How a Freed Slave and a Confederate Soldier Fought for Justice in the Jim Crow South

On the night of January 21, 1897, a white mob attacked the home of George Dinning, a formerly enslaved farmer in Simpson County, Kentucky. As the crowd fired their guns into his house, Dinning shot back in self-defense, killing a young man. “So began one of the strangest legal episodes in American history – one that ended with Dinning becoming the first Black man in America to win damages after a wrongful murder conviction.” Join us via Zoom* as journalist Ben Montgomery shares this dramatic and unlikely story of justice, “in a time and place where justice was all too rare.”

This speaker series was held on July 2nd, 2021.