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Zora Hurston and the Strange Case of Ruby McCollum

About the Book

In 1952, Zora Neale Hurston traveled to Live Oak, Florida, to cover the trial of a black woman, Ruby McCollum, accused of murdering…C. Leroy Adams, a white man. McCollum was the wife of a rich numbers operator, the mother of four of his children, and one of Dr. Adams’, who was recently elected to the state senate. Hurston was sent by the Pittsburgh Courier, a nationally known black newspaper, to cover the sensational trial, which included high racial and sexual drama because of the long practice of white men having…”secret” affairs with black women, producing mixed-race children.

As an anthropologist, Hurston had written about the practice of “paramour rights” some 20 years earlier. Drawing on Hurston’s newspaper coverage of the trial and interviews with town residents, Ellis—a Live Oak resident himself—recounts the sensational trial. He alternates between the first-person voice of Hurston herself and a narrative of the backstory of the love affair and fortunes made in a small town on illegal gambling and drugs.
            --Vanessa Bush
               Booklist (American Library Association)