Burn, Killer, Burn!

My mind shouted her name with the positive certainty that held not the slightest need for additional confirmation, even though I sat with my eyes closed and my back to the door. Her presence permeated the musty atmosphere in the courtroom of jam-packed, sweat-oozing, ghoulish spectators with a fresh, cool fragrance. Turning slowly, in deference to the pain of my unhealed wounds, I faced her. —Excerpt from Burn, Killer, Burn!

Burn, Killer, Burn! is autobiographical and was published by the black-owned Johnson Publishing Company in 1962. It is about a murderer who commits suicide rather than be executed.