The sensational true story of George Dinning， a freed slave， who in 1899 joined forces with a Confederate war hero in search of justice in the Jim Crow south。 “Taut and tense。 Inspiring and terrifying in its timelessness。”（Colson Whitehead， Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad ）Named a most anticipated book of 2021 by O， The Oprah MagazineNamed a "must-read" by the Chicago Review of BooksOne of CNN's most anticipated books of 2021 After moonrise on the cold night of January 21， 1897， a mob of twenty-five white men gathered in a patch of woods near Big Road in southwestern Simpson County， Kentucky。 Half carried rifles and shotguns， and a few tucked pistols in their pants。 Their target was George Dinning， a freed slave who'd farmed peacefully in the area for 14 years， and who had been wrongfully accused of stealing livestock from a neighboring farm。 When the mob began firing through the doors and windows of Dinning's home， he fired back in self-defense， shooting and killing the son of a wealthy Kentucky family。So began one of the strangest legal episodes in American history — one that ended with Dinning becoming the first Black man in America to win damages after a wrongful murder conviction。Drawing on a wealth of never-before-published material， bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize finalist Ben Montgomery resurrects this dramatic but largely forgotten story， and the unusual convergence of characters — among them a Confederate war hero-turned-lawyer named Bennett H。 Young， Kentucky governor William O'Connell Bradley， and George Dinning himself — that allowed this unlikely story of justice to unfold in a time and place where justice was all too rare。