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A Murder in Virginia: Southern Justice on Trial
Recounts the events surrounding the dramatic post-Civil War trial of a young African American sawmill hand who was accused of ax murdering a white woman on her Virginia farmyard and who implicated three other women in the crime. 15,000 first printing.
384 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2003
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September 9, 2015
Written in the style of a murder mystery, Suzanne Lebsock in A Murder in Virginia: Southern Justice on Trial has given us a work which is both entertaining and learned. The way a good mystery leaves something unresolved at the end of each chapter, so does Lebsock, turning what could have been an interesting, but dry, look at race relations in post-reconstruction era Virginia, into a real page turner. More importantly however, she has written a book that gives a real life glimpse into the economic, social, and political lives of both blacks and whites in rural Lunenberg, Virginia following the Civil War. And although not explicitly stated by her, I am of the opinion that in exploring this set of events, Lebsock is reflecting the racial consequences of the new south ideology given voice by C. Vann Woodward, primarily in his works, Origins of the New South and The Strange Career of Jim Crow.
A Murder in Virginia centers on the murder of one Lucy Jane Pollard, wife of farmer Edward S. Pollard. Her body was discovered a few feet from her home, Lucy Pollard had been “murdered with an ax on a sticky June afternoon in 1895”[1] Suspicion immediately and predictably fell on black suspects, and within two days, “though no physical evidence linked them to the crime, six black women had been arrested for her murder.”[2] Later, a black man, Solomon Marable was also arrested. As Lebsock shows us, the arrest of these black suspects was the last predictable thing about this case.
Contradicting earlier looks at the new south which have tended to take an optimistic view of the post reconstruction period, emphasizing north-south reconciliation following the end of military reconstruction, and taking a sympathetic view of the redeemers (the men who helped restore white supremacy), C. Vann Woodward takes a decidedly darker, and less continuous view. Following reconstruction, and as a result of the compromise that put Rutherford B. Hayes into the White House in exchange for southern home rule, northern monied interests combined with southern Democrats to restore white rule in the South. With the failure of southern populism and its initial appeal to racial harmony, southern conservatives used the bogeyman of black domination to frighten poor whites into line. From then on, blacks saw the rights they had gained during and immediately after reconstruction fade away, and eventually saw the installation of Jim Crow throughout the south.
This process was not instantaneous however, leading to one of the more controversial aspects of Woodward’s work; his contention that race relations during this period were in flux, and were much more flexible than was generally thought. A Murder in Virginia reflects this flexibility, where aside from the initial suspicion that the murderers were black, and the worries they would be lynched on the way to trial, nothing about this case seemed to go the way we would expect based on our normal assumptions of the nature of race relations after the Civil War. This is evidenced throughout the book. There is the casual nature of the relationships between blacks and whites; with Lucy Pollard making dinner for one of the accused who worked on her farm. And one is struck by the power of John Mitchell, the black man who led the effort to defend the accused women, who was a member of the Richmond city council, an editor of the Richmond Planet newspaper, and who rubbed shoulders with many of the most powerful white men in the city. Also interesting were the number of former confederate lawyers who were willing to help the women with their defense, the impartiality of the Virginia Supreme Court in ordering retrials, the decision of Judge Samuel F. Coleman to order a new trial for the defendants, and the efforts of Governor Charles O’Ferrell who later called out the state militia to protect the defendants against possible lynchings, and pardoned defendant Mary Barnes. Even Lunenberg county officials, who had initially convicted the women and defended that conviction through the appeals process, demonstrated some fairness by protecting the defendants from harm and eventually dropping the charges. The penultimate evidence for the complex nature of race relations reflected in this book is that with the exception of Solomon Marable, who was eventually executed, all of the defendants, through the efforts of both black and white supporters, either had their charges dropped, or were pardoned.
One must be careful not to overstate the level of black-white harmony during this period. As white dominance began to reassert itself one could see the undercurrent of racism that presaged Jim Crow moving closer to the surface. It was this racism that led the women and Marable to be arrested in the first place, and though the county and state took pains to protect them, the very fact they needed protection spoke volumes about the racism of local whites. It was also at this time that we saw the Danville riots take place, and a commensurate rise in Klan violence.
Lebsock’s book is also important for the glimpse it gives us into the lives of blacks during this period. She highlights the changing role of black women, looking at their movement from their prescribed sphere of hearth and home that characterized their lives for much of the nineteenth century, to their entrance into the public. Specifically she tells the story of Rosa Bowser and Marietta Chiles, education pioneers and the founders of the Richmond Women’s League, formed to aid in the defense of the Lunenberg women. She also looks at how blacks adjusted economically during this period, highlighting the importance of the household economy to their survival, characterized by home gardens, the raising of farm animals, and the bartering that was necessary to purchase necessities. On the day of the murder one of those accused, Pokey Barnes, was bartering for chickens. As Lebsock observes, “this was the hidden economy of the poor, a ceaseless exchange among women who struck deals in person and moved goods, one house to another, on bare feet.” [3] She also provides insight into the mutual dependence between white landowners and black tenants, who, in exchange for a piece of land, agreed to work that of the owner. The importance of this arrangement is evidenced in her narrative by the fact that Wilson Abercrombie, the husband of defendant Mary Abernathy, continued to work for Edward Pollard after the murder.
One of the great strengths of this book is the way Lebsock marshals her resources, particularly contemporary newspaper accounts. They provide a significant part of the narrative, as the press played an important role in winning new trials for the Lunenberg women. Particularly important was her use of the Richmond Planet, Richmond’s black newspaper run by John Mitchell. By mining this resource, Lebsock is able to underscore the truly vital role played by this publication.
As a piece of history I am not really sure if this book breaks any new ground; I don’t believe it does. It seems as though the narrative reflects well-known views on the nature of the south during this period. However, I have very few criticisms to make. The book is well organized, especially important given the number of people she was obliged to include in the narrative. Particularly helpful was the “List of Characters” she provided at the beginning. I found myself referencing it a number of times as I read this. Overall then this is an extremely well written book with a style that will appeal to the casual reader as well as those with a deeper interest in the history of the Jazz Age and in race relations.
[1] Lebsock, Suzanne A Murder in Virginia: Southern Justice on Trial (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2003), p.13
[2] Lebsock, Suzanne A Murder in Virginia, p. 42
[3] Lebsock, Suzanne A Murder in Virginia p. 140
A Murder in Virginia centers on the murder of one Lucy Jane Pollard, wife of farmer Edward S. Pollard. Her body was discovered a few feet from her home, Lucy Pollard had been “murdered with an ax on a sticky June afternoon in 1895”[1] Suspicion immediately and predictably fell on black suspects, and within two days, “though no physical evidence linked them to the crime, six black women had been arrested for her murder.”[2] Later, a black man, Solomon Marable was also arrested. As Lebsock shows us, the arrest of these black suspects was the last predictable thing about this case.
Contradicting earlier looks at the new south which have tended to take an optimistic view of the post reconstruction period, emphasizing north-south reconciliation following the end of military reconstruction, and taking a sympathetic view of the redeemers (the men who helped restore white supremacy), C. Vann Woodward takes a decidedly darker, and less continuous view. Following reconstruction, and as a result of the compromise that put Rutherford B. Hayes into the White House in exchange for southern home rule, northern monied interests combined with southern Democrats to restore white rule in the South. With the failure of southern populism and its initial appeal to racial harmony, southern conservatives used the bogeyman of black domination to frighten poor whites into line. From then on, blacks saw the rights they had gained during and immediately after reconstruction fade away, and eventually saw the installation of Jim Crow throughout the south.
This process was not instantaneous however, leading to one of the more controversial aspects of Woodward’s work; his contention that race relations during this period were in flux, and were much more flexible than was generally thought. A Murder in Virginia reflects this flexibility, where aside from the initial suspicion that the murderers were black, and the worries they would be lynched on the way to trial, nothing about this case seemed to go the way we would expect based on our normal assumptions of the nature of race relations after the Civil War. This is evidenced throughout the book. There is the casual nature of the relationships between blacks and whites; with Lucy Pollard making dinner for one of the accused who worked on her farm. And one is struck by the power of John Mitchell, the black man who led the effort to defend the accused women, who was a member of the Richmond city council, an editor of the Richmond Planet newspaper, and who rubbed shoulders with many of the most powerful white men in the city. Also interesting were the number of former confederate lawyers who were willing to help the women with their defense, the impartiality of the Virginia Supreme Court in ordering retrials, the decision of Judge Samuel F. Coleman to order a new trial for the defendants, and the efforts of Governor Charles O’Ferrell who later called out the state militia to protect the defendants against possible lynchings, and pardoned defendant Mary Barnes. Even Lunenberg county officials, who had initially convicted the women and defended that conviction through the appeals process, demonstrated some fairness by protecting the defendants from harm and eventually dropping the charges. The penultimate evidence for the complex nature of race relations reflected in this book is that with the exception of Solomon Marable, who was eventually executed, all of the defendants, through the efforts of both black and white supporters, either had their charges dropped, or were pardoned.
One must be careful not to overstate the level of black-white harmony during this period. As white dominance began to reassert itself one could see the undercurrent of racism that presaged Jim Crow moving closer to the surface. It was this racism that led the women and Marable to be arrested in the first place, and though the county and state took pains to protect them, the very fact they needed protection spoke volumes about the racism of local whites. It was also at this time that we saw the Danville riots take place, and a commensurate rise in Klan violence.
Lebsock’s book is also important for the glimpse it gives us into the lives of blacks during this period. She highlights the changing role of black women, looking at their movement from their prescribed sphere of hearth and home that characterized their lives for much of the nineteenth century, to their entrance into the public. Specifically she tells the story of Rosa Bowser and Marietta Chiles, education pioneers and the founders of the Richmond Women’s League, formed to aid in the defense of the Lunenberg women. She also looks at how blacks adjusted economically during this period, highlighting the importance of the household economy to their survival, characterized by home gardens, the raising of farm animals, and the bartering that was necessary to purchase necessities. On the day of the murder one of those accused, Pokey Barnes, was bartering for chickens. As Lebsock observes, “this was the hidden economy of the poor, a ceaseless exchange among women who struck deals in person and moved goods, one house to another, on bare feet.” [3] She also provides insight into the mutual dependence between white landowners and black tenants, who, in exchange for a piece of land, agreed to work that of the owner. The importance of this arrangement is evidenced in her narrative by the fact that Wilson Abercrombie, the husband of defendant Mary Abernathy, continued to work for Edward Pollard after the murder.
One of the great strengths of this book is the way Lebsock marshals her resources, particularly contemporary newspaper accounts. They provide a significant part of the narrative, as the press played an important role in winning new trials for the Lunenberg women. Particularly important was her use of the Richmond Planet, Richmond’s black newspaper run by John Mitchell. By mining this resource, Lebsock is able to underscore the truly vital role played by this publication.
As a piece of history I am not really sure if this book breaks any new ground; I don’t believe it does. It seems as though the narrative reflects well-known views on the nature of the south during this period. However, I have very few criticisms to make. The book is well organized, especially important given the number of people she was obliged to include in the narrative. Particularly helpful was the “List of Characters” she provided at the beginning. I found myself referencing it a number of times as I read this. Overall then this is an extremely well written book with a style that will appeal to the casual reader as well as those with a deeper interest in the history of the Jazz Age and in race relations.
[1] Lebsock, Suzanne A Murder in Virginia: Southern Justice on Trial (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2003), p.13
[2] Lebsock, Suzanne A Murder in Virginia, p. 42
[3] Lebsock, Suzanne A Murder in Virginia p. 140
September 10, 2011
This book does what all history books should do: it tells a story. Not only does it tell a story, but it tells a cited, documented, scholarly and academic story and it tells it well. I was engrossed from the very first page and I read the book in its entirety in a very short amount of time. Even people who think they don't like reading history should attempt this book. It reads like a murder mystery "whodunnit" work of fiction. I really enjoyed everything about it.
October 15, 2013
In A Murder in Virginia: Southern Justice on Trial, Suzanne Lebsock put her research skills to the test in order to bring to light the still unsolved case of the 1895 murder of Lucy Jane Pollard, a white woman from Lunenberg, Virginia. Although a compelling story, the tale begged the reader to ask: What makes this worthy of investigation by historians over a century later? Why is this case so important? and Who really killed Lucy Pollard?
Lucy Pollard was found in her backyard hours after being hacked to death with an axe. Her husband and neighbors stood vigil as the local authorities investigated. Eventually, the local sheriff arrested four people for the crime: William Henry (Solomon) Marable, Mary Abernathy, Mary Barnes, and Pokey Barnes. The victim was white, and all four of the accused were black. The jury in the first trial found each of the accused guilty and sentenced them to death. Subsequent trials found the accused guilty and sentences ranged from life in prison to death. Throughout the tale of Pollard’s murder, witness testimony changed, evidence disappeared, and even Marable changed his story. The trial became headline news in most of Virginia during the year of trials and appeals. Women’s groups raised money for attorneys and reporters published daily updates on the hearings.
In the end, the women were acquitted and only Marable hanged for the crime. However, at the end of the book Lebsock used a trick out of the mystery novelist’s handbook: she provided readers with a list of potential suspects outside of Solomon Marable and the women. Little evidence existed that would truly prove Marable’s guilt or his innocence. Lebsock’s research led her to the stories of other men, all white men, who may have had issue with Pollard’s husband and, therefore, motive to murder either Pollard. To this day, no one knows for sure who murdered Lucy Pollard. It seemed the worthiness of the Pollard murder’s story was its lack of closure – everyone loves a good mystery.
Lebsock subtitled the book “Southern Justice on Trial.” Does Lebsock put southern justice on trial in her narrative? The book provided a detailed example of how southern justice worked in the period between Reconstruction and Jim Crow. She showed how white supremacy did not rule everything and how the law tried to act above petty prejudices. The trial juries consisted of a mix of white and black jurors, something that showed how some Reconstruction policies were successful. One of the glaring lessons this story taught readers was that much of justice focused on ensuring everything happened per court procedure rather than ensuring justice be served.
Fortunately for readers, Lebsock provided an interesting perspective into the practice of lynching in the pre-Jim Crow South. Not every community or every white person favored the practice, but every black person feared it. The narrative often brought up the potential for the accused to not make it to their trials alive. Captain Frank Cunningham of the Virginia Militia remained conscious of the potential for lynching throughout the time the militia guarded the prisoners. Often, the captain or other military official led the prisoners on trails or through forests in an effort to avoid being seen by locals who may alert a lynch mob. Even Virginia Governor Charles O’Farrell wanted to avoid these prisoners being lynched. These examples present the reader with a different perspective on the average white southerner of the time.
Lebsock’s research delved into as much of what was available as possible. She used newspaper articles, journals, trial transcripts, and even convinced a couple people to visit the old Pollard farm, which still stands today. However, the evidence she used also showed readers how limited that information can be. Lebsock even criticized the source materials within the written narrative. Upon finishing the reading, one cannot help but wonder if there is anything else left out there, are there any stones left unturned?
Lucy Pollard was found in her backyard hours after being hacked to death with an axe. Her husband and neighbors stood vigil as the local authorities investigated. Eventually, the local sheriff arrested four people for the crime: William Henry (Solomon) Marable, Mary Abernathy, Mary Barnes, and Pokey Barnes. The victim was white, and all four of the accused were black. The jury in the first trial found each of the accused guilty and sentenced them to death. Subsequent trials found the accused guilty and sentences ranged from life in prison to death. Throughout the tale of Pollard’s murder, witness testimony changed, evidence disappeared, and even Marable changed his story. The trial became headline news in most of Virginia during the year of trials and appeals. Women’s groups raised money for attorneys and reporters published daily updates on the hearings.
In the end, the women were acquitted and only Marable hanged for the crime. However, at the end of the book Lebsock used a trick out of the mystery novelist’s handbook: she provided readers with a list of potential suspects outside of Solomon Marable and the women. Little evidence existed that would truly prove Marable’s guilt or his innocence. Lebsock’s research led her to the stories of other men, all white men, who may have had issue with Pollard’s husband and, therefore, motive to murder either Pollard. To this day, no one knows for sure who murdered Lucy Pollard. It seemed the worthiness of the Pollard murder’s story was its lack of closure – everyone loves a good mystery.
Lebsock subtitled the book “Southern Justice on Trial.” Does Lebsock put southern justice on trial in her narrative? The book provided a detailed example of how southern justice worked in the period between Reconstruction and Jim Crow. She showed how white supremacy did not rule everything and how the law tried to act above petty prejudices. The trial juries consisted of a mix of white and black jurors, something that showed how some Reconstruction policies were successful. One of the glaring lessons this story taught readers was that much of justice focused on ensuring everything happened per court procedure rather than ensuring justice be served.
Fortunately for readers, Lebsock provided an interesting perspective into the practice of lynching in the pre-Jim Crow South. Not every community or every white person favored the practice, but every black person feared it. The narrative often brought up the potential for the accused to not make it to their trials alive. Captain Frank Cunningham of the Virginia Militia remained conscious of the potential for lynching throughout the time the militia guarded the prisoners. Often, the captain or other military official led the prisoners on trails or through forests in an effort to avoid being seen by locals who may alert a lynch mob. Even Virginia Governor Charles O’Farrell wanted to avoid these prisoners being lynched. These examples present the reader with a different perspective on the average white southerner of the time.
Lebsock’s research delved into as much of what was available as possible. She used newspaper articles, journals, trial transcripts, and even convinced a couple people to visit the old Pollard farm, which still stands today. However, the evidence she used also showed readers how limited that information can be. Lebsock even criticized the source materials within the written narrative. Upon finishing the reading, one cannot help but wonder if there is anything else left out there, are there any stones left unturned?
Read
August 9, 2011A bajillion times better than that bullshit csi crap on tv. Read it asap.
March 2, 2016
The South in the post-Civil War era is portrayed to have large racial divides, with lynching of black men for no reason, the formation of the Ku Klux Klan, as well as the formation of Jim Crow laws. However, Lebsock analyzes a moment in time where this idea is not completely correct: there are still lynchings, the KKK, and Jim Crow laws, but day to day life between African Americans and white people is not as separate as people are led to believe. Very good and exciting read!
May 11, 2013
Read like a modern court room drama! Great read, and awesome historical fact finding by the author!!
October 5, 2015
A MURDER IN VIRGINIA is a true-crime page turner. Suzanne Lebsock does a marvelous job, telling a complex story with broad implications. Well done!
December 1, 2019
A murder that occurred in rural Southside Virginia in 1895 revealed much about the fault lines of race in the post-Reconstruction South. As the murder victim was a white woman, and the four people accused of the murder were all African-American, the case drew a great deal of publicity in its time; but the case subsequently faded from public view, until historian Suzanne Lebsock began to re-examine it for her 2003 book A Murder in Virginia.
Lebsock, a professor of history at Rutgers University, won the prestigious Francis Parkman Prize for her 1984 book The Free Women of Petersburg: Status and Culture in a Southern Town, 1784-1860. Her scholarly focus upon Southern women’s history made Lebsock well-suited to chronicle this true-life crime story that becomes a way of placing Southern Justice on Trial (the book’s subtitle).
The murder victim’s name was Lucy Pollard, and she was the wife of a farmer who had moved up from humble circumstances - in part by marrying advantageously - but had made plenty of enemies in rural Lunenburg County through his harsh and inflexible money-lending practices. Lebsock’s sympathy for Lucy Pollard is clear – not just because of the horrifying circumstances of her death, but also for Lucy Pollard as an emblematic woman of the late-19th-century South.
Lebsock explains that in a place like Lunenburg County, “rural women had a hard time making independent livelihoods. But they worked nearly all their waking hours, and a physically strong woman like Lucy could perform an immense amount of productive labor” (pp. 130-31). Lebsock’s sympathy for Lucy Pollard extends to the manner in which, for all the newspaper-generated interest in Lucy Pollard as a murder victim, journalists showed precious little interest in Lucy Pollard as a person. Lebsock writes thus of a much-publicized (and distorted) photograph of Lucy Pollard: “[W]hat a face! Eyes slightly crossed, mouth turned down at both corners into a permanent scowl, she looked at once defensive and defiant. Surely that face held a story. The newspapers, alas, failed to go after it” (p. 126).
Four suspects, all of them African-American, were quickly arrested and charged with the murder. One of them, a man named Solomon Marable, implicated the other three suspects, all women: Mary Abernathy, Mary Barnes, and Mary’s daughter Pokey Barnes. Solomon Marable’s frequently shifting testimony might be swiftly discredited in a modern courtroom, and certainly would be considered dubious as a basis for arresting and indicting suspects; but in the social and cultural setting of the late-19th-century South, 30 years after Appomattox and 18 years after the end of Reconstruction, Solomon Marable’s words were considered good enough as a basis on which to hold his three co-defendants.
Students of the law, or practicing attorneys, may be appalled by the juridical irregularities of the trials of these four defendants. Key items of physical evidence routinely go missing; the one exception is the meat ax with which the murder was committed - placed on the floor, under a table leg, to stabilize the wobbly table at which journalists were sitting during the trial. “There it lay, steadying the reporters’ table, blood still on its blade” (p. 251).
A local white businessman, Cass Gregory, seemed to think of himself as qualified to seek out evidence. Expressing his certainty regarding the guilt of Mary Abernathy, Mary Barnes, and Pokey Barnes, Cass Gregory went on his own independent evidence-gathering expedition; at one point, he visits the Pollard farm and compares the foot size of African-American women of the community with the foot size of Pokey Barnes. Lebsock describes this strange tableau as “a striking picture for the mind’s eye. Cass Gregory calls forth a woman, kneels in the dirt, measures the print of her left foot, moves on to the next woman. He is the prince in a warped Cinderella” (p. 260).
Given the racial politics of that time, it seemed possible for a time that the four defendants might not even live to see the inside of a courtroom; some Virginia newspapers wrote of the likelihood of a lynching, in terms that seemed to invite a lynching. But readers who take up A Murder in Virginia expecting the book to end with the horrors of a lynching, or with a To Kill a Mockingbird-style scenario of a grotesquely unfair trial in which African-American defendants are wrongly convicted by jurors who know the defendants to be innocent, may be surprised.
For the commonwealth of Virginia, in those days of the 1890’s, was in a time of change. Reconstruction had ended in 1877, with the withdrawal of Union troops from the former Confederate states, but the Jim Crow system of institutionalized segregation had not yet been fully fixed upon Southern states like Virginia. The initial trials of Solomon Marable, Mary Abernathy, Mary Barnes, and Pokey Barnes actually included some racially mixed juries – a vestige of earlier gains in African-American political rights during the era of Reconstruction.
The picture becomes even more complex when one considers that Virginia’s governor at the time, Charles O’Ferrall, had come to office on an anti-lynching platform – not, it is true, as a matter of civil-rights reform, but rather because the lawlessness and anarchy of lynching offended a law and order-minded governor like O’Ferrall. And when the dangers of a Lunenburg lynch mob seemed particularly clear and present, a group of white lawmen risked their lives to help the four defendants make a night-time cross-country journey from Lunenburg to the city of Petersburg, where their safety could be better protected.
A Murder in Virginia is also very much a story of African-American agency, one that shows African Americans fighting for justice with eloquence and courage. Pokey Barnes, though denied a formal education, turned out to be a tough-minded and effective advocate for her own innocence, repeatedly besting university-educated prosecutors at their own game. John Mitchell Jr., editor of Richmond’s pre-eminent African-American newspaper, the Richmond Planet, mobilized every resource in his power on behalf of the defendants, including organizing a legal defense by a high-powered team of white attorneys, and raising funds for that legal defense across the country. By the time the Lunenburg case concluded, it had earned Mitchell “something the white press hardly ever granted black individuals: respectful attention. Among African Americans Mitchell had become a hero of national stature. In black newspapers across the country his name stood for courage” (p. 305).
A highlight of A Murder in Virginia is a chapter titled “Who Killed Lucy Pollard?”, in which Lebsock offers her own evidence-based theory on who the true killer may have been; I will not reveal that secret here, but will simply say that she believes – as the reader is likely to believe, by the book’s end – that Mary Abernathy, Mary Barnes, and Pokey Barnes were altogether innocent of the crime of which they were accused. And in the book’s Afterword, Lebsock offers an intriguing answer to an important question: since this case was such a cause célèbre in its own time, with what we would now call wall-to-wall coverage across the United States of America, how and why did it become so completely forgotten over the succeeding century? Lebsock's answer to that question is a troubling one.
A Murder in Virginia: Southern Justice on Trial works as a chronicle of history, as a true-crime story, and as an examination of changing racial mores in the 19th-century American South. It generates suspense so well – and evokes sympathy so effectively for Mary Abernathy, Mary Barnes, and Pokey Barnes – that I would not be at all surprised to see this story brought to the motion-picture screen someday. If that does happen, I only hope that some future filmmaker will do justice to this important and well-told story.
Lebsock, a professor of history at Rutgers University, won the prestigious Francis Parkman Prize for her 1984 book The Free Women of Petersburg: Status and Culture in a Southern Town, 1784-1860. Her scholarly focus upon Southern women’s history made Lebsock well-suited to chronicle this true-life crime story that becomes a way of placing Southern Justice on Trial (the book’s subtitle).
The murder victim’s name was Lucy Pollard, and she was the wife of a farmer who had moved up from humble circumstances - in part by marrying advantageously - but had made plenty of enemies in rural Lunenburg County through his harsh and inflexible money-lending practices. Lebsock’s sympathy for Lucy Pollard is clear – not just because of the horrifying circumstances of her death, but also for Lucy Pollard as an emblematic woman of the late-19th-century South.
Lebsock explains that in a place like Lunenburg County, “rural women had a hard time making independent livelihoods. But they worked nearly all their waking hours, and a physically strong woman like Lucy could perform an immense amount of productive labor” (pp. 130-31). Lebsock’s sympathy for Lucy Pollard extends to the manner in which, for all the newspaper-generated interest in Lucy Pollard as a murder victim, journalists showed precious little interest in Lucy Pollard as a person. Lebsock writes thus of a much-publicized (and distorted) photograph of Lucy Pollard: “[W]hat a face! Eyes slightly crossed, mouth turned down at both corners into a permanent scowl, she looked at once defensive and defiant. Surely that face held a story. The newspapers, alas, failed to go after it” (p. 126).
Four suspects, all of them African-American, were quickly arrested and charged with the murder. One of them, a man named Solomon Marable, implicated the other three suspects, all women: Mary Abernathy, Mary Barnes, and Mary’s daughter Pokey Barnes. Solomon Marable’s frequently shifting testimony might be swiftly discredited in a modern courtroom, and certainly would be considered dubious as a basis for arresting and indicting suspects; but in the social and cultural setting of the late-19th-century South, 30 years after Appomattox and 18 years after the end of Reconstruction, Solomon Marable’s words were considered good enough as a basis on which to hold his three co-defendants.
Students of the law, or practicing attorneys, may be appalled by the juridical irregularities of the trials of these four defendants. Key items of physical evidence routinely go missing; the one exception is the meat ax with which the murder was committed - placed on the floor, under a table leg, to stabilize the wobbly table at which journalists were sitting during the trial. “There it lay, steadying the reporters’ table, blood still on its blade” (p. 251).
A local white businessman, Cass Gregory, seemed to think of himself as qualified to seek out evidence. Expressing his certainty regarding the guilt of Mary Abernathy, Mary Barnes, and Pokey Barnes, Cass Gregory went on his own independent evidence-gathering expedition; at one point, he visits the Pollard farm and compares the foot size of African-American women of the community with the foot size of Pokey Barnes. Lebsock describes this strange tableau as “a striking picture for the mind’s eye. Cass Gregory calls forth a woman, kneels in the dirt, measures the print of her left foot, moves on to the next woman. He is the prince in a warped Cinderella” (p. 260).
Given the racial politics of that time, it seemed possible for a time that the four defendants might not even live to see the inside of a courtroom; some Virginia newspapers wrote of the likelihood of a lynching, in terms that seemed to invite a lynching. But readers who take up A Murder in Virginia expecting the book to end with the horrors of a lynching, or with a To Kill a Mockingbird-style scenario of a grotesquely unfair trial in which African-American defendants are wrongly convicted by jurors who know the defendants to be innocent, may be surprised.
For the commonwealth of Virginia, in those days of the 1890’s, was in a time of change. Reconstruction had ended in 1877, with the withdrawal of Union troops from the former Confederate states, but the Jim Crow system of institutionalized segregation had not yet been fully fixed upon Southern states like Virginia. The initial trials of Solomon Marable, Mary Abernathy, Mary Barnes, and Pokey Barnes actually included some racially mixed juries – a vestige of earlier gains in African-American political rights during the era of Reconstruction.
The picture becomes even more complex when one considers that Virginia’s governor at the time, Charles O’Ferrall, had come to office on an anti-lynching platform – not, it is true, as a matter of civil-rights reform, but rather because the lawlessness and anarchy of lynching offended a law and order-minded governor like O’Ferrall. And when the dangers of a Lunenburg lynch mob seemed particularly clear and present, a group of white lawmen risked their lives to help the four defendants make a night-time cross-country journey from Lunenburg to the city of Petersburg, where their safety could be better protected.
A Murder in Virginia is also very much a story of African-American agency, one that shows African Americans fighting for justice with eloquence and courage. Pokey Barnes, though denied a formal education, turned out to be a tough-minded and effective advocate for her own innocence, repeatedly besting university-educated prosecutors at their own game. John Mitchell Jr., editor of Richmond’s pre-eminent African-American newspaper, the Richmond Planet, mobilized every resource in his power on behalf of the defendants, including organizing a legal defense by a high-powered team of white attorneys, and raising funds for that legal defense across the country. By the time the Lunenburg case concluded, it had earned Mitchell “something the white press hardly ever granted black individuals: respectful attention. Among African Americans Mitchell had become a hero of national stature. In black newspapers across the country his name stood for courage” (p. 305).
A highlight of A Murder in Virginia is a chapter titled “Who Killed Lucy Pollard?”, in which Lebsock offers her own evidence-based theory on who the true killer may have been; I will not reveal that secret here, but will simply say that she believes – as the reader is likely to believe, by the book’s end – that Mary Abernathy, Mary Barnes, and Pokey Barnes were altogether innocent of the crime of which they were accused. And in the book’s Afterword, Lebsock offers an intriguing answer to an important question: since this case was such a cause célèbre in its own time, with what we would now call wall-to-wall coverage across the United States of America, how and why did it become so completely forgotten over the succeeding century? Lebsock's answer to that question is a troubling one.
A Murder in Virginia: Southern Justice on Trial works as a chronicle of history, as a true-crime story, and as an examination of changing racial mores in the 19th-century American South. It generates suspense so well – and evokes sympathy so effectively for Mary Abernathy, Mary Barnes, and Pokey Barnes – that I would not be at all surprised to see this story brought to the motion-picture screen someday. If that does happen, I only hope that some future filmmaker will do justice to this important and well-told story.
November 29, 2012
Suzanne Lebsock's nonfiction book about an 1895 murder of a white Virginia farm wife gets off to a shaky start. The best I was able to determine, Lebsock doesn't tell us the date of the murder until many chapters in; I doggedly went back to the book's beginning several times and never found a date beyond a "June day". Maybe I'm blind. Anyway, Lebsock, in the end, delivers a fascinating account that chronicles the legal wranglings as the murder is hung on one black man and three black women. The man, Solomon, changes his story constantly, implicating the three women, before finally settling on a more consistent tale.
Lebsock's handling of the original trials is a little tedious — too much detail. But the subsequent legal wrangling, appeals and whatnot, often is fascinating. Lebsock is particularly strong in detailing the social and political climate in which the trials took place. She also examines how the case caused quite a stir in its time but subsequently disappeared from the history books.
Other than the stumble with the murder's date, it's hard to imagine a more thorough and fine job of research and reportage than Lebsock has done. "A Murder in Virginia" (3.5 stars) is an interesting account of Southern justice, by turns deplorable and uplifting, that just goes on a little too long.
Lebsock's handling of the original trials is a little tedious — too much detail. But the subsequent legal wrangling, appeals and whatnot, often is fascinating. Lebsock is particularly strong in detailing the social and political climate in which the trials took place. She also examines how the case caused quite a stir in its time but subsequently disappeared from the history books.
Other than the stumble with the murder's date, it's hard to imagine a more thorough and fine job of research and reportage than Lebsock has done. "A Murder in Virginia" (3.5 stars) is an interesting account of Southern justice, by turns deplorable and uplifting, that just goes on a little too long.
July 7, 2011
I thought this book was AMAZING! I loved how the author told the history as if it were a work of fiction.. I also liked that she only used dialogue that really took place in the courtrooms and such.. .I was so irritated when the juries were convicting the women for the first time. I was like, "WHAT the heck is wrong with you guys?!?!? They obviously didn't do it!"
Overall, I would recommend this book to anybody who asked me for a good read. It was a GREAT book.
Overall, I would recommend this book to anybody who asked me for a good read. It was a GREAT book.
April 12, 2013
Reading this book was similar to watching a murder mystery on TV for me. The information that she provides about the case is very detailed and allows you to form your own opinions about who committed the crime. It is unfortunate the racism and politics involved in the southern justice system during this time period but the book kept me interested and wondering what would be next. I still can't come to a solid conclusion about who did it or whether or not Solomon Marable was telling the truth.
July 24, 2013
Very interesting read. Intriguing story about race in Virginia during the time between the Civil War and the disenfranchisement of African-Americans. Characters were well developed and the author definitely did her research. Highly recommended for history/true crime lovers! I plan to share this story with my history students.
February 11, 2012
Reading for my Hist. of the South class. Interesting so far. This historically accurate book was like reading a novel. I love how the author let events unfold as the story progresses, leaving mystery and intrigue. This book has changed my outlook on historical works of literature.
June 27, 2015
Well written & kept me on the edge of my seat. I only wish we knew 100% who committed the murder and why. I am from Richmond and my great grandparents were from and lived in Chase City so I was familiar with the locations and city v southern country ideals. Loved it.
March 18, 2008
This was a fast read because the story was so interesting. It is set at the end of the nineteenth century.
April 20, 2013
slow going and repetitive...like the actual events.
August 20, 2014
So interesting! I had never heard this story! Connie Moss/Lunenburg County, VA native.
October 6, 2014
Well researched and written. I found the style easy to follow. And the history is absolutely fascinating.
January 23, 2016
The author really dug in and investigated a very old case. Examines all the different theories of what happened; she comes up with some thoughts of her own as well. Well written and convincing.
September 21, 2023
this would typically be where i give a warning that i read this book for a class and therefore my opinion on it may be bias. i don't think that is needed in this case. this was so interesting, incredibly well written, easy to read, and very enjoyable. a fascinating dive both into the political and social world of 1890's Virginia, and a twisting turning case of murder. i don't think i've enjoyed a book of this nature since i read in cold blood, and even then, i think i enjoyed this more. absolutely would recommend.
October 6, 2024
This is an amazing book, full of connections, with more Virginia history than I have read heretofore. To the point, this captures the rural South on the cusp between Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and Great Migration, when it was possible for black and white to collaborate on justice, albeit delayed.
Highly recommended.
Highly recommended.
July 2, 2024
This is a stellar example of historical non-fiction. Masterfully written and based on thorough research, it reads as a cohesive murder mystery narrative and is entirely grounded in referable primary sources. This book made me more interested in Virginian history than anything else I have ever encountered in my life as a Virginia resident. Not only does it give an incredibly fleshed-out account of Virginia during reconstruction (making this well worth the read for general knowledge alone), but there is a precision in Lesbock’s characterization of people that I absolutely adored. She captures humanity in a way that really drives home the importance of telling stories like the Pollard case at all. Truly the blueprint for the genre.
July 19, 2024
Fascinating, if overly long, nonfiction account of the murder of a white woman in 1895 and the subsequent accusations and trials involving three black women and a black man and the people where helped the accused seek justice.
May 2, 2021
I grew up in this area of Virginia. The books list many names and places I know. The author has done a subperb job capturing the atmosphere of the area and people.
May 15, 2023
Interesting true-crime style tale.
October 11, 2023
I enjoying reading this book and learning all the history.
November 10, 2023
Absolutely captivating true story.
January 11, 2026
4.5 stars, a very interesting read.
September 11, 2016
It’s a brilliant blend of historical and true-crime storytelling.
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