You Can't Kill a Man Because of the Books He Reads: Angelo Herndon's Fight for Free Speech

by Brad Snyder

The story of a young, Black Communist Party organizer and the landmark case that made him a civil rights hero.


In 1932, eighteen-year-old Black Communist Party organizer Angelo Herndon was arrested, had his rooms illegally searched, and his radical literature seized. He was charged with attempting to incite insurrection—a crime punishable by death. You Can’t Kill a Man Because of the Books He Reads chronicles Herndon’s five-year quest for freedom during a time when Blacks, white liberals, and the radical left joined forces to define the nation’s commitment to civil rights and civil liberties.


Herndon’s champions included the young, Black Harvard Law School–educated attorney Benjamin J. Davis Jr.; the future historian C. Vann Woodward, who joined the interracial Herndon defense committee; the white-shoe New York lawyer Whitney North Seymour, who argued Herndon’s appeals; and literary friends Ralph Ellison, Langston Hughes, and Richard Wright. With their support, Herndon reinvented himself as one of the most famous Black men in America and inspired a constitutional right to protest.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, American History, Race, Politics, Activism, Books About Books

336 pages, Hardcover

Published February 4, 2025

About the author

Brad Snyder is the author of the forthcoming book, You Can't Kill a Man Because of the Books He Reads: Angelo Herndon's Fight for Free Speech (W.W. Norton, Feb. 4, 2025). A Georgetown Law professor, Snyder teaches constitutional law, constitutional history, and sports law. He was a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow in constitutional studies and is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Supreme Court History. He has written four previous books, including Democratic Justice: Felix Frankfurter, the Supreme Court, and the Making of the Liberal Establishment (W.W. Norton, 2022), The House of Truth: A Washington Political Salon and the Foundations of American Liberalism (Oxford University Press, 2017) and A Well-Paid Slave: Curt Flood’s Fight for Free Agency in Professional Sports (Viking/Penguin, 2006).

Reviews

[Book Club of One · Rating 4 out of 5]

Taking its title from a sentence utter in the court room, You Can't Kill a Man Because of the Nook He Reads: Angelo Herndon's Fight for Free Speech biographies Herndon while also tracing the judicial process of his trials and appeals and the many figures involved in the case. Angelo Braxton Herndon was a Communist African American labor organizer and he was arrested and convicted of insurrection after successfully organizing a mixed race protest in Atlanta, Georgia. Without a warrant, the police also went through Herndon's hotel room seizing his possessions that included many works of "communist literature."

Through nine chapters and an epilogue, Snyder chronologically moves through the case. The initial chapter details Herndon's origins, education and employment and activism through to 1932 when he was arrested. Each chapter than begins with a focus on a specific individual (chapter 2, Benjamin Davis Jr an African American Communist and lawyer; chapter 3, C. Vann Woodward then a lawyer and later a well regarded historian). The chapters detail biographies of the featured individual, and then expands the case history showing how and why the chapter's focus became involved.

Herndon's case reached the national consciousness at the same time as the case of the Scottsboro Boys and there were many similarities in the two cases. Both were tried before an all white jury and the hazard to their lives were quite clear. Herndon's first trial ended with a conviction to the chain gang, a sentence few survived. Herndon received wide support with his defense being paid for and arranged by the International Labor Defense the legal organization within the Communist Party of America. Through a five year period appeals and challenges to Southern justice, Herndon's case would twice be argued before the Supreme Court.

In the afterword Snyder states he wrote the book because he had lingering questions after reading Herndon's autobiography Let Me Live and a 1976 study by Charles Martin The Angelo Herndon Case and Southern Justice . (Snyder, pg 212). And Snyder's research offers a full epilogue looking at the rest of the lives of key individuals. Herndon's life is expanded beyond Wikipedia, which says he lived a quiet life in the Midwest.

Herndon is presented as a semi-tragic figure, bravely facing torture, KKK threats and the threat of death through his imprisonment. Following his release he was a popular figure with the capability to become one of the leaders of the American Communist party, and a stalwart of the Harlem Renaissance. But after initial success as a speaker and activist, his life became more troubled and contentious when it came to allegiance and then loss of faith in the communists and financial difficulties.

Recommended to readers of American legal history, social justice or the First Amendment.

I received a free digital version of this book via NetGalley thanks to the publisher.

[Mr. Book · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can also see this review, along with others I have written, at my blog, Mr. Book's Book Reviews.

Thank you, W.W. Norton, for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Mr. Book just finished You Can’t Kill A Man Because Of The Books He Reads: Angelo Herndon’s Fight for Free Speech, by Brad Snyder.

This book will be released on February 4, 2025.

In 1932, Angelo Herndon, an 18-year-old black man who a member of the Communist Party and the leader of Atlanta’s Unemployed Committee, led a protest of about 150 people at the county courthouse, demanding that Depression-era unemployment relief was increased. Less than a couple of weeks after his peaceful protest, and a meeting with government officials, he was arrested on trumped-up charges of attempting to incite insurrection, which, like today, is punishable by death (at least for anyone who was not the President of the United States at the time).

Herndon had spent years enduring arrests on trumped-up charges prior to this incident, due to his political beliefs. He was ultimately charged under Georgia’s insurrection act, which dating back to slavery, had been used as a key tool to be used against those who participated in slave revolts. After emancipation, it was revised in 1871 and, while there had never been a successful prosecution under the revised act, it was used as a weapon to threaten blacks from organizing, as well as labor groups.

Herndon was sentenced to 18-20 years on a chain gang. That was the equivalent of a death sentence, as no person had ever survived even ten years.

The book did an excellent job covering the trial and the extensive appeals that resulted in the case going up to the Supreme Court twice before his conviction was eventually overturned.

I am hoping that this book will eventually also be released as an audiobook, since I would also like to be able to listen to it.

I give this book an A. Goodreads and NetGalley require grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, an A equates to 5 stars. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).

This review has been posted at NetGalley, Goodreads and my blog, Mr. Book’s Book Reviews

Mr. Book finished reading this on October 13, 2024.

[Shauna · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the story of Angelo Herndon and how he fought for free speech. It starts when he's arrested at 18 while trying to get unemployment benefits back for Atlanta residents after the Great Depression. The book follows through his trial.

I will admit this was a hard one for me. The story is fascinating with how American was in the 1930s and civil rights at the time. And while the story was almost a hundred years ago, there are some aspects that definitely feel current. I struggled with the dryness of the writing, feeling more like I was reading a straight history book for school. There are lots of people and names to keep track of, in fact Herndon goes by two different names himself. However, it is a book about history and it's an important story because it does feel like history is repeating itself lately with these same issues.

I would recommend this book to anyone that is interested in civil rights, America after the Great Depression, and law or courtroom cases in general. It's definitely educational, even if it's not exactly entertaining. But history shouldn't always be entertaining, sometimes we have to learn about it and learn from it so we can all be better in the present and future.

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

[Kathy Piselli · Rating 4 out of 5]

The details of life in segregated Atlanta during the 1930s was interesting to me. So much about segregation seems illogical, but simple if it's thought of as a simple power grab; you could think of it as people under occupation. Understanding that, you can understand white southerners' fear of the success of communists in organizing southern Black workers. Fulton Tower is where people were incarcerated in Herndon's time; I'm not sure Fulton's current jail on Rice Street is much improved today. The physical description of Carol Weiss King could be one for me (though the similarity ends at the physical description - and speaking of segregation, I noted the bit where King locates her trial record in the Jewish vs Christian hotel in Atlantic City). The way the case changes was also interesting, becoming a case bigger than all-white juries. Once the case goes to the Supreme Court, Herndon basically leaves Georgia and becomes larger than life. Good photos and notes.

[Rachelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had a really hard time with this book. For personal reasons this just didn't catch and interest me as I had hoped it would from the synopsis. It follows all of the trials and the tribulations of Angelo Hernden from his first arrest to the day he comes home. These time in our country were not times to be proud of.

[Audrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

While "You can't kill a man because of the books he reads" is informative, it is also very repetitive. This is a history of many lawyers and multiple dates. Thank you to Edelweiss and the publisher for an advance review copy.

[Philip · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent look into the struggles, abuses of not just Angelo Herndon but the many. A nice historical read on the many who saw to it that feedom, righteousness will prevail in America.

[Bill Sleeman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well. I admire author Brad Snyder's ability to find the story in a case and bring it to the fore.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating of 4.75

[Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

You Can't Kill a Man Because of the Books He Reads is a fascinating look at the life and supreme court case (Herndon v. Lowry) of Angelo Herndon. I really enjoyed learning about Herndon himself and his activism. The book gets a bit tedious at times, but overall it's worth checking out.