Introductory note -- Post-civil rights Montgomery -- Who was Bernard Whitehurst Jr.? -- The death of Bernard Whitehurst Jr. -- Family complications -- The immediate political aftermath -- The closing of the ranks -- Rabbit trails in the records -- The fever pitch, early 1977 -- In Emory Folmar's Montgomery -- An incomplete narrative -- Epilogue : a changed city?
Summary
Closed Ranks tells the latter-day story of the Whitehurst Case, a 1975 police shooting in Montgomery, Alabama. In the era of the ""fleeing felon rule, "" African-American victim Bernard Whitehurst Jr. was denied justice by police who planted a gun, courts who ruled against his family, and city officials who wanted to put the controversy behind them. In the forty years since, the Whitehurst Case has lingered as an open wound for his family, who are still waiting for the true story to be told
