Our featured author, Dr. C. Arthur Ellis, Jr. took an interest in the trial of Ruby McCollum some years ago, when he found that the transcript of this hometown trial was not to be found in the public records. After two years of research, he located portions of the trial transcript, which he eventually collated, annotated, and published. For that work he was honored as a featured guest speaker at the 2004 Miami Book Fair International.
Dr. Ellis' interest in the trial sprang from his love of Zora Neale Hurston's writings, which included documenting the concept of "paramour rights" in the timber camps of North Florida in the 1930s. Hurston, who covered the trial for the Pittsburgh Courier, noted that the Ruby McCollum trial involved a case of paramour rights, in which a white man could claim a "colored" woman as his concubine and force her to have his children.
Adopting Hurston's voice for much of the narrative, Ellis commissioned 36 oil paintings to document the scenes that Hurston witnessed as she covered the story of Ruby McCollum, which she wrote "had all the drama and varied play of human emotions that fill the pages of great literature from Plutarch to Shakespeare."
Dr. Ellis is retired from his career in medical administration and currently enjoys travelling with his wife and pursuing his passion for writing.
