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When Evil Lived in Laurel
- The "White Knights" and the Murder of Vernon Dahmer
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
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Publisher's summary
One of NPR's Best Books of the Year
A Finalist for the 2022 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime
The inside story of how a courageous FBI informant helped to bring down the KKK organization responsible for a brutal civil rights-era killing.
By early 1966, the work of Vernon Dahmer was well-known in South Mississippi. A light-skinned Black man, he was a farmer, grocery store owner, and two-time president of the Forrest County chapter of the NAACP. He and Medgar Evers founded a youth NAACP chapter in Hattiesburg, and for years after Evers’ assassination, Dahmer was the chief advocate for voting rights in a county where Black registration was shamelessly suppressed. This put Dahmer in the crosshairs of the White Knights, with headquarters in nearby Laurel. Already known as one of the most violent sects of the KKK in the South, the group carried out his murder in a raid that burned down his home and store.
A year before, Tom Landrum, a young, unassuming member of a family with deep Mississippi roots, joined the Klan to become an FBI informant. He penetrated the White Knights’ secret circles, recording almost daily journal entries. He risked his life, and the safety of his young family, to chronicle extensively the clandestine activities of the Klan. Veteran journalist Curtis Wilkie draws on his exclusive access to Landrum’s journals to recreate these events - the conversations, the incendiary nighttime meetings, the plans leading up to Dahmer’s murder, and its erratic execution - culminating in the conviction and imprisonment of many of those responsible for Dahmer’s death.
In riveting detail, When Evil Lived in Laurel plumbs the nature and harrowing consequences of institutional racism and brings fresh light to this chapter in the history of civil rights in the South - one with urgent implications for today.
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Critic reviews
"Vivid.... [N]ow the virulent white supremacy that once coursed through Laurel has reached into the center of our embattled democracy. Maybe that evil will also be brought down and peace built on its ruins. Or maybe our current crisis should force us to see that the evil of the Knights had never really been broken at all." (Kevin Boyle, Washington Post)
"When Evil Lived in Laurel is set during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, but its concerns could not be more central to our current moment: voting rights, white supremacist terror, and the ground-level mechanisms of white radicalization. With meticulous research and all the tools of a novelist, Curtis Wilkie chronicles the Klan-ordered murder of activist Vernon Dahmer, and Tom Landrum’s infiltration of the White Knights. Read this book if you want to understand how racist words and ideas turn into violent, murderous action." (Patrick Phillips, author of Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America)
"I’m a longtime admirer of Curtis Wilkie’s deep and insightful work, and his chilling journey through the KKK’s murder of Vernon Dahmer will stay with you long after you close this book. This kind of violence is where tacit encouragement of extremists leads, and Wilkie shows you how." (Greg Iles, New York Times best-selling author of Natchez Burning)
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- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 6 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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On New Year's Eve, 1939, a horrific triple murder occurred in rural Oklahoma. Within a matter of days, investigators identified several suspects: convicts who had been at a craps game with one of the victims the night before. Also at the craps game was a young black farmer named W. D. Lyons. Political pressure mounted to find a villain. The governor's representative settled on Lyons, who was arrested, tortured into signing a confession, and tried for the murder. The NAACP's new Legal Defense and Education Fund sent its young chief counsel, Thurgood Marshall, to take part in the trial.
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What a piece of history 💕
- By Private on 01-12-21
By: Denver Nicks, and others
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The Assassination of Fred Hampton
- How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther
- By: Jeffrey Haas
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Uncovering a cold-blooded execution at the hands of a conspiring police force, this engaging account relentlessly pursues the murderers of Black Panther Fred Hampton. Documenting the entire 14-year process of bringing the killers to justice, this chronicle also depicts the 18-month court trial in detail. Revealing Hampton himself in a new light, this examination presents him as a dynamic community leader whose dedication to his people and to the truth inspired the young lawyers of the People's Law Office.
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Terrible narrator for a great story!!!
- By D. Rolland on 11-06-20
By: Jeffrey Haas
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The Fighting Bunch
- The Battle of Athens and How World War II Veterans Won the Only Successful Armed Rebellion Since the Revolution
- By: Chris DeRose
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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The incredible, untold story of the WWII vets who overthrew their corrupt hometown government - the only successful armed rebellion on US soil since the War of Independence.
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epic!
- By jned on 11-04-20
By: Chris DeRose
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The Savage City
- By: T. J. English
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Abridged
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In the early 1960s, uncertainty and menace gripped New York, crystallizing in a poisonous divide between a deeply corrupt, cynical, and racist police force, and an African American community buffeted by economic distress, brutality, and narcotics. On August 28, 1963 - the day Martin Luther King Jr. declared "I have a dream" on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial - two young white women were murdered in their Manhattan apartment. Dubbed the Career Girls Murders case, the crime sent ripples of fear throughout the city, as police scrambled fruitlessly for months to find the killer.
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I Highly Recommend This Book!
- By R on 05-15-13
By: T. J. English
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The Blood of Emmett Till
- By: Timothy B. Tyson
- Narrated by: Rhett Samuel Price
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Mississippi, 1955: 14-year-old Emmett Till was murdered by a white mob after making flirtatious remarks to a white woman, Carolyn Bryant. Till's attackers were never convicted, but his lynching became one of the most notorious hate crimes in American history. It launched protests across the country, helped the NAACP gain thousands of members, and inspired famous activists like Rosa Parks to stand up and fight for equal rights for the first time.
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Tough read. Rest in Peace Emmit. We are so sorry!
- By Melanie B on 09-16-18
By: Timothy B. Tyson
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L.A. Noir
- The Struggle for the Soul of America's Most Seductive City
- By: John Buntin
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 17 hrs
- Unabridged
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Midcentury Los Angeles: A city sold to the world as "the white spot of America", a land of sunshine and orange groves, Midwestern values, and Hollywood stars, protected by the world's most famous police force, the Dragnet-era LAPD. Behind this public image lies a hidden world of "pleasure girls" and crooked cops, ruthless newspaper tycoons, corrupt politicians, and East Coast gangsters on the make. Into this underworld came two men - one L.A.'s most notorious gangster, the other its most famous police chief - each prepared to battle the other for the soul of the city.
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A good (but a little corny) history of LA
- By Jimmy on 10-23-12
By: John Buntin
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Set the Night on Fire
- L.A. in the Sixties
- By: Mike Davis, Jon Wiener
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 25 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Los Angeles in the '60s was a hotbed of political and social upheaval. The city was a launchpad for Black Power - where Malcolm X and Angela Davis first came to prominence and the Watts uprising shook the nation. The city was home to the Chicano Blowouts and Chicano Moratorium, as well as being the birthplace of “Asian American” as a political identity. It was a locus of the antiwar movement, gay liberation movement, and women’s movement, and, of course, the capital of California counterculture.
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An amazingly comprehensive story of a critical decade.
- By Manifesta on 11-29-20
By: Mike Davis, and others
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Nine Days
- The Race to Save Martin Luther King Jr.'s Life and Win the 1960 Election
- By: Paul Kendrick, Stephen Kendrick
- Narrated by: Bill Andrew Quinn
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Less than three weeks before the 1960 presidential election, 31-year-old Martin Luther King, Jr. was arrested at a sit-in at Rich's Department Store in Atlanta. That day would lead to the first night King had ever spent in jail - and the time that King's family most feared for his life. Based on fresh interviews, newspaper accounts, and extensive archival research, Nine Days is the first full recounting of an event that changed the course of one of the closest elections in American history.
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a fascinating, detailed, blow-by-blow approach
- By D. Littman on 01-29-21
By: Paul Kendrick, and others
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Mafia Summit
- J. Edgar Hoover, the Kennedy Brothers, and the Meeting That Unmasked the Mob
- By: Gil Reavill
- Narrated by: Keith Szarabajka
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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In a small village in New York, mob bosses from all over the country - Vito Genovese, Carlo Gambino, Joe Bonanno, Joe Profaci, Cuba boss Santo Trafficante, Jr., and Paul Castellano - were nabbed by Sergeant Edgar D. Croswell as they gathered to sort out a bloody war of succession. For years FBI director J. Edgar Hoover had adamantly denied the existence of the Mafia, but Robert Kennedy immediately recognized the shattering importance of the Apalachin summit....
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Something I Didn't Know
- By Kevin on 03-29-13
By: Gil Reavill
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Up in Arms
- How the Bundy Family Hijacked Public Lands, Outfoxed the Federal Government, and Ignited America's Patriot Militia Movement
- By: John Temple
- Narrated by: Angelo Di Loreto
- Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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These words, pounded out on a laptop at Cliven Bundy’s besieged Nevada ranch on April 6, 2014, ignited a new American revolution. Across the country, a certain type of citizen snapped to attention: This was the flashpoint the they’d been waiting for, a chance to help a fellow American stand up to a tyrannical and corrupt federal government. Up in Arms chronicles how an isolated clan of desert-dwelling Mormons became the guiding light - and then the outright leaders - of America’s Patriot movement.
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Right Winger's Dream!
- By LAMONT R. on 12-31-21
By: John Temple
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In the Spirit of Crazy Horse
- By: Peter Matthiessen
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 28 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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On a hot June morning in 1975, a fatal shoot-out took place between FBI agents and American Indians on a remote property near Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in which an Indian and two federal agents were killed. Eventually, four members of the American Indian Movement were indicted on murder charges in the deaths of the two agents. Behind this violent chain of events lie issues of great complexity and profound historical resonance, brilliantly explicated by Peter Matthiessen in this controversial book.
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Must read for a true picture of america
- By N. Duvall on 07-21-16
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Devil in the Grove
- Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America
- By: Gilbert King
- Narrated by: Peter Francis James
- Length: 17 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Arguably the most important American lawyer of the 20th century, Thurgood Marshall was on the verge of bringing the landmark suit Brown v. Board of Education before the US Supreme Court when he became embroiled in a case that threatened to change the course of the civil rights movement and to cost him his life. In 1949, Florida's orange industry was booming, and citrus barons got rich on the backs of cheap Jim Crow labor with the help of Sheriff Willis V. McCall, who ruled Lake County with murderous resolve....
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the fight for civil rights
- By Jean on 01-17-14
By: Gilbert King
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The Corporation
- An Epic Story of the Cuban American Underworld
- By: T. J. English
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 19 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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By the mid 1980s, the criminal underworld in the United States had become an ethnic polyglot; one of the most powerful illicit organizations was none other than the Cuban mob. Known on both sides of the law as "the Corporation", the Cuban mob's power stemmed from a criminal culture embedded in south Florida's exile community - those who had been chased from the island by Castro's revolution and planned to overthrow the Marxist dictator and reclaim their nation.
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uncle joey approved
- By Anonymous User on 04-14-18
By: T. J. English
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Revolution’s End
- The Patty Hearst Kidnapping, Mind Control, and the Secret History of Donald DeFreeze and the SLA
- By: Brad Schreiber
- Narrated by: Brad Schreiber
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Revolution's End fully explains the most famous kidnapping in US history, detailing Patty Hearst's relationship with Donald DeFreeze, known as Cinque, the head of the Symbionese Liberation Army. Not only did the heiress have a sexual relationship with DeFreeze while he was imprisoned, she didn't know he was an informant and a victim of prison behavior modification.
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Interesting spin
- By jay rollins on 08-29-20
By: Brad Schreiber
What listeners say about When Evil Lived in Laurel
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Charles
- 01-30-23
History Revealed
Very in depth look at the conditions during the Civil Rights Movement in the Deep South. Shows the lengths the people went to to keep Freed Blacks terrorized and subordinate. It also showed the bravery of a few good people that made a difference!
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- Amazon Customer
- 09-28-21
True history that reads like a Hollywood script.
As a southerner who has spent half my life in Alabama and the other half in Mississippi, I am not new to the story of the KKK. I just didn’t know, what I didn’t know.
The book is part history and part thriller. All the while, It sets the table of the cultural realities in play at the time.
It also gives great insight into every day people performing life-threatening acts of bravery just because they wanted to do the right thing.
In the end, I found chores to do around my property simply to be alone and listen to the story being told in this book. I highly recommend it.
Curtis Wilkie brings history to life. He is an artist who uses words to paint a picture in time.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Kathleen Asmar
- 08-09-21
When Evil Lived in Laurel
I am currently a resident of Laurel and found this book both enlightening and horrifying. It is common knowledge that MS has a past that is horrible when it comes to race relations and segregation. However, hearing the names of people familiar to me, some of whom have been lauded in Laurel for their Christian beliefs and community involvement is sickening. I do think it is important to point out that what was once Laurel is not Laurel today. I think it is also important to remember that Tom Landrum represented more people with his view than not.
I had a difficult time listening to the narrator. I found him to be of low energy with his voice lowering inflection at the end of most sentences. I will avoid his narration in the future.
I very much appreciated the fact that this book was based on fact. Landrum and his wife kept copious notes which appeared to allow for an authentic telling. However, in the epilogue the author veers away from fact and inserts his own opinion unnecessarily. He is listing several incidents of racism and antisemitism that have occurred as of recently. In doing so he voices an opinion of Trump that does not contribute to the story nor does he cite evidence to back his opinion. I found this very off putting.
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- Lindsey
- 05-25-23
Interesting and informative
Enjoyed it until epilogue when narrator gets political and provides partisan commentary. As a Laurel resident, particularly interesting to recognize some of the names of persons involved.
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