DOCSLIB.ORG

Top Murder of Innocents: Save Willie Mcgee an Editorial the Life of Willie Mcgee, the Innocent Laurel, Miss

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Top Murder of Innocents: Save Willie Mcgee an Editorial the Life of Willie Mcgee, the Innocent Laurel, Miss On the Inside Here’s. Read the Story of a Fighting Union in the Tobacco Empire My Freedom PAGE 3 Story Tce c-cd What's Behind the $80,000,000 By PAUL ROBESON 8. African Loan? PAGE 4 March, 1951 EE 178 10c A Copy PAGE € top Murder of Innocents: Save Willie McGee An Editorial The life of Willie McGee, the innocent Laurel, Miss. Negro worker, can be saved. ‘The carnival of death which the blood-thirsty Mis- Sissippi Dixiecrats had planned to stage on March 20 has been POSTPONED. But it has not yet been AN« CELLED. ‘McGee's lawyers have presented to the U. S. Supreme Court new evidence which proves his innocence. The court will decide within the next few days whether to review the evidence, Whatever the court decides on March 26, McGee's life can only be saved by the conti d protests of am aroused nation. McGee lives today only because the peo- ple have responded to the inspired leadership of the Civil Rights Congress in its crusade against American lynch’ law. He can be set completely free only by multiplying the mass meetings, the letters, telegrams and petitions to Prsident Ti man, the demonstrations and the works stoppages of his fellow working men and women, Don’t wait until tomorrow. When you put this copy, of FREEDOM down, make a phone call, write a letter, call a meeting—ACT TO SAVE WILLIE McGBE. ‘Set Him Free to Labor On’ A Tribute to W. E. B. DuBois gles, he underlines this most important is a part “of progressive America—that ‘dreds of millions of colonial and semi- By Paul Robeson fact: that culture comes from and be- he hates and exposes the shams of the colonial colored peoples—to choose - W. EB; Burghardt DuBois is a Jongs to the people; that one- aspect ruling class of this country, together their own ways to freedom, their own of our struggle is the obligation to with their would-be big-shot. Negro ways of life. The American Negro's human being full flowered—of the bring this culture back to the people. stooges who dance to any tune they're Uberation lies in this stream—a most highest intellectual training in most DuBois has a sense—nay, 2 profound told. powerful and untamable stream, diverse fields, and with it all so di- knowledge—of history, and striking it Dr. DuBois brings with him the best Funy men in important offices in ov rect, so devoted to the finest sim- is that at the most decisive moment in and most honest of his former asso- Jand dare attack and even indict Di plicity, His is a rich life of complete the history of colored America DuBois clates and joins with the working- DuBois. The great masses will give their dedication to the advancement of his is in. the ranks of the Negro people— class leaders of the Negro people— answer and set him free to labor on. ‘own people and of all the oppressed that. he is a part of the people's peace those closest to the masses—in giving Dr. DuBois, by his full participation ‘and injured. movement in the world—that he Is a common leadership to a fierce and un- and dedication to the people's struggle, First, Jet us not forget that he is friend of the Soviet peoples, of the compromising struggle. Today the es- gives new meaning to the history of one of’ the great masters of our lan- Chinese people, of the new’ Eastern sense of that struggle “is the fight for the Negro in his long and courageous guage: the language of Shakespeare European People's Republies—that he peace—the fight for the rights of hun- fight for full liberation. and of Milton on the one hand; and, ‘on the other, of the strange beauty of the folk speech—the people's speech— of the American Negro. He is a great Who Are the Real Criminals in the United States? poet, one of whom all America is ‘The ex-mayor of New York City has disastrous war in Korea, have turned denounce him. His thunderous voice proud. admitted that he appointed cronies the United Nations into an exclusive calls the American people to fight In. these days of stress and struggle of notorious racketeers to high posi- mouthpiece for U.S. policy, and have against the biggest crime of all—war. I often pick up one of his many vol- tions in his administration. As Dis- made the bomb, not negotiations, the No wonder the politicians frame umes, most frequently “The Souls Of trict Attorney he failed to prosecute basis for conducting our relations Willie McGee, the Trenton Six, Black Folk.” How I love to give myseir Known gangsters who were members with the non-capitalist world. Rosa Ingram and countless other up to those rich cadences, to receive of the Murder, Inc,, gang. Because elections are drawing near victims of Jim Crow justice. They must sustenance and. strength from those ‘Seemingly as a reward for his ad- the war-minded politicians and the frighten the Negro’ masses. to. stifle Jines so deeply imbedded in the folk mitted connections with the unde1 underworld scum face each other their demands for peace, jobs, and style of our people, yet enriched and world, William O'Dwyer was himselt from opposite sides of the table in equality. heightened by the artistic gift of this appointed by Harry Truman as Am- the crime hearings. But one’ thing In the hands of the profit-seeking, deep-feeling prophet. bassador to Mexico, Mr, ‘Truman they have in common: the war s war-hungry industrialists and politi- For Dr. DuBois gives us proof that should know a good ambassador when is a good thing for them all. It he clans, the moral standing of our gov- the great art-of the Negro has come he sees one: his political apprentice them pick the people's pockets with ernment has sunk to a new low. from the inner life of the Afro-Ameri ship in the Missourl Pendergast. ma- more’ taxes, wage freeze, speed-up In It is not too soon to point to the can people themselves (as is true of ehine provides the qualifications need~ industry, higher rents and unlimited task which will face American voters the art of any group)—and that the ed to lead the arty of grafters, five- prices. in 1952. The job will be to place the roots stretch back to the African land percenters, parasites and racketeers wonder, then, Truman's Justice government in the hands of true rep- whence they came, He, like so many who infest our municipal, state and Department ‘has indicted the great Fesentatives of the peace - loving, Other great artists, turned to the peo- federal governments. advocate of peace, Dr. W. E. B. Du- democratic-minded masses of the Ple for the deepest fount—like Haydn, ‘The biggest racket in the country Bois. His leadership embarrasses their American people. Meanwhile every Bach, Schubert, Dvorak, Bartok, Tehai- today is the war seare and the “na- game. decent American is ealled upon to kovsky, Pushkin, Moussorgsky, and tional emergency” of Mr. ‘Truman. No wonder the government with- raise his voice against the circus of Mayakovsky, great poet of the Russian The people of the U.S. (and of the Graws Paul Robeson's passport and war-jitters, corruption and oppression revolution, world) want peace, but the bribes banjo-players, baseball players which the rulers of the country have And by his very participation in the and all descriptions of “leaders” to visited upon our land, ‘people's political and economic strug- Page 2 FREEDOM _ Burrs and Barbs _ FREEDOM’S Roundup | eennmnmanmnmnnnm News Around the Nation women ‘OUR CIVIL RIGHTS lily-white. Now the Seattle Labor Council for CHILD-KILLER: Grass-roots fight for pun- Negro Rights, supported by Northern Wash- ishment of the murderer of 15-year old Charles ington District Council of CIO Woodworkers Wilson in Denver being spearheaded by newly of America, is fighting for skilled and unskilled formed Colorado Citizens Committee, headed Jobs for Negroes, by Mes. Juanita Irving, deaconess of Zion Bap- ist Church and long-time civic leader. Wilson YOUR POSTMAN NEEDS A RAISE: N.Y. Local 20 of United Public Workers has writien was shot last Dec. 20 by policeman Delma President Truman debunking Civil Service Reed while being arrested for “drunkenness Commission's recent report that postal work- ‘Trial began March. 6, ers need no wage increase, “This can only be HORSE'S MOUTH: The Durham (NC) considered as a deliberate attempt: . to de- Morning Herald, discussing the double stand- press still further the standard of living of ard of American justice, remarked: “It is as federal and postal workers,” they wrote, and though some jurors, some prosecutors, some quoted statistics proving need for-a minimum judges consider Negroes as but an amusing $909 yearly. increase, form of life. which needn't be taken too ser= 24 HOURS A DAY: Marine Cooks & Stew- fously, and thus Negroes have less than full ards Union (0% Negro membership and pro- Protection of the law.” gressive leadership—Hugh Bryson, Pres.), is engaged in a two-coast, three-front struggle: MORE WITCHES: Negroes saw a “clear and against Fed. Maritime Adm. for a 13-point bill present danger” in rash of “anti-subversive” of rights including FEPC; against shipowners bills in Southern legislatures: Texas, Tennessee for 25% raise, improved’ conditions and 40- and North Carolina, Fisk U. faculty officially hour week ‘it sea; against National Maritime Protested against Tenn, version ‘of McCarran Union paid raiders, “MCS is the only sea- monstrosity.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Transcript, Anne Braden: Southern Patriot Exterior of University Of
    Transcript, Anne Braden: Southern Patriot Exterior of University of Louisville building and students. SUBTITLE: University of Louisville 2006 ANNE BRADEN (in class): You do not have to agree with me. I don't want you to agree with me. It's much more interesting if you don't and it does not affect your grade whatsoever. And if you do get involved in things and you go out and get arrested or something, I'll do everything I can to get you out of jail, but I'm not going to give you a better grade for it so [laughter] just so we're clear on that. And they're doing this documentary on me, which embarrasses me highly, but really what they're trying to do is look at the movements that I've been a part of for the last 50 years through the lens of my life. And I know enough about the way people respond now that I know that that is valid, if it just weren't me. That people are more interested in people than ideas initially, but once they get interested in the people they'll move on to what the ideas are. BARBARA RANSBY (giving a speech): SUBTITLE: Barbara Ransby, Historian, University of Illinois at Chicago They were people who were labeled the rebels, the renegades, the outliers. People who weren't afraid to be called crazy or in Ella Baker's case difficult, in Anne Braden's case red. Dreamers that catapult us into a different place. She was born at a time in the Jim Crow south in which there was a very rigid script about what a middle class white woman could be and do.
    [Show full text]
  • Race and Justice in Mississippi's Central Piney Woods, 1940-2010
    The University of Southern Mississippi The Aquila Digital Community Dissertations Spring 5-2011 Race and Justice in Mississippi's Central Piney Woods, 1940-2010 Patricia Michelle Buzard-Boyett University of Southern Mississippi Follow this and additional works at: https://aquila.usm.edu/dissertations Part of the Cultural History Commons, Political History Commons, Social History Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Buzard-Boyett, Patricia Michelle, "Race and Justice in Mississippi's Central Piney Woods, 1940-2010" (2011). Dissertations. 740. https://aquila.usm.edu/dissertations/740 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by The Aquila Digital Community. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of The Aquila Digital Community. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The University of Southern Mississippi RACE AND JUSTICE IN MISSISSIPPI’S CENTRAL PINEY WOODS, 1940-2010 by Patricia Michelle Buzard-Boyett A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate School of The University of Southern Mississippi in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Approved: Dr. William K. Scarborough Director Dr. Bradley G. Bond Dr. Curtis Austin Dr. Andrew Wiest Dr. Louis Kyriakoudes Dr. Susan A. Siltanen Dean of the Graduate School May 2011 The University of Southern Mississippi RACE AND JUSTICE IN MISSISSIPPI’S CENTRAL PINEY WOODS, 1940-2010 by Patricia Michelle Buzard-Boyett Abstract of a Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate School of The University of Southern Mississippi in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2011 ABSTRACT RACE AND JUSTICE IN MISSISSIPPI’S CENTRAL PINEY WOODS, 1940-2010 by Patricia Michelle Buzard-Boyett May 2011 “Race and Justice in Mississippi’s Central Piney Woods, 1940-2010,” examines the black freedom struggle in Jones and Forrest counties.
    [Show full text]
  • We Demand Freedom!
    We Demand Freedom! T wo Addresses by William L. Patterson National Executive Secretary Civil Rights Congress JOe CIV I L RIGHTS CO GRESS Published by Civil Rights Congress, 23 W. 26th St., New York November, 1951 .....)209 ABOUT THE AUTHOR WILLIAM L. PATTERSON, National Executive Secretary of the Civil Rights Congress, is well known to millions of Negro and white Americans for his militant leadership in the fight to save constitutional liberties for all Americans and to win full civil and human rights for the people-for the Negro people, in particular. As the National Secretary of the International Labor De­ fense in the 1930's, Patterson led the world-wide campaign which saved and eventually freed the nine innocent Scottsboro Negro lads. More recently, he helped save the innocent Trenton Sik from the terrible death , their official framers had prepared for them. The Civil Rights Congress won them a second trial which saw four of these innocent young Negro men freed. Patterson also led the historic t people's movement for the Martinsville Seven in Virginia, and headed the glorious de­ fense of Willie McGee in Mississippi-eight Negroes, innocent of rape, whose lives were taken: on a charge for which no white man in either :rate had ever been given the death penalty. After a Negro-white jury in April, 1951, refused to convict him on a so-called contempt of Congress charge, a second trial of Mr. Patterson was ordered by the Justice Department and set for June 18, but the intervention of 17 Bishops of the AME Zion Church compelled the government to grant an extension of time until January, 1952.
    [Show full text]
  • The Turning Point in Freedom Road
    TURNING POINT IN FREEDOM ROAD THE FIGHT TO END JIM CROW NOW \ ., ? " • , (.f.. TURNING POINT IN FREEDOM ROAD The Fight To End Jim Crow Now By CLAUDE LIGHTFOOT NEW CENTURY PUBLISHERS: New York 1962 TO THE READER Claude Lightfoot, the author of this pamphlet is a leading Communist spokesman and an important voice among the Negro people. He was indicted, convicted, and later freed, in a federal trial for the "crime" of being a member of the Communist Party under the fascist-like provisions of the Smith Act. Mr. Lightfoot's case drew wide support as a test of the doctrine of "guilt by association." But more than that, his defense was based on the American Bill of Rights, of the right of all Americans­ Communists included-freely to think, speak, write and exchange their views and opinions in the public arena. He is the author of An American L ooks at R ussia: Can we Live in Peace?, Not guilty!, and numerous articles and essays which have appeared in Political Affairs and other periodicals. Published by NEW CENTURY PUBLISHERS, 832 Broadway, N. Y. 3· N. Y. October, 1962 .., 20» I'RINTED I N THE U.S.A. TURNING POINT IN FREEDOM ROAD THE FIGHT TO END JIM CROW NOW By Claude Lightfoot January, 1 g63 marks the hundredth anniversary of the issu­ ance of the Emancipation Proclamation; it is also nine years since the historic Supreme Court ruling on school desegregation. ·It is time for all forces dedicated to freedom's fight to make an in­ ventory on how matten stand in this struggle.
    [Show full text]
  • Race and the Assessment of Credibility
    Michigan Journal of Race and Law Volume 1 1996 The Color of Truth: Race and the Assessment of Credibility Sheri Lynn Johnson Cornell Law School Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjrl Part of the Law and Psychology Commons, Law and Race Commons, and the Law and Society Commons Recommended Citation Sheri L. Johnson, The Color of Truth: Race and the Assessment of Credibility, 1 MICH. J. RACE & L. 261 (1996). Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjrl/vol1/iss2/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Michigan Journal of Race and Law by an authorized editor of University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE COLOR OF TRUTH: RACE AND THE ASSESSMENT OF CREDIBILITY Sheri Lynn Johnson* IN TRO D U CTIO N ...................................................................................263 I. UNDERSTANDING THE EFFECT OF RACE ON CREDIBILITY D ETERM IN ATIONS ..................................................................................266 A. A Brief and Selective History of Race and Credibility in the Courts ............................................................................................. 267 B. Modem Race and Credibility Cases ...............................................276 1. Two High Profile Cases ..........................................................276 a. W illiam Jackson
    [Show full text]
  • Newsletter 10:11
    VOLUME 3 DEPARTMENT NEWSLETTER 2010-11 HISTORY NEWS The University of Southern Mississippi CENTENNIAL STORIES FROM THE HISTORY DEPARTMENT Department of what was by then State culture, and you could realize that you REFLECTIONS BY BO MORGAN, Teachers College. were part of that. My main concern in PROFESSOR OF HISTORY & The noted Civil War historian Bell history has been the lowly people, the UNIVERSITY HISTORIAN Wiley began his career at State country people, partly because I grew up Teachers College, teaching in the among them. They are unassuming; they USM’s study abroad summers of 1930 and 1931. He are modest; they are open to program, one of the returned to head the History suggestion. Many of [these young country’s best, has deep Department after earning the Ph. D. people] were eager. They wanted to roots in the History degree from Yale in 1934. He left again improve themselves. It was fun to be with Department. Kate in 1938 and went on to a distinguished them.” Brown was on the career that included professorships at Two members of the department original Mississippi Ole Miss, LSU, and Emory, as well as from the 1950s went on to become Normal College faculty visiting professorships at USC and college presidents, Porter Fortune at in 1912 and in 1922 Tulane. In 1965-66, he was Ole Miss (1968-84) and Richard Aubrey organized a World Harmsworth Professor of History at McLemore at Mississippi College Affairs Club, the first of its kind in Oxford University. (1957-68). From January to August, Mississippi. The club later became He later wrote of his time at STC, 1955, McLemore served as acting affiliated with Andrew Carnegie’s part of which he spent living in a president of Mississippi Southern Institute of International Education, and dormitory with students, “I think maybe College in 1926 Brown was one of fifty that I got more real satisfaction out of professors of law and international teaching during my four years and two relations chosen by the Carnegie summers there than I did at any other Endowment for International Peace to place or time in my teaching career.
    [Show full text]
  • The Evidence
    PART III The Evidence VARIOUS ACTS of genocide against the Negro people of the United States from January r, 1945 to June 1951, chrono­ logically arranged under those articles and provisions of the Genocide Convention which they violate. The Evidence · ALTHOUGH we believe the evidence tabulated below proves our case, we appeal to the General Assembly not as a court of law, which it is not, but as the conscience of mankind which it should be. We appeal not to the legal sense of mankind but to its common sense. When a crime is manifestly and overwhelmingly true, known to history and notorious to the world, that fact itself becomes part of the evidence before the General Assembly. Similarly, although we cannot list it below as part of our evidence, we believe that the knowledge gained through the observation and the sense of every delegate to the General Assembly is in reality a part of our proof. Any delegate who has visited the capital of the United States at Washington, D.C., governed directly by the central government with­ out benefit of local authority, knows of his own knowledge that segrega­ tion and oppression in violation of the Charter and the Convention is the policy and creature _of the Government of the United States. Its scope and extent in the nation's capital has been attested to by a com­ mittee created by President Harry S. Truman in a document entitled, "To Secure These 'Rights." One of the most e_minent officials of the United Nations, Dr. Ralph Bunche, has openly rejected a high post in his own government's State Department because of the inhuman segre­ gation in the capital.
    [Show full text]
  • "There Was No Middle Ground": Anne Braden and the Southern Social Justice Movement Cate Fosl, University of Louisville
    University of Louisville From the SelectedWorks of Cate Fosl Fall 1999 "There Was No Middle Ground": Anne Braden and the Southern Social Justice Movement Cate Fosl, University of Louisville Available at: https://works.bepress.com/cate-fosl/6/ "There Was No Middle Ground": Anne Braden and the Southern Social Justice Movement Author(s): Catherine Fosl Source: NWSA Journal, Vol. 11, No. 3, Appalachia and the South: Place, Gender, Pedagogy (Autumn, 1999), pp. 24-48 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4316680 Accessed: 16-10-2018 16:29 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms The Johns Hopkins University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to NWSA Journal This content downloaded from 136.165.223.113 on Tue, 16 Oct 2018 16:29:58 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms "There Was No Middle Ground": Anne Braden And The Southern Social Justice Movement CATHERINE FOSL Anne McCarty Braden is a southern white anti-racist activist who made a dramatic break with segregationist culture in the years just after World War II and committed her life to the cause of racial and social justice.
    [Show full text]
  • Mississippi Bibliography
    Books on Mississippi Archer, Chalmers. Growing Up Black in Rural Mississippi: Memories of a Family, Heritage of A Place. New York: Walker and Co., 1992. Adams, Katherine J. and Lewis L Gould. Inside the Natchez Trace Collection: New Sources for Southern History. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1999. After Removal: The Choctaw in Mississippi. Edited by Samuel J. Wells and Roseanna Tubby. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1986. A Place Called Mississippi. Edited by Marion Barnwell. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1997. Alexander, Mary Ellen. Rosalie and Radishes: A History of Long Beach, Mississippi. Long Beach: M.E. Alexander, 1980. Alford, Terry. Prince Among Slaves. New York: Harcourt Brace Jevanovich, 1977. Alston, Alex A. and James Dickerson. Devil's Sanctuary: An Eyewitness History of Mississippi Hate Crimes. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2009. Alvord, Clarence Walworth. The Mississippi Valley in British Politics: A Study of the Trade, Land Speculation and Experiments in Imperialism Culminating in the American Revolution. New York: Russell & Russell, 1959. Andrews, Kenneth T.. Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: The Mississippi Civil Rights Movement and Its Legacy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. Arnold-Scriber, Theresa and Terry G. Scriber. Ship Island, Mississippi: Rosters and History of the Civil War Prison, Reprint ed. Jefferson: McFarland, 2012. Asch, Christopher Myers. The Senator and the Sharecropper: The Freedom Struggles of James O. Eastland and Fannie Lou Hamer. New York: New Press: Distributed by W.W. Norton, 2008. Ashley, Diane T. and Aaron McCarver. Mississippi Brides: 3-in-1 Historical Collection. Uhrichsville: Barbour Publishing Inc., 2013. Autry, James. Life After Mississippi.
    [Show full text]