Read an Excerpt of One of the Best Nonfiction Books of the Year
Kirkus Reviews calls Robert Fieseler's ambitious new book a powerful and important read. Don't miss it!
If you already read our recent story on The Beloved Professor and War Hero Persecuted in a Government Crusade Against Blacks and Gays, you won’t be surprised by this news: The new book from which this story is excerpted has been named one of the best nonfiction books of 2025 by Kirkus Reviews!
Longtime Narratively contributor Robert W. Fieseler spent years unraveling the mystery of what happened behind the closed doors of an inquisition that held ordinary citizens ransom to extraordinary abuse. So it’s great to see his book, American Scare: Florida’s Hidden Cold War on Black and Queer Lives, honored alongside very prominent writers like Ezra Klein and Mary Roach.
Haven’t had a chance to read this one yet? Check it out here.
The Beloved Professor and War Hero Persecuted in a Government Crusade Against Blacks and Gays
As a plague of ideological panic took hold across the United States, in the state of Florida one charismatic leader led an all-out campaign to silence queer and Black voices on university campuses. The year was 1959. The “Johns Committee” led by State Senator Charley Johns, was purportedly founded to defend America from Communist spies, but its main result was ruining the lives and careers of more than 30 preeminent scholars, at least 71 teachers and as many as 500 expelled students. The crusade of the Johns Committee and its nearly decade-long reign have all but vanished from the American story, the records sealed and then censored upon release. Now, using a secret trove of primary source documents that have been decoded and de-censored for the first time in history, longtime Narratively contributor Robert W. Fieseler has unraveled the mystery of what actually happened behind the closed doors of an inquisition that held ordinary citizens ransom to its extraordinary abuses. Robert’s book,