New from the University of Alabama Press:
Thomas Goode Jones: Race, Politics, and Justice in the New South, by Brent Aucoin (Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary). A description from the Press:
This first comprehensive biography of Thomas Goode Jones records the
life of a man whose political career reflects the fascinating and
unsettled history of Alabama and the Deep South at the turn of the
twentieth century. . . .
Born in 1844, Jones served in the Confederate
army and after the war identified as a conservative “Bourbon” Democrat.
He served as Alabama's governor from 1890 to 1894 and as a federal judge
from 1901 until his death in 1914. As a veteran, politician, and judge,
Jones embodied numerous roles in the shifting political landscape of
the South.
Jones was not, however, a reflexive conformist and
sometimes pursued policies at odds with his party. Jones’s rhetoric and
support of African American civil rights were exceptional and earned him
truculent criticism from unrepentant racist factions in his party. His
support was so fearless that it inspired Booker T. Washington to
recommend Jones to Republican president Theodore Roosevelt as a federal
judge. On the bench, Jones garnered national attention for his efforts
to end peonage and lynching, and yet he also enabled the establishment
of legalized segregation in Alabama, confounding attempts easily to
categorize him as an odious reactionary or fearless progressive.. . .
More information is available
here.
