Roadhouse Justice: Hattie Lee Barnes and the Killing of a White Man in 1950s Mississippi

In 1951, a young Black woman, working as an overnight caretaker at a county-line beer joint in southwestern Mississippi, shot and killed a white intruder who was likely intending to assault her. Hattie Lee Barnes’s killing of Lamar Craft threw the courts into a whirlwind of conflicting stories and murder attempts, illuminating the capriciousness of Mississippi justice, in which race, personal connections, and community expectations mattered a great deal.

In Roadhouse Justice, Trent Brown ex...