Join Politics & Prose for a Live! virtual event with Scott D. Seligman as he discusses his newest book, A Second Reckoning (Potomac Books, 2021), on Tuesday, October 26 at 5:00 p.m. CST.

Register for the event here!

A Second Reckoning tells the story of John Snowden, a Black man accused of the murder of a pregnant white woman in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1917. He refused to confess despite undergoing torture, was tried—through legal shenanigans—by an all-white jury, and was found guilty on circumstantial evidence and sentenced to death. Despite hair-raising, last-minute appeals to spare his life, Snowden was hanged for the crime. But decades after his death, thanks to tireless efforts by interested citizens and family members who believed him a victim of a “legal lynching,” Snowden was pardoned posthumously by the governor of Maryland in 2001.

Scott D. Seligman is a writer and historian. He is the author of numerous books, including The Great Kosher Meat War of 1902: Immigrant Housewives and the Riots That Shook New York City (Potomac Books, 2020), the award-winning The Third Degree: The Triple Murder That Shook Washington and Changed American Criminal Justice (Potomac Books, 2018), and The First Chinese American: The Remarkable Life of Wong Chin Foo. His newest book, A Second Reckoning: Race, Injustice, and the Last Hanging in Annapolis (Potomac Books, 2021), was published this month.