Signing books at the Hayti Heritage Center in Durham, North Carolina.
REVIEWS:
Jason Morgan Ward, Southern Spaces
“Place matters in Murder on Shades Mountain, and Morrison vividly reconstructs the social geography of Jim Crow Birmingham in the book's opening sections. ... As Morrison points out, the rigidly segregated geography of Jim Crow Birmingham fueled doubts about the nature of the attack and the identity of the attacker. The notion that a black man would roam around this white enclave, in broad daylight and armed with a loaded gun, defied the spatial logic of segregation.”
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Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
“In this passionate account of Jim Crow-era injustice, educator and activist Morrison exposes how courtrooms 'could function like lynch mobs when the defendant was black.'... Morrison, who is white, shares this painful story with clarity and compassion, emphasizing how much has changed since the 1930s, how much white people need to 'critically interrogate' the past, and how much 'remains to be done' in the fight for justice.” — Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-8223-7117-5
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Karl Helicher, Foreword Reviews
“The author deserves praise for identifying Peterson’s trial as an important precursor to the 1960s civil rights movement. Audiences will be enthralled and angered by this all-too-familiar account of a criminal justice system that was and remains biased against black Americans.” — Karl Helicher, Foreword Reviews
https://www.forewordreviews.com/reviews/murder-on-shades-mountain/
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Brent M. S. Campney, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books
“Murder on Shades Mountain is an outstanding case study that should find an audience among laypersons and among students at the undergraduate and graduate levels.” — Brent M. S. Campney, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books
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Ladee Hubbard, TLS
“Recounted in painstaking detail by Morrison, this near century-old case emerges as a precedent for contemporary discussions of racism in the criminal justice system, reaffirming how firmly rooted racial profiling and the criminalization of blackness are in American culture.” — Ladee Hubbard, TLS
https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/black-lives-matter-america-jesmyn-ward/
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David A. Varel, Journal of Southern History
“Morrison succeeds admirably in moving the literature beyond Scottsboro, which has garnered the lion’s share of historians’ attention. Morrison is at her best when she unearths legal records to explain how the criminal justice system was stacked against Peterson. …In Morrison’s hands, the Jim Crow justice system avoids caricature and emerges as a living, breathing system in which injustice is that much more evident and pernicious. …Compelling and beautifully written.” — David A. Varel, Journal of Southern History
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/716244
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Renee Romano, American Historical Review
“[Murder on Shades Mountain's] detailed narrative of one little-known crime and its aftermath is powerful and evocative and offers a revealing window into the workings of white supremacy—one that is even more dramatic in some ways than the story of the Scottsboro Boys. …Morrison’s work offers a critical reminder that whites must interrogate all the stories about race that they have inherited, even those of white advocates for racial justice.” — Renee Romano, American Historical Review
https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhz492
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Denzel Shabazz, Journal of African American History
“Morrison forces the reader to grapple with the precarity of Black life in relation to white supremacist power structures like the criminal justice system.…Murder on Shades Mountain is a crucial text for tracing the genealogy of state-sanctioned anti-Black violence in America.” — Denzel Shabazz, Journal of African American History
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/710598
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Chad E. Statler, Library Journal
“Morrison digs deeply into period newspapers and archives to uncover this story of injustice long overshadowed by the more famous Scottsboro Boys trial. A thoughtful look into a tale of prejudice and stolen justice that will find many readers who are interested in African American history, the early civil rights movement, and Southern history.” — Chad E. Statler, Library Journal
https://chipublib.bibliocommons.com/item/show/1956135126_murder_on_shades_mountain
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Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books
“This is an excellent and engaging study. The author does a fine job of seeking out black perspectives, and in examining the efforts of the many black activists, attorneys, and newspaper editors who pursued justice for black Birmingham.”
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Don Noble, Alabama Public Radio
“A straightforward, thoroughly researched nonfiction account of yet another disgraceful episode in Alabama racial history.” — Don Noble, Alabama Public Radio
http://apr.org/post/murder-shades-mountain-melanie-s-morrison#stream/0
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Joyce Hollyday, Radical Discipleship
“Murder on Shades Mountain ends, as it begins, with a call to each of us to do our own work. In the afterword, written in the form of a letter to her late father, Melanie states the truth: 'The demonization and criminalization of black men remains a national disgrace. Eighty-five years after Willie Peterson was arrested on a Birmingham street corner, innocent black men throughout the nation continue to be racially profiled, stopped and frisked, thrown to the ground, choked, shot, torn from their families, locked behind bars, and sentenced to die…So much work remains to be done.' Indeed. We need each other, the power of painful memory, and the transformative stories of our lives to keep at it.” — Joyce Hollyday, Radical Discipleship
https://radicaldiscipleship.net/2018/05/18/murder-on-shades-mountain/
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Bill Castanier, Lansing City Pulse
“Morrison’s book is an ultimate tribute to a man who is seldom mentioned in the Civil Rights Movement, but was a true civil rights hero and who despite torture and mental cruelty always proclaimed his innocence.” — Bill Castanier, Lansing City Pulse.
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Richard T. Andrews, The Real Deal
“In addition to being a compelling read, Murder on Shades Mountain provides a ground level portrait of the workings of structural racism, an insightful critique of white savior stories, and offers us valuable vignettes of the brilliant and legendary attorney Charles Hamilton Houston, and such other key historical figures as the Scottsboro Boys and Walter White.” — Richard T. Andrews, The Real Deal
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Jasmine Baxter, The Alabamian
“Dr. Kathryn King, coalition coleader of Montevallo’s ongoing Community Remembrance Project, encapsulated this moment best: ‘Morrison’s work is inspirational for anyone with eyes to see, ears to hear. Her passion for social justice, an honesty that comes from long self-examination, the courage to share vulnerable parts of herself—these qualities give her a credibility that is pretty unusual, I think. I noticed that Black students were eager to talk with her; she seemed to speak truth to them. She spoke truth to me, too.’”
http://www.thealabamian.com/hallie-farmer-lecturer-speaks-on-legal-lynching/