Personally Speaking series to tackle ‘true crime’

The book “Goat Castle: A True Story of Murder, Race and the Gothic South” has a murder, a dowager of fading “Southern aristocracy,” two eccentrics living with goats in a decaying mansion, conspiracy, racism and injustice.

Award-winning UNC Charlotte historian Karen Cox, author of “Goat Castle,” provides a definitive look at a 1932 murder in Natchez, Mississippi, in which, according to Cox, only one person—an innocent bystander—ever was brought to justice.

On Tuesday, Feb. 19, Cox will give a public presentation about her book as part of the Personally Speaking series. She will discuss the true crime and the complicated relationship between race and the law in the post-Civil War South. This event will begin at 6:30 p.m. at UNC Charlotte Center City. A reception and book signing will follow.

As a writer, Cox has published numerous essays and articles on the subject of Southern history and culture. Her first book “Dixie’s Daughters: The United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Preservation of Confederate Culture” won the 2004 Julia Cherry Spruill Prize from the Southern Association for Women Historians for the Best Book in Southern Women’s History. She also authored “Dreaming of Dixie: How the South Was Created in American Popular Culture.”

Personally Speaking is open to the public without charge, but registration is required. Information about parking and other useful tips for the evening will be emailed a few days before the event to those who RSVP.

This is the fourth talk in the 2018-19 series of five Personally Speaking conversations in which UNC Charlotte’s College of Liberal Arts & Sciences faculty members discuss recent books they have written and how they came to write them.

Personally Speaking is co-sponsored by UNC Charlotte’s College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, J. Murrey Atkins Library and UNC Charlotte Center City.