On May 12, 1960, as John F. Kennedy campaigned for the presidency, Chester Burge--slumlord, liquor runner, and the black sheep of the proud (and wealthy) Dunlap family of Macon, Georgia--lay in a hospital bed, recovering from surgery. He listened to the radio as the news reported that his wife had just been murdered. Police soon ruled out robbery as a motive, and suspicion centered upon the Ku Klux Klan, which two weeks earlier had descended upon...