Changes

In October, the Oxford University Press will be publishing ''The Great New Orleans Kidnapping Case: Race, Law, and Justice in the Reconstruction Era'' by Michael A. Ross, an Associate Professor at the University of Maryland. Ross's first book, ''Justice of Shattered Dreams: Samuel Freeman Miller and the Supreme Court During the Civil War Era'', examined Justice Miller's career on the Supreme Court. Ross has changed pace and his next book follows the 1870 kidnapping of a white seventeen month old girl, Mollie Digby, by two African American women in New Orleans. While virtually unknown today, the case was a national sensation at the time. Everyday, newspapers around the country were publishing reports of the kidnapping and subsequent trial. Unsurprisingly, the story became intertwined with the racial politics of Reconstruction. Here's my interview with Michael Ross about his new book.