Zora Hurston and the Strange Case of Ruby McCollum

In 1952 Zora Neale Hurston traveled to Live Oak Florida to cover the trial of a black woman Ruby McCollum accused of murdering the towns only doctor C. Leroy Adams a white man. McCollum was the wife of a rich numbers operator the mother of four of his children and one of Dr. Adams recently elected to the state senate. Hurston was sent by the Pittsburgh Courier a nationally known black newspaper to cover the sensational trial which included high racial and sexual drama because of the long practice of white men having long and openly "secret" affairs with black women producing mixed-race children. As an anthropologist Hurston had written about the practice of "paramour rights" some 20 years earlier. Drawing on Hurstons newspaper coverage of the trial and interviews with town residents Ellisa Live Oak resident himselfrecounts the sensational trial. He alternates between the first-person voice of Hurston herself and a narrative of the backstory of the love affair and fortunes made in a small town on illegal gambling and drugs. Vanessa Bush Booklist (A publication of the American Library Association)