Spivak's Novel

The culmination of Spivak’s investigative journalism and research was a novel titled Georgia Nigger, published in 1932. It is a fictional work that tells the story of David, a young man who is released from a chain gang, and re-arrested; he escapes and is re-arrested again, is sentenced to another chain gang, and gets captured and punished after another escape attempt. Although the story is fictitious it is based in fact-- the conditions he saw first-hand in the Georgia prison system. He used real scenarios and scenes that he observed to create a realistic look at the horrifying realities of the prison system of the Depression-era south.