Weird Little Guys

In the final part of the story about Jack Kershaw, we'll talk about his legal career. Before he represented MLK's assassin, before he sculpted a gigantic racist statue out of old bathtubs, he got a law degree from a part time night school program at the YMCA so he could do his part to stop integration.

Sources:

Phillips, Betsy. Dynamite Nashville: the FBI, the KKK, and the bombers beyond their control. Third Man Books 2021.

Houston, Benjamin, et al. “‘We Kept the Discussion at an Adult Level’: Jack Kershaw and the Tennessee Federation for Constitutional Government.” Southern Cultures, vol. 20, no. 4, 2014, pp. 72–88. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26217566
Graham, Hugh Davis. “Desegregation in Nashville: The Dynamics of Compliance.” Tennessee Historical Quarterly, vol. 25, no. 2, 1966, pp. 135–54. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/42622869
McMillen, Neil R. “Organized Resistance to School Desegregation In Tennessee.” Tennessee Historical Quarterly, vol. 30, no. 3, 1971, pp. 315–28. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/42623247
Michael J. Henry, Student Display of the Confederate Flag in Public Schools, 33 J.L. & EDUC. 573 (2004).
https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2824&context=jled
Egerton, Joel. Walking into History: The Beginning of School Desegregation in Nashville
https://southernspaces.org/2009/walking-history-beginning-school-desegregation-nashville/
https://www.ahcuah.com/lawsuit/federal/melton.htm
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/328/88/1428295/

https://www.splcenter.org/resources/hatewatch/klanbly-friendly-tennessee-state-becomes-hate-tourist-mecca/
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/42777957/james-n-mason/
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/BR/81/897/1821803/

https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/the-fugitives/

https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/clinton-desegregation-crisis/

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/24/us/nashville-civil-rights-bombings.html
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Police in New Jersey arrested a woman found sleeping in her car in a strip mall parking lot after the plates came back registered to a stolen vehicle. Her lawyer, Tennessee segregationist Jack Kershaw, insisted that his client was not only innocent, but said she was telling the truth - she really was a Romanian princess.

Sources:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1509995/HRH-Prince-Carol-of-Romania.html
https://www.nytimes.com/1979/12/23/archives/new-jersey-weekly-the-princess-and-the-police-once-upon-the.html
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1982/07/15/Lawsuit-against-princess-dismissed/2985395553600/
https://stiri.botosani.ro/stiri/actualitate/paul-de-romania-mai-are-un-frate-printul-alexandru.html
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After losing his job, an ex-Disney employee tried to get his former employer's attention by hacking in and making strange updates to company files.
Original Air Date: 6.5.25

Sources:
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69534211/united-states-v-scheuer/
https://www.eeoc.gov/what-you-can-expect-after-you-file-charge
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/26/us/disney-worker-prison-hacking.html
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Decades before he sculpted a Confederate general out of old bathtubs, Jack Kershaw briefly represented his most famous client - Martin Luther King Jr's assassin, James Earl Ray. The relationship soured after Ray discovered his lawyer had pocketed a payment from Playboy magazine.

Sources:

James McKinley, "Playboy Interview: James Earl Ray," Playboy Magazine, September 1977

https://www.nytimes.com/1977/08/09/archives/polygraph-indicates-ray-lied.html
https://www.nytimes.com/1977/10/25/archives/james-earl-ray-wants-mark-lane-to-replace-his-tenth-lawyer.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/28/sports/the-barkley-marathons-few-know-how-to-enter-fewer-finish.html
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Molly interviews Michael Edison Hayden about his new book, Strange People on the Hill: How Extremism Tore Apart a Small Town. The book is an intimate portrait of what happened in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia after a white nationalist group moved into the castle on the hill.
Preorder the book now or buy it anywhere books are sold when it comes out on April 7, 2026
https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/michael-edison-hayden/strange-people-on-the-hill/9781645030607/
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