About this Event
March 5 | In-Store | 6:00 PM
An evening with Rick Tulsky in conversation with Peter Slevin
Join in conversation with as the two renowned Evanston-based journalists discuss Rick’s new book, (Pegasus Books). This powerful story of a falsely imprisoned man and sweeping indictment of a city and the criminal justice system opens up pressing questions about justice, inequality, racism, and the significance of careful, unyielding investigative journalism in facing our present moment.
Doors and minibar open at 5:30PM
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When the bodies of two Black men were found sitting in a parked car in a rundown section of town in 1994, it seemed just another day in Kansas City, Kansas. The swift arrest and conviction of a seventeen-year-old Lamonte McIntyre, a Black kid from a struggling home, raised no eyebrows either. And yet, thirty years later, Lamonte McIntyre would prove to be the David that took down the Goliath of corruption that had long controlled the city’s power structure and enveloped the city’s justice system
But the effort to prove Lamonte’s innocence opened a Pandora’s box. Before it was over, the fight to win Lamonte’s exoneration exposed corrupt police and prosecutors, incompetent court-appointed defense lawyers, and a judge who violated ethical standards by his secret past relationship with the prosecutor, whom he favored in his rulings.
follows Lamonte’s case from its harrowing beginning to its triumphant end and beyond, including the legal tsunami that came in its wake, that engulfed prosecutors, attorneys, and judges. Most shockingly, the lead cop on the case was indicted by the Department of Justice for the widespread abuses he had committed years earlier on women in the Black community of Kansas City Kansas. Abuses documented by Lamonte’s team. The criminal case ended, literally, with a bang, denying Lamonte and those whom the detective hurt, the chance for them to seek their own justice.
"Injustice Town is a tour de force of reporting and revelation: it is the best expose of corruption I have ever read. The place Rick Tulsky writes about is rotten to the core with a result that ranges from false incarcerations to morally perverse prosecutors to dirty cops who prey on the impoverished with demands for sexual favors and rape. Anybody who cares about what is happening in America should read it."
—Buzz Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights and The Mosquito Bowl
“Among the most vicious and systemic civil rights train wrecks in an American city.”
—Barry Scheck, cofounder of the Innocence Project
About Rick: Rick Tulsky resides in Evanston, IL. He was the co-founder of Injustice Watch and served as editorial director until he retired in 2020. Rick previously worked at the Jackson (Miss.) Clarion Ledger, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Los Angeles Times, the San Jose Mercury News and the Center for Investigative Reporting. His work has received more than two dozen national awards including a Pulitzer Prize, and has been a nominated finalist in two other years.
About Peter: Peter Slevin is , based in Chicago. He spent seven years in Europe for The Miami Herald and a decade on the national staff of The Washington Post, where he covered foreign policy and later traveled the country with an eye to politics and various doings between the coasts. His portrait of Michelle Obama—Michelle Obama: A Life—was a finalist for the PEN America biography prize and rated one of Booklist’s top ten biographies of the year. He teaches at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.
Getting here: We are located at 1620 Orrington Avenue, in downtown Evanston, just one block east of the Davis Street Metra, CTA, and PACE public transit stops. There is metered street parking as well as numerous parking garages nearby.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Bookends & Beginnings, 1620 Orrington Avenue, Evanston, United States
USD 0.00
