The City of High Bluffs was called the Lilac City of the World because of all the beautiful lilac bushes for which the city was famous. It was the second largest city in the state, and was the county seat. Hicks County, with its smooth rolling hills and its vast spread of green corn fields, was a typical county in a typical Midwestern state. One might think that a town like High Bluffs would be extremely provincial, made hidebound by the rich conservative farmers who still controlled the state. Indeed not. High Bluffs considered itself quite cosmopolitan, and had a symphony orchestra that could hold its own with any in the East. Furthermore, it proudly boasted of its most pleasant curiosity, often favorably comparing it with Harlem in New York City or Chinatown in San Francisco: Cedar Hill, a section of the city where the colored people lived in harmony with their white working class neighbors. This was the part of town where lively dance-joints and quaint food houses stayed opened late on Saturday nights, and where slumming was fun. Yes, High Bluffs was a good town, and then to everybody’s sorrow, they came! With enlivened economic prosperity came problems. Problems in the form of people. Before anyone knew it, High Bluffs was bulging at the seams with too many people. Strange-looking people: white and black strange-looking people. Crude, hulking and rough-looking people. Black people who wore grimy felt hats and big shoes; and peculiar-smelling white people with dirt under their fingernails. People who always seemed to have too many children. Little dirty youngsters whose noses always needed blowing and babies who always had awful odors coming from their diapers. No one in High Bluffs really knew when these people came to town or whence they came. One morning when everyone arose, there they were, thousands of them. Some say jokingly that the new factories had sneaked them in with their crated machinery. The more serious folks, however, say they came from the Southern Appalachians, particularly the ones with the dirty red necks, while others say that the black ones came from the sun-baked cotton fields of Alabama. Others say they came in from all directions-East, West, South and North, but it is doubtful if anyone really knew, for it came one morning and there they were. This was before the days of the internet and cell phones and when television was in its infancy, and people depended mainly on newspapers for their daily news. In fact it was the heyday of the dailies when most towns and cities had several newspapers, usually having at least one morning paper and one evening newspaper read by fathers after work. Then came the Second World War. One day the largest newspaper in High Bluffs had enough and declared war on the newcomers, and started blaming them for all the bad things in High Bluffs, particularly crime. Consequently, the town began hating the newcomers. This was before the days of the internet, cell phones, and ubiquitous TV sets, and folks relied mainly on newspapers for their daily news. This is a thrilling story of how inflammatory journalism nearly destroyed a good town that didn’t deserve that fate. A good town that truly believed in the brotherhood of man. It is a story of two powerful men-one a newspaper publisher and one a district attorney-who have different views on right and wrong, and who hold the fortune of High Bluffs in their hands. Two powerful men who bump heads like two mighty rams, with the town about to go up in racial flames hanging in the balance. Unavoidably, therefore, it is a story about Cedar Hill
