sort of homey metaphors that spring from his Attala County roots; land in the Mississippi Delta is "flatter than felt on a dance hall pool table," or "the tension was thicker than cold sorghum molasses." Best of all, this is a page turner but more: it is a reminder of a strange past and of one small step toward racial fairness. Read more ›