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Betsy Thorpe - Author, Historian, Activist
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Trouble on Happy a Hill, still a  work in progress

6/22/2020

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"Culture is a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate,  perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life.” Clifford Geertz


All over America Confederate monuments are tumbling down.  People are having the dialogue I hoped to inspire with the opening I wrote for Trouble on Happy Hill. (Which is posted below)
 
  A new opening is order. 

 
Allow me to take you back in time to an era that some people recall with nostalgia and others, like me, hope to never see the likes of again. 
                   
 
Once upon a time in the South when people said what they meant, and meant what they said, a Confederate Army veteran and one-time Mississippi state attorney general named Wiley N. Nash stated his vision and expectations for the future of the South  when he spoke at the unveiling of a Confederate monument on the grounds of the Holmes County Courthouse in Lexington Mississippi, where he avowed  that “the white people of the South shall rule and govern the southern sates forever.”  

His words were deemed sincere when he uttered them in 1908. Given what is known about the ideals he promoted throughout his life, history now judges them to be a true and honest representation of the values he held dear and hoped to preserve.  

Wiley Nash plays no obvious role in the story you are about to read.  His name will not appear again on these written pages you hold in your hands, nor will the name of the town of Lexington Mississippi, or the Confederate monument that still stands there on the courthouse grounds.   I only share his story with you as it provides a verifiable illustration of the white supremist sentiment that prevailed in the South at the time that the trouble came to Happy Hill—for therein lies the crux of this story.


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Trouble on Happy Hill

4/19/2020

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I thoroughly enjoyed the process of writing Whistles  and  am excited to announce that I  am now in the midst of writing another book titled The Trouble on Happy Hill.

In 1918, a white gentleman by the name of A.C. Price wrote a letter to the editor of the Tennesseean newspaper. Two young black boys had been executed by electrocution the day before in Nashville for raping a white girl. In his letter to the editor Mr. Price wrote:

‘There recently came to our observation two distinct cases, equally grievous in offence to us all—in one case a white man of mature year is the offender; in the other the two offenders are two Negro boys 15 and 17 years of age. “In the case of the white man, every influence obtainable was sought in his behalf, even your Honor assisting editorially all of which resulted in executive clemency being shown by the Governor of our state. In the case of the Negro boys, petitions from colored citizens all over the state bore appeal for mercy to no avail.

“Summary: the white man lives; the Negroes were executed.

“Permit me to ask: Are these two cases of such similarity in offense and so broadly different in penalty meted out wor
thy of observation?’

It is that same question I address in my new book. I will “observe” the judicial inequality of the times by following the cases of Homer Lawson (the white man in question), and the case of J.D. Williams and Eddie Alsup (the black boys who were put to death), who were all convicted of rape. By exploring the two cases “of such similarity in offense,” the book will reveal the historical background behind many of today’s policies and will re-ask the question first posed by Mr. Price almost a hundred years ago.
 
Are penalties still meted out in a “broadly different” way among the races?
 Is that still worthy of our observation?

Come along with me as I attempt to answer these questions. 
Join my new book writing adventure. Please clink on the link and like  my new Facebook page. The Trouble on Happy Hill
I look forward to seeing you there!
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100th Anniversary

7/9/2018

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Betsy Thorpe and Nashville Mayor David Briley honoring the memory of the victims of Dutchman's  Curve---one hundred years later. ​
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March 01st, 2018

3/1/2018

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On March 1st I moved my research and writing materials into the Eskind Family Writer's Room at the Nashville Public Library.  The Eskind Room is one of four writer's rooms located in the East Wing of the  Special Collections Center. 

​I was first awarded use of the room in  2011-- and again in  2012--while writing The Day the Whistles Cried.
​

I  am very happy that the Nashville Public Library found merit in the book I am now writing--The Trouble on Happy Hill--and awarded me use of the room again. I look forward to spending many hours there working on the book.
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