Who Is Sandra Teal Still Relevant Today?

This book is very relevant today, many of the experiences that happened to the characters still happen today, people aren’t lynched as often anymore. But racially motivated crimes still happen and the internet allows for people to get worked up into a frenzy even if there was no actual crime committed by the accused. The alleged rape of Sandra Teal caused the white people of Duluth to be angered to the point where they turned into a mob that quickly turned into a riot. This event seems similar to the events of Ferguson Missouri in August of 2014. The riots in Ferguson started because the people did not wait for the facts to emerge, they instead listened to anyone who was telling them something that they wanted to hear. Once the people figured

The case against Max Mason mostly hinged on the eyewitness testimony of Sandra Teal and Robert Walsh and the fact that both Sandra and Max had an advanced case of gonorrhea. “The doctor told the jury that in his examination of all prisoners, only Mason had gonorrhea” later one of the jurors said “it was the gonorrhea that cinched it”. (pg.160) Cases like this still happen from time to time where there is a case that has a fair amount of circumstantial evidence and then one testimony or one new piece of evidence is presented that convinces the jury of the guilt of the defendant. This case is also similar to today in the quality of defense that Max Mason and the other black men received. Public defenders are not bad lawyers, but they are very overworked and as a result their quality of service suffers. When a lawyer is overworked it may be easy for them to overlook certain aspects of a case, for example figuring out whether or not the defendant understands his/ her rights, or they may fail to properly cross examine a witness, or they may overlook an important piece of evidence that came up in previous investigations. Everything listed before happened to Max Mason, it is not known whether or not their lawyers were less educated or afraid of

Riots happen today for many reasons the reaction has generally been the same as it was in The Lynchings in Duluth, call the National Guard. Police departments have been getting better and better as time goes on, they are more professional, better trained and better equipped yet large scale violence is still too much for them to handle. The difference between now and the 1920s is that if the national guard is called it will likely be known around the world with in minutes if not seconds of the troops deployment, this kind of publicity leads to much more caution being taken when calling the National Guard because if the violence is not bad enough then there may be an outcry and if it happens to late and the rioting gets out of hand than the public will be mad because of the lack of action. In the twenties the government had much more leeway when it came to handling things in somewhat less than ethical ways because news didn’t travel anywhere even remotely close as it does today and elections did not hang on whether or not a riot was handled properly or not as long as everything worked out at the