Blue Elephant Book Shop

Author Javon Brothers reads from and signs his book A Deadly Night in the Harbor of Hospitality.

"Elizabeth City, North Carolina the “Harbor of Hospitality,” is where a twenty-nine-year old young black man was sentenced to die for the murder of a white sailor in 1943. William Poole, a hard worker, treasured and provided for his family. One evening two racist southern sailors after accusing Poole of an unsolved rape initiated an afternoon of bullying and beating. The beating, the humiliation and emasculation at the hands of two bigoted sailors was the last straw, Poole retaliated.

After a shot gone wrong, Poole finds himself wrapped up in a trial that sculpts the rest of his life. With questionable evidence and exhausted lawyers, Elizabeth City becomes the center of one of the most controversial trials in history."