Even More Amazing Scenes

Rich white guy class solidarity is a frightening thing.

Michael [Lewis] thought the packed courtroom and the overflow rooms, filled with some of the 175 journalists who couldn’t get into the main courtroom, rendered the whole trial a spectacle, with attendees acting like theater critics. Or worse. “It reminded me of accounts I’ve read of families packing up their picnic baskets and going to see the lynching,” he told me. He recalled a description he read about the phenomenon. “It was describing the crowd gathering for the lynching like they’re going to watch a play,” he said, “Their spirits are high, they’re enjoying everything, and then the body is dangling from the end of the rope. And then there’s a brief moment when the crowd realizes this was something other than just spectacle. And I assume that moment occurred when they announced the verdict [for Sam]. But I didn’t see that moment. I saw people just being—journalists, especially—just kind of enjoying the show. I felt like this is what it would feel like to go back to the day when people did that, to go for entertainment to a public lynching.”