Son

About the Book

“A family's compelling racial truth has been unearthed for future generations with Al Allison eloquently redefining justice and healing.” —Joyce F. King, Author of Hate Crime: The Story of a Dragging in Jasper, Texas It is 11 PM, July 8, 1932 in Austin, Texas. Sixty-year-old African-American Charles Jarrell is driving home from Bible study when a car full of white youths suddenly swerves in front of him. A brief altercation ensues. Convinced that the whites are threatening his life, Jarrell fires his pistol at their car and drives away. The shot kills the unarmed, eighteen-year-old son of Michael Moss, a prominent cotton landlord, politically influential, and an advocate for racial justice. Turmoil explodes in both the black and the white communities. Although in great pain, Moss personally thwarts a lynch mob from taking Jarrell. Still, Moss wants and expects a fair justice system to convict and execute his son’s killer. Jarrell himself fully expects to be lynched, either by the mob or the courts. But neither they nor anyone else can predict the impact of a unique confluence of political events and powerful personalities that bear on the all white, all male court system tasked to decide Charles Jarrell’s fate.

About the Author

A. A. Allison is a fifth-generation Texan with degrees from Harvard and the University of Texas. After serving in the Navy in Vietnam, he worked in business and politics in both the United States and Europe, where he lived for twenty years before returning to his Texas roots.