THOMAS AIELLO is a professor of history and Africana studies at Valdosta State University. He is the author of more than twenty books, including Jim Crow's Last Stand: Nonunanimous Criminal Jury Verdicts in Louisiana, which helped amend the Louisiana constitution to make nonunanimous juries illegal and was cited in the U.S. Supreme Court as part of its decision ruling them unconstitutional. His book The Life and Times of Louis Lomax: The Art of Deliberate Disunity was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and The Grapevine of the Black South: The Scott Newspaper Syndicate in the Generation Before the Civil Rights Movement (Georgia) won the American Journalism Historians Association Book Award. Aiello holds PhDs in history and anthrozoology. He lives in Valdosta, Georgia.