Peculiar Tribe of People: Murder and Madness in the Heart of Georgia - Paperback

by Richard Jay Hutto (Author)

A true southern tale of racism, murder, and taboo sex.

Back Jacket

On May 12, 1960, as John F. Kennedy campaigned for the presidency, Chester Burge--slumlord, liquor runner, and the black sheep of the proud (and wealthy) Dunlap family of Macon, Georgia--lay in a hospital bed, recovering from surgery. He listened to the radio as the news reported that his wife had just been murdered. Police soon ruled out robbery as a motive, and suspicion centered upon the Ku Klux Klan, which two weeks earlier had descended upon his house to protest his renting homes in white neighborhoods to black families. Then, on June 1, Chester was charged with the murder, and when the trial finally began, the sweet Southern town of Macon witnessed a story of epic proportions--a tale of white-columned mansions, an insane asylum, real people as "Southern grotesque" as the characters of Flannery O'Connor, and a volatile mix of taboo interracial relationships and homosexuality.

Author Biography

Richard Jay Hutto is the author of Entitled: American Women, Titled Husbands, and the Pursuit of Excess, Crowning Glory: American Wives of Princes and Dukes, and Their Gilded Cage: The Jekyll Island Club Members. Formerly the White House Appointments Secretary to the Carter family and the chairman of the Georgia Council for the Arts.