Sowega: A Tale of Southern Justice

"What separates men from each other is not measured by physical distance; it is measured by the thoughts in their minds." The Author In this fictional version of a 1968 civil rights murder trial in Southwest Georgia, SOWEGA, Robert Lee "Jackpot" Jest, an uneducated young black man, is defended by an equally young white indigent defense lawyer. They come from entirely different worlds in Georgia. Attorney Clay Garland accepts the pro bono case when no other defense lawyer in Southwest Georgia would agree to defend him. Jackpot is charged with the murder of the local sheriff's grandson and is detained for over a year to avoid the real possibility of a lynching, an act not unknown to the political and racial heritage in Forrest County, Georgia. The pretrial events and the trial itself take the reader down what appears to be an obvious path to conclusion, only to be jolted in another direction. Clay encounters a retired army sergeant with connections to civil rights leaders in Atlanta, a voodoo Root Doctor, white supremacists, and the mafia-all of whose actions affect the outcome of the trial, a trial which gains national publicity and symbolizes as a microcosm the various opposing political and legal forces of the 1960s civil rights era in Georgia. Robert Lee Jest-a pawn on the chessboard of hate, prejudice, and Southern politics-emerges as an inspiration to Clay Garland. This is the story of how these two disparate young men come together in a common cause and the judicial proceedings that ultimately produced celebrity for one and Southern Justice for the other.