The Trial of Sheriff Joseph F. Shipp
By James CicconeA courtroom. A defiant sheriff. A nation forced to confront its own conscience.
Available on Amazon. Opens in a new tab.
Share your perspectiveInside the story.
In the winter of 1906, an innocent Black man named Ed Johnson is accused of a crime in Chattanooga, Tennessee. An all-white jury sentences him to hang. His lawyers appeal to the United States Supreme Court, and Justice John Marshall Harlan issues a stay of execution.
But Sheriff Joseph Franklin Shipp is not listening. When a mob breaches the jail, the sheriff does nothing. What follows is an unprecedented criminal contempt trial before the Supreme Court itself.
This work of historical fiction follows racial injustice, political corruption, and the collision of state power with federal authority in the American South.
Keep the conversation going.
A question, a connection, a different point of view. We’d love to hear what this story sparked for you.
