Jim Emison — Murder on the Hatchie: The NAACP's First Martyr - with Aderson Francois — at the Wharf
Jim Emison discusses *Murder on the Hatchie: The NAACP’s First Martyr*, his investigation into the 1940 lynching of Elbert Williams, a Brownsville, Tennessee, NAACP leader killed while working to register Black voters. The event examines how racial terror, voter suppression, and official complicity shaped the struggle for voting rights, as well as the federal government’s failure to prosecute Williams’s killers.
Emison will be joined in conversation by Aderson Francois, a Georgetown law professor and civil-rights scholar. Drawing on FBI files, Justice Department records, and eyewitness testimony, Emison reconstructs the murder and its aftermath, placing Brownsville at an important but often overlooked point in civil-rights history.
When: Friday, October 30, 2026
Showtime: 7:00 p.m.
Venue: Politics and Prose at The Wharf, 610 Water St SW, Washington, DC 20024
Tickets: Free admission; seating is first come, first served.
Featured book: *Murder on the Hatchie: The NAACP’s First Martyr* by Jim Emison, with a foreword by Margaret A. Burnham. The hardcover was published October 20, 2026, and is listed at $28.99.
Jim Emison: Emison is a retired Tennessee trial attorney who spent 43 years practicing law before investigating Elbert Williams’s murder. His work has appeared in the Associated Press, NPR, and Nashville Public Television, and contributed to a renewed Department of Justice review under the Emmett Till Act. He cofounded Tennesseans for Historical Justice and serves on the Tennessee Historical Society board. This is his first book.
Aderson Francois: Francois is a Georgetown professor of law who directs the Civil Rights Section of the Institute for Public Representation and the Voting Rights Institute. His areas of scholarship include voting rights, education law, and the histories of slavery and Reconstruction. He has testified before Congress, prepared briefs for the U.S. Supreme Court, and previously directed the Civil Rights Clinic at Howard University School of Law.
Accessibility: Accommodation and accessibility requests should be emailed to events@politics-prose.com, ideally at least one week before the event. The organizers will try to accommodate requests made up to the event time.