Chapter 5 Kentucky: Dying for Dixie Summary and Analysis

Chapter 5 opens at Redbone's Saloon, a biker bar on the Tennessee side of Guthrie, a town that straddles the Tennessee-Kentucky border. Horwitz sat at the bar, drinking a beer and writing in his reporter's notebook about the racist slogans displayed on the walls and the tough crowd. Discussion in the bar was partly about the death of a young man named Michael Westerman, who had been shot by a group of black young men supposedly over his display of the Confederate battle flag on his pickup. Horwitz's note-taking drew the attention of the bar patrons, one of whom threatened to beat him up. He escaped with a torn jacket and made his way to the Kentucky side of town.

Michael Westerman had been out with his wife, Hannah, in his red pickup that...