He Calls Me by Lightning

The Life of Caliph Washington and the Forgotten Saga of Jim Crow, Southern Justice, and the Death Penalty

By: S. Jonathan Bass

Narrated by: Mirron Willis

Caliph Washington's life was never supposed to matter. As a Black teenager from the vice-ridden city of Bessemer, Alabama, Washington was wrongfully convicted of killing an Alabama policeman in 1957. Sentenced to death, he came within minutes of the electric chair - nearly a dozen times. A Kafka-esque legal odyssey in which Washington's original conviction was overturned three times before he was finally released in 1972, his story is the kind that pervades the history of American justice. Here, in the hands of historian S. Jonathan Bass, Washington's ordeal and life are rescued from anonymity and become a moving parable of one man's survival and perseverance in a hellish system.

He Calls Me by Lightning is both a compelling legal drama and a fierce depiction of the Jim Crow South that forces us to take account of the lives cast away by systemic racism.

©2017 S. Jonathan Bass (P)2017 Tantor

Knowledgable loved it

I thought the narrator was very interesting he was clear. The menthal picture he painted of the town the people was visible

A complex, important read - highly recommend

Just finished the audiobook for this incredible story, finally told in its entirety by the great S Jonathan Bass! The story of Caliph Washington and his life's far-reaching effects on Alabama law (and US law too!) was fastidiously researched and extremely well thought-out; but it was also heart-rending, educational, uplifting, funny at times, condemning, and inspiring as well. I cannot recommend it enough, and am so honored that I got to learn from the author during my time at Samford.