Deep Delta Justice

A Black Teen, His Lawyer, and Their Groundbreaking Battle for Civil Rights in the South

By: Matthew Van Meter

Narrated by: Brad Sanders

Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

Finalist for 2021 Audie Award in History/Biography

The book that inspired the documentary A Crime on the Bayou

A 2021 Chautauqua Prize finalist

The "[A]rresting, astonishing history" of one lawyer and his defendant who together achieved a "[C]ivil rights milestone" (Justin Driver).

In 1966 in a small town in Louisiana, a 19-year-old Black man named Gary Duncan pulled his car off the road to stop a fight. Duncan was arrested a few minutes later for the crime of putting his hand on the arm of a White child. Rather than accepting his fate, Duncan found Richard Sobol, a brilliant, 29-year-old lawyer from New York who was the only White attorney at "the most radical law firm" in New Orleans. Against them stood one of the most powerful white supremacists in the South, a man called simply "The Judge". In this powerful work of character-driven history, journalist Matthew Van Meter vividly brings alive how a seemingly minor incident brought massive, systemic change to the criminal justice system. Using first-person interviews, in-depth research, and a deep knowledge of the law, Van Meter shows how Gary Duncan's insistence on seeking justice empowered generations of defendants - disproportionately poor and Black - to demand fair trials. Duncan v. Louisiana changed American law, but first it changed the lives of those who litigated it.

©2020 Matthew Van Meter (P)2020 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

"An examination of a 1966 racial confrontation and its aftermath, which 'would help dismantle the infrastructure of white supremacy that had strangled [a rural Louisiana] community for centuries'.... Will appeal to admirers of Bryan Stevenson.... Timely reading." (Kirkus)

"In his vivid new book Matthew Van Meter takes us into the world of injustice Jim Crow created, where the smallest of touches could destroy a man's life. From that darkness he draws an absorbing story of courage, resistance, and the promise of profound change. Read Deep Delta Justice for the history it recovers - and the hope it holds for our own dark time." (Kevin Boyle, author of Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights and Murder in the Jazz Age)

"In the spirit of Melissa Fay Greene's classic Praying For Sheetrock, Matthew Van Meter takes readers to one of the most indelible yet obscure battlegrounds of the Civil Rights Movement and shows how grassroots heroism can topple even one of segregation's most fearsome tyrants." (Samuel G. Freedman, Columbia University professor of journalism, author of Breaking the Line)

Wow

this book is very intriguing in my opinion. very good read as well....it took me almost 2 weeks to finish...I don't read on the weekends

Wonderful story! I learned so much!

This was a terrific book. I knew very little about civil rights struggles in Louisiana, and even less about the Perez "dynasty." Van Meter is a wonderful story teller, and Brad Sanders read the story very well. I learned a great deal from listening to this book. I recommend it to all readers.

Timely story of a landmark civil rights case.

The timing of this publication with the black lives matter movement makes it clear that the struggle for justice is far from over and that it has been a long fight, not a new movement.

So well researched and told with gripping details. Thank you Mat Van Meter!