because of the intersection between it and my own struggle to understand the political life of james meredith, who went from being a major icon of theself rights movement for successfully desegregating the university of mississippi in 1962, to serving on the staff of conservative north carolina senator jesse helms and campaigning in the early 1990's david duke, actions that got him labeled crazy in both time periods. no sane black person in narrative goes would ever tried to enroll at old miss unless he was crazy and in fact, the man who tried a few years before james meredith was committed to the state asylum for his actions. so the idea of a protest psychosis is certainly one of interest to me as a scholar. it's also interesting because i grew up in and have done work on detroit, especially around this black protest culture. so the idea of black men who had engaged if aggressive, non-conformist, politically resistant behavior, being shipped off to this facility in high own i can't, remains incredibly compelling to me. as jonathan puts it at one point in the book, "detroit burned, ionia tran