John Neal Phillips

Running with Bonnie and Clyde is the story of Fults's experiences in the Texas criminal underworld between the years 1925 and 1935 and the gripping account of his involvement with the Barrow gang, particularly its notorious duo, Bonnie and Clyde.

The Ten Fast Years of Ralph Fults

Running with Bonnie and Clyde

On April 16, 1947, the French vessel SS Grandcamp, carrying ammonium nitrate fertilizer, exploded in the port of Texas City, just north of Galveston, Texas. Nearly 600 people died instantly and property damage reached catastrophic proportions. The Texas City disaster remains, to date, the worst industrial accident in U.S. history. Among those killed was William Roach, a Roman Catholic priest known affectionately as Father Bill. Sitting on a Keg of Dynamite, by historian John Neal Phillips, tells the remarkable story of Father Bill’s life and premature death against the backdrop of the rapid growth—and near destruction—of an American industrial city. Through extensive archival research and oral interviews, Phillips pieces together previously unknown details of Father Bill’s story to present a well-rounded portrait of the man who is today revered as a hero. Born in Philadelphia, Roach attended seminary in Arkansas before he went on to serve as parish priest for St. Mary of the Miraculous Medal in Texas City. Restless, energetic, and beloved for his humor, tolerance, and empathy, Father Bill was an outspoken advocate for poor and working-class citizens, fair wages, and workplace safety. One evening, as Phillips vividly recounts, Roach sat on the church steps, looking out at the strange orange-yellow light created by hydrocarbon gas flares emerging from nearby oil refineries. “I feel like I’m sitting on a keg of dynamite,” he told parishioners who were passing by. His premonition proved prophetic. When a fire erupted onboard the Grandcamp, Father Bill hurried to the docks to lend assistance. It was then that the ship detonated. There is still much to be learned from the Texas City disaster—and from the legacy of Father Bill, an early crusader for social justice in America. Descendants of the disaster victims received financial reparations, and yet, as Phillips cautions, safety and environmental regulations barely exist in Texas today, particularly when it comes to the petrochemical industry. Sitting on a Keg of Dynamite serves as a cautionary tale for Texans—and all Americans—as environmental accidents continue to threaten our safety.

Father Bill, Texas City, and a Disaster Foretold

Sitting on a Keg of Dynamite

One of the most sought-after criminals of the Depression era, Ralph Fults began his career of crime at the improbable age of fourteen. At nineteen he met Clyde Barrow in a Texas prison, and the two men together founded what would later be known as the Barrow gang. Running with Bonnie and Clyde is the story of Fults's experiences in the Texas criminal underworld between the years 1925 and 1935 and the gripping account of his involvement with the Barrow gang, particularly its notorious duo, Bonnie and Clyde. Fults's "ten fast years" were both dramatic and violent. As an adolescent he escaped numerous juvenile institutions and jails, was shot by an Oklahoma police officer, and was brutalized by prison guards. With Clyde, following their fateful meeting in 1930, he robbed a bank to finance a prison raid. After the ambush of Bonnie and Clyde, in 1934, he joined forces with Raymond Hamilton; together the two robbed more banks and eluded countless posses before Hamilton's capture and 1935 execution. One of the few survivors among numerous associates who ended up shot, stabbed, beaten to death, or executed, Fults was later able to reform himself, believing that the only reason he was spared was to reveal the darkest aspects of his past-and in so doing expose the circumstances that propel youth into crime. Author John Neal Phillips tells Fults's story in vivid and at times raw detail, recounting bank robberies, killings, and prison escapes, friendships, love affairs, and marriages. Dialogues based on actual conversations amongst the participants enhance the narrative's authenticity. Whereas in books and mms, Fults, Parker, Barrow, and Hamilton have been romanticized or depicted as one-dimensional, depraved characters, Running with Bonnie and Clyde shows them as real people, products of social, political, and economic forces that directed them into a life of crime and bound them to it for eternity. Although basing his account primarily on Fults's testimony, Phillips substantiates that viewpoint with references to scores of eyewitness interviews, police files and court documents, and contemporary news accounts. An important contribution to criminal and social history, Running with Bonnie and Clyde will be fascinating reading for scholars and general readers alike.

Running With Bonnie and Clyde

Blanche Caldwell Barrow

"Following her death, Blanche's good friend and the executor of her will, Esther L. Weiser, found the memoir wrapped in a large unused Christmas card. Later she entrusted it to Phillips, who had interviewed Blanche several times before her death. Drawing from these interviews, and from extensive research into Depression-era outlaw history, Phillips supplements the memoir with helpful notes and with biographical information about Blanche and her accomplices. In addition, Blanche was an avid photographer, and this book includes her previously unpublished photographs, many of which capture her life on the run with Bonnie and Clyde."--BOOK JACKET.

John Neal Phillips

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