Civil rights attorney Ben Crump came to First Baptist Church-Broad on Sunday, May 31, as a bestselling novelist. But before long, the afternoon conversation about his new legal thriller, “Worse Than a Lie,” had become something more familiar to those who have followed Crump’s career: part testimony, part legal education, part call to courage.
Crump, often referred to as “Black America’s attorney general,” returned to Memphis for a book discussion and signing hosted by the Beta Epsilon Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. The event followed his appearance at the church’s morning service, where Pastor Keith Norman said Crump delivered a message strong enough to earn him a new local title.
“He’s not only going to be known as Black America’s attorney general,” Norman joked. “He’s probably going to be known as the co-pastor of First Baptist Church-Broad.”
For Crump, the visit was also a return to a city where he has been deeply connected to some of the nation’s most visible police brutality cases. In 2015, he came to Memphis after a Memphis Police officer fatally shot 19-year-old Darrius Stewart while trying to arrest him for an out-of-state warrant.
More recently, Crump stood with the family of Tyre Nichols, who was brutally beaten by rogue MPD officers and died later in the hospital. Nichols’ mother and stepfather, RowVaughn and Rodney Wells, were in attendance Sunday, and Crump paused early in the program to recognize them.
“She has continued to represent not only her son, Tyre Nichols, but also this Memphis community in a very special way,” Crump said of RowVaughn Wells.
‘There was no Black superhero lawyer…’
“Worse Than a Lie,” is Crump’s debut novel and the first installment in a planned legal-thriller series centered on Beau Lee Cooper, a Black civil rights attorney. The story follows Hollis Montrose, a Black former police officer who is shot by white officers on the night Barack Obama is elected president, then finds himself accused by the very system that nearly killed him.
Crump said he wrote the novel to inspire a new generation of civil rights lawyers and social justice advocates — and to give readers a window into what happens inside courtrooms where Black people and other marginalized communities often fight for their lives, liberty and dignity.
“My personal hero, Thurgood Marshall, said most people would never really know what happens when you’re in a courtroom fighting for marginalized people, especially Black people,” Crump said. “So I was thinking to myself, that’s what Thurgood did in his day. How can I get people to learn about what happens in a courtroom?”
He found his answer in the legal thrillers that helped shape his own imagination — from TV shows “Perry Mason” and “Matlock” to John Grisham’s book “The Rainmaker” and Michael Connelly’s “The Lincoln Lawyer.” But Crump said those stories were missing something — a Black civil rights attorney as the hero.
“I kept wanting to ask John Grisham, ‘When are you going to write about a superhero Black trial lawyer?,’” Crump said. “But I stopped myself, because I said, what would he know about the experience of being a Black lawyer in Black culture and the Black community?
“God said, ‘No, that’s your life,’” Crump said to raucous applause.
‘What’s worse than a lie?
That realization led to Beau Lee Cooper — “BC,” Crump noted with a smile — a fictional protagonist whose courtroom battles echo the themes of Crump’s real-life work.
The setting of the book’s opening scene was intentional, Crump said. By placing Hollis Montrose’s shooting on Nov. 4, 2008, the night Obama became the nation’s first Black president, Crump wanted to challenge the idea that America had entered a “post-racial” era.
“I wanted to create an allegory in the mind of the readers,” Crump said. “If we elected our first Black president, would we then be living in a post-racial society? Now, I know none of us believe that. But remember in 2008, that’s what a lot of people were saying.”
In the novel, Hollis tells the officers they have the wrong person. He tells them he is a police officer. He tells them he is licensed to carry a gun. But Crump said the officers do not see him; they see what they project onto him.
“They only saw what they projected on him, which is often the case,” Crump said.
That, Crump said, is part of what gives the book its title.
He traced the phrase “worse than a lie” back to his grandmother, who helped raise him while his mother worked two jobs. Crump described his grandmother, who had a third-grade education, as the wisest person he had ever known.
“My grandmother would say, ‘What’s worse than a lie? That is to tell the truth and have nobody believe you,’” Crump said.
That theme, he said, is not confined to fiction.
The brilliance behind bars
“In every city, in every state, in every courtroom all across America, every day, you have sisters and brothers going into courtrooms being forced to lie on themselves and enter into trumped-up plea agreements,” Crump said. “They understand the alternative of rolling the dice and going to trial with anything but a jury of their peers is likely for them to be convicted of a crime they didn’t even commit and spend decades in prison.”
Crump said the novel also pushes back against the way the criminal justice system defines Black people, particularly those who have been labeled convicted felons.
In “Worse Than a Lie,” two members of Beau Lee Cooper’s investigative team are Black men with felony convictions — characters Crump said he wrote intentionally to show their brilliance, resourcefulness and humanity.
“I’m not going to give up on my people just because a racist criminal justice system tries to define them as having no redeemable qualities,” Crump said. “If we give our sisters and brothers a chance, they will amaze you what they can do.”
Crump told the audience that young people entering the legal profession must understand that the fight for truth and justice is “not for the faint of heart.”
“Once you decide you’re going to go fight for Black people to get equality and justice, they’re going to come for you,” Crump said. “The most important thing is to have courage.”
‘Keep kicking!’
Crump said “Worse Than a Lie” has already opened new doors. The book was designed as a franchise, he said, and television rights are already moving forward, with more Beau Lee Cooper stories planned.
But for all the talk of books, television and Hollywood, Crump kept returning to the deeper purpose behind the work: using every available platform to defend Black life, liberty and culture.
“I’m an unapologetic defender of Black life, Black liberty and Black culture,” Crump said. “I was writing this for our people.”
That mission, he said, requires more than education, eloquence or access. It requires courage — especially for young lawyers and future leaders who may one day find themselves in rooms where others are depending on them to speak.
To make the point, Crump reached back to a lesson from the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who once joined him in federal court during an equal-pay case involving Black insurance agents.
Crump said the case involved Black agents who had worked 20 or 30 years, only to see younger white agents paid as much — and in some cases twice as much — as they were. Crump had asked Jackson to attend the hearing, believing his presence would strengthen the workers’ fight.
But once inside the courtroom, Crump said, the federal judge repeatedly talked down to him and his team. After two or three hours, Crump said, “a little defeatist mentality” began to set in. During a break, Jackson pulled him aside.
“Attorney Crump,” he recalled Jackson saying, “you must never forget that you don’t drown because the water is deep. You drown because you stop kicking.”
Crump said Jackson kept pressing the point.
“Our people can never see you stop kicking,” Crump recalled. “Our people can never see the people who inspire them stop kicking. Our people can never see their leaders stop kicking.”
Then Crump let the words rise, almost sermon-like, the way Jackson had given them to him. For Crump, the lesson belonged not only to that courtroom, but to Memphis, to Tennessee, and to the broader struggle facing Black communities now.
“That is a lesson for us today,” Crump said. “No matter what’s going on at the White House, and the Supreme Court, and the Tennessee State House — as long as we keep kicking, as long as we keep kicking, we’re going to be all right.
“I don’t care how the cards are stacked against you — you keep kicking,” Crump said. “I don’t care how the odds are against you — you keep kicking. I don’t care what the circumstances are — you keep kicking.
“Don’t you ever stop kicking. I promise you, as long as you keep kicking, you will make it to the other shore. As long as you keep kicking, you will make it to safety. As long as you keep kicking, I promise you, we will overcome.
“But whatever you do, don’t you ever stop kicking!”
