- Tim Heaphy, chief investigator for the US Congress January 6 Select Committee
“Neus is becoming one of America’s foremost oral historians, and this book is a must-read for anyone struggling to understand political violence in this country.”
- Booklist starred review
“Descriptions of air thick with bear spray, tear gas, and mace, officers being surrounded and beaten, and staffers sheltering as rioters pillaged Congressional offices effectively communicate the chaos. Current actions to whitewash the January 6 insurrection make this an especially important document. ”
An Oral History of the January 6th Insurrection
Praise for 24 Hours at the capitol
The 24 Hours in Charlottesville author offers a minute-by-minute account of the January 6 riots through never-before-heard stories of those who were there
Neus goes beyond mainstream reporting to reveal important truths about the US white nationalist movement
This bracing account reconstructs what it was actually like in and around the Capitol during those 24 hours.
- Lawmakers recount donning gas masks and being evacuated to safe rooms.
- Police officers recall insurrectionists screaming at them and calling them traitors.
- Staffers remember “walking over pools of blood” as they ran for their lives.
- A young Asian-American staffer recalls locking herself in a room just feet from the rioters, mentally preparing to be raped.
- A mostly Black janitorial staff began cleaning the blood of insurrectionists off the marble floor on the Capitol before the building was even officially secured.
Neus’s sources include original interviews, court documents, firsthand accounts, the US Capitol Historical Society’s oral history project on the insurrection, and the work of Tim Heaphy, chief investigator of the congressional January 6 Select Committee.
January 6 was largely planned right out in the open, but lawmakers and government officials underestimated the threat in part because it was coming from white people. Neus examines the underlying racial implications of not only the attack itself, but also in the planning and coordination of the response.
24 Hours at the Capitol:
