Bernstein, Patricia 1944–

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Bernstein, Patricia 1944–

PERSONAL:

Born October 10, 1944, in El Paso, TX. Education: Earned a degree from Smith College.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Bernstein & Associates, Inc., 6300 W. Loop S, Ste. 218, Bellaire, TX 77401. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Public relations executive and writer. Bernstein & Associates, Inc. (public relations firm), Bellaire, TX, founder and principal, 1983—. Taught English at Smith College for four years.

WRITINGS:

Having a Baby: Mothers Tell Their Stories, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1993.

The First Waco Horror: The Lynching of Jesse Washington and the Rise of the NAACP, Texas A&M University Press (College Station, TX), 2005.

Contributor to periodicals, including Smithsonian, Texas Monthly, and Cosmopolitan.

SIDELIGHTS:

Patricia Bernstein, who manages her own advertising and public relations firm, published her first book in 1993. As its title suggests, Having a Baby: Mothers Tell Their Stories compiles first-person accounts of the child-birthing experience, not only in contemporary life but dating as far back as the 1880s.

In The First Waco Horror: The Lynching of Jesse Washington and the Rise of the NAACP, Bernstein investigates a brutal incident in Waco, Texas, in a book that Houston Press contributor Scott Faingold calls "intensively researched, vividly written and almost novelistic in scope." The First Waco Horror relates how in May 1916, a mentally impaired African American farmhand, seventeen-year-old Jesse Washington, was convicted of raping and murdering the wife of his employer. The chief piece of evidence used to convict him was his own confession, which, Bernstein argues, may have been coerced. On May 16, a mob of local residents dragged Washington from the Waco courthouse and hauled him to the town square. There, before a crowd of ten to fifteen thousand people, they chained him to a tree, where he was lynched. While such lynchings had been commonplace in the Deep South during this era, the lynching of Washington was particularly brutal. His toes, ears, fingers, and genitals were cut off, while he was still alive, and he was then burned. Throughout the ordeal, a local photographer took snapshots. Some of these images, which Bernstein includes in the book, were placed on souvenir postcards that some witnesses to the lynching sent to others. The phrase "first Waco horror" alludes to a second such horror, the April 19, 1993, assault by federal authorities on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco that resulted in the death of eighty-two members of a religious community led by David Koresh. Since that date, many people have been sharply critical of the government's actions, believing that the stand-off between Koresh and the Federal Bureau of Investigation could have ended peacefully.

The First Waco Horror in effect tells several intertwined stories. One is the story of Waco itself, a West Texas town that, in 1916, still bore many characteristics of the lawless frontier. A second story is that of Elisabeth Freeman, a suffragist sent to Waco by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and prominent African American intellectual W.E.B. Du Bois to investigate the incident. Few residents of the community were willing to talk to her, but she used a combination of detective work and cajolery to piece together what happened. Her efforts led to a third story Bernstein tells, the rise to prominence of the NAACP. The organization had been founded in 1909. Freeman's report to the NAACP was published in the organization's monthly magazine, The Crisis, and formed the basis of a major anti-lynching campaign, particularly by calling the attention of whites to lynching in the Deep South.

In reviewing the book for the Historian, contributor Michael Pfeifer faulted the book for its occasional "sarcastic" asides that "sometimes diminished the seriousness of the subject." Nevertheless, Pfeifer praised the book for its "engaging narratives" and its "gripping" account of the lynching.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, March, 2006, L.T. Cummins, review of The First Waco Horror: The Lynching of Jesse Washington and the Rise of the NAACP, p. 1287.

Historian, fall, 2006, Michael J. Pfeifer, review of The First Waco Horror.

Journal of Southern History, August, 2006, David Fort Godshalk, review of The First Waco Horror, p. 702.

Southwestern Historical Quarterly, July, 2006, review of The First Waco Horror, pp. 160-162.