STATE WITNESS OFF TO JAIL AFTER HINES TRIAL BOMBSHELL NEW YORK, NEW YORK: AUGUST 18, 1938
Julius Williams, Negro witness for the state, who was locked up in the tombs, August 18th, when Judge Ferdinand Pecora ordered his nominal bail of $500 as a material witness revoked and boosted to $10,000 after Williams, testifying for the state, created a furor by declaring
that he had been threatened with jail unless he he falsely accused James J. Hines, Tammany District Leader, of being connected with the numbers racket.
Acme News Pictures, Inc. (Chicago Bureau - Tribune Tower, Chicago, Illinois).
VICTIM OF STREET RIOTING DETROIT, MICHIGAN: JUNE 21, 1943
Two youths help a Negro to his feet after he was badly beaten in street fighting which marked race riot which raged in several parts of the city today. None of the persons is identified.
WOUNDED NEGROES BROUGHT INTO HOSPITAL HARLEM, NEW YORK: AUGUST 2, 1943
Negroes injured in street battles with police are assisted into Sydenham Hospital by patrolmen during Harlem disorders early today. Four persons were killed in the disturbances.
PROTEST OPA CURTAILMENT NEW YORK, NEW YORK: APRIL 25, 1946
Members of “consumers’ lobby” of 800 citizens, who packed the City Council’s chamber,
Parade with signs against the House’s curtailment of OPA powers during demonstration
sponsored by the Emergency Committee for Extension of Price and Rent Controls.
PACKINGHOUSE WORKERS RALLY CHICAGO, ILLINOIS: OCTOBER 30, 1946
Charles Winters, P.A.C. director for the United Auto Workers in this area, addresses a group of Wilson & Co. employees during a lunch hour rally in Ashland Ave., just off 42nd Street. The rally was staged to urge workers to attend a meeting at the Chicago Stadium Friday night to hear an address by Henry A. Wallace.
POSTCARD: ASA PHILIP RANDOLPH WITH SIGN PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA: MAY 7, 1948
Asa Philip Randolph, dignified and regal carries a sign with his slogan: "If we must die for our country let us die as free men–not as Jim Crow slaves."
Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated de jure racial segregation in all public facilities in Southern states of the former Confederacy, with, starting in 1890, a "separate but equal" status for African-Americans. The separation in practice led to inferior conditions, systematizing a number of economic, educational and social disadvantages.
Jim Crow Laws followed the 1800–1866 Black Codes, which had previously restricted the civil
rights and civil liberties of African Americans with no pretense of equality.
The sprouting of the Civil Rights Movement
African Americans had been fighting against inequality and injustice for centuries; during the 1950s, however, the struggle against racism and segregation entered the mainstream of American life. In 1954, in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case, the Supreme Court declared that “separate educational facilities” for black children were “inherently unequal.” This ruling placed the first nail in Jim Crow’s coffin.
Many Southern whites resisted the Brown ruling. They withdrew their children from public schools and enrolled them in all-white “segregation academies,” and they used violence and intimidation to prevent blacks from asserting their rights.
Despite these efforts, a new movement was born. On March 2, 1955, Claudette Colvin was
arrested at the age of 15 in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman on a crowded, segregated bus. In December 1955, Montgomery, Alabama activist Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give her seat on a city bus to a white person. Her arrest sparked a 13-month boycott of the city’s buses by its black citizens, which only ended when the
bus companies stopped discriminating against African American passengers. Acts of “nonviolent resistance” like the boycott helped shape the civil rights movement of the next decade.
In 1956, more than 100 Southern congressmen even signed a “Southern Manifesto” declaring that they would do all they could to defend segregation.
NEGROES SEEK ADMISSION TO ALL WHITE SCHOOL MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA: SEPTEMBER 2, 1954
A group of 23 Negro children accompanied by their parents and two observers of the
National Association for Advancement of Colored People was denied admission to the
William R. Harrison elementary school, Montgomery's newest school, today. Part of the
delegation are shown with the school principle, Robert Anderson, shortly after he advised
them they lived in another district and would have to attend another school.
Mrs. William Taylor, 35, demonstrated for a photographer today the kind of stones she said were used to break the windows of the Taylors' first floor appartment. She told
police 15 or 20 youths threw stones at the apartment Sunday, following an anti-Negro threat made Saturday by a youth of about 18 or 19. Three other families, all white, live in the building, which is in a factory area.
SLUG ARRESTED FOR CARRYING KNIFE NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE: SEPTEMBER 9, 1957
Mrs. Grace McKinly stands with patrolman Ed Searcey after she was mistreated by a group of white people when she was leading her two children from school at the end of session. She turned on her white antagonists, pulling a paring knife from under her dress and challenged them to "come and jump me now." She was later arrested. Quick police action nipped three disturbances at Nashville, where 20 Negro students ended traditional racial segregation in city schools.
International News Photos 235 East 45th Street New York 17 N. Y.
(Central Press Association (FR-9-10-57 3525)
NEGROES MASS MEETING AT ALABAMA CAPITAL MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA: APRIL 6, 1958
An Estimated 2, 500 Montgomery Negroes turned out today for a "prayer and repentance"
meeting in protest at the recent execution of Jeremiah Reeves Jr. a 22 year old convicted
Negro Rapist. A procession of Negro leaders and ministers who took part in the program is
shown in the foreground marching toward capital.
ESCORTED FROM SCHOOL STURGIS, KENTUCKY: SEPTEMBER 6, 1958
One of seven Negro schoolboys enrolled in high school at Sturgis, Kentucky, receives an armed escort from Kentucky National Guardsmen at the close of classes yesterday. An angry crowd of at least 500 persons hooted and hollered threats as the guards led the Negro students safely through the lines.
LITTLE ROCK LITTLE ROCKS, ARKANSAS: SEPTEMBER 17, 1958
Johnny Gray, 15, points a warning finger at one of two white boys who tried to force him
and his sister Mary from the sidewalk as they walked to school. The argument ended in a
fist fight with Johnny chasing the two white boys down the block.
United Press International (Exclusive Staff Telephoto: Charles McCarty - ZNH 155), Chicago, Illinois
THREE NEGROES SENTENCED TO DIE FOR RAPE OF TWO WHITE GIRLS LAGRANGE, GEORGIA: AUGUST 12, 1959
Three Negroes, George Alfred, 18; Brannon Epps, 24 and Clifford Johnson, 22 (front to rear) are escorted back to jail here last night after being sentenced to die in the electric chair October 2, 1959 for the raping of two white girls. The jury deliberated about 4 hours and 40 minutes before reaching a verdict of guilty.
Associated Press Wirephoto (HC 50600HC)
Follow Up Story
NEGROES DEATH TERMS COMMUTED FOR THE FIRST TIME THE FLORENCE TIMES, FLORENCE ALABAMA FEBRUARY 18, 1962 ATLANTA (AP)
For the first time since its creation nearly 20 years ago, the Georgia Pardon and Parole Board has commuted death sentences given Negroes convicted of raping a white woman.
The board Friday commuted to life imprisonment the sentences of Brannon Epps, 26, and Clifford Johnson, 24, both of LaGrange Ga. It reduced the sentence of 22-year old George Alford Jr., of Dayton, Ohio, to 20 years. The action was taken after the three lost final appeals to the Georgia and U.S. Supreme Courts. The board said it reached the conclusion that “there were less marks against” Alford.
Testimony at a Jan. 8 hearing showed he was impressionable and that he was merely visiting relatives in LaGrange in July of 1959. The evidence and the record places “most of the responsibility” on Epps, the board said, but “out of the charity of doubt and mercy” granted commutation to life. Johnson’s sentence was also commuted to life. At the time of the crime, the defendants were tried jointly even though “the degree of guilt … was markedly different.”
The Negroes were twice convicted at LaGrange of raping a 20-year old white housewife in July 1959. They admitted in court they had sexual relations with the woman but claimed they paid $5 for her consent. They also were charged with raping the woman’s 18-year old cousin but have not been retried on this count.
NEGRO WOMEN SCUFFLE WITH WHITE MAN MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA: FEBRUARY 2, 1960
Negro women scuffle with white man in heated dispute over integration of lunch counters.
Racial hate boiled over in this city two days after Negro college students tried to integrate courthouse snack bar. No one was arrested in the scuffle.
TROUBLE ON THE “WALK TO FREEDOM” DETROIT, MICHIGAN: JUNE 23, 1963
Two Detroit Policemen subdue an unidentified white man who tried to singlehandedly stop thousands of Negroes who are marching in protest under the leadership of Martin Luther King here.
The “Walk to Freedom” was called to protest discrimination and to commemorate the 1943 race riot in which 35 persons were killed.
