Dallas Police Officer Murders 12 Year Old Santos Rodriguez

Santos Rodriguez in 1973 and the Memorial Statue of Him 

July 24, 1973:  Dallas, Texas – 12-year-old Santos Rodriguez and his older brother David were taken from their foster grandfather’s home in their pajamas and in bare feet by two police officers. It was 2:30 am. The officers believed the two boys had broken into a coin-operated soda machine and stole $8.00.

The two officers, Darrel Cain and Roy Arnold did not take the boys to the station house or allow the grandfather to accompany them even though they were minors. Instead, they returned to the gas station where the burglary occurred. They pulled to the back of the station out of sight. There Officer Cain switched spots with Santos. Cain got in the back seat with David. The two officers questioned the boys who remained handcuffed.

Becoming frustrated when neither boy confessed to breaking into the soda machine Cain pulled out his .357 revolver and emptied the cylinder. He then pointed the gun at Santos and told him they were going to play a game until Santos admitted his guilt. Then he pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. This was proof to Cain that he had emptied the gun’s cylinder. He then told Santos to try again and tell the truth. When the boy once again insisted, that he and his brother were innocent Cain pulled the trigger again, this time there was a bullet that entered Santo’s head near the base of the ear, killing him instantly.

Dallas was a heavily segregated city and this was taking place in “Little Mexico”. This was the section of town that due to redlining and other means had become the Latino section of the city. The population in this collection of neighborhoods was approximately 40,000 people or about 8 percent of the total population. The boys went to an elementary school that was majority Mexican American.

The two officers were both Anglo and Cain had a history of pulling his weapon. The 30-year-old Cain was a 5-year veteran officer and in those five years was involved in the killing of one other suspect, Michael Morehead, in a controversial incident with his former partner. In that case, Cain and his former partner had caught Morehead in a burglary of a lounge when Morehead fled both officers fired multiple times, hitting Morehead three times. The next year Cain shot another suspect.

A third officer, Jerry Foster, was also at the gas station looking into the burglary that Cain and Arnold believed the Rodriguez boys had committed. Foster was in the station when he heard the gunshot. He ran to the patrol car and found Arnold standing a distance away vomiting and Cain screaming he didn’t mean to kill Santos. Inside Foster had found a broken-out window and the cigarette machine was broken into, not the outside soda machine. Foster took Cain’s weapon from him.

A fourth officer David Rowe responded to Foster’s call regarding the shooting and found the two boys still in the car handcuffed and removed David from the car. Santos was taken to Parkland Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Within hours of the shooting, Cain was suspended and Dallas Police Chief Frank Dyson filed charges of murder with malice against him. A $5,000 bond was placed on Cain whose attorney had him free in two days. The investigation of the burglary and the shooting was ongoing, and it was discovered that no fingerprints matching either of the Rodriguez boys were found. Officer Arnold was dismissed by the Dallas Police. He had not filed a report that he had also discharged his weapon. He had fired on three suspects fleeing the gas station that night.

A community protest, named the "March of Justice for Santos Rodriguez" was held that following Saturday. Over 1,000 people from the community were involved Marchers were predominantly of Mexican-American and African-American descent. The march was from Kennedy Plaza to Dallas City Hall. Latino community leaders made speeches calling for community unity and action, and at around 12:50 pm the march led back to Kennedy Plaza. Prayers were held at the plaza and the original organized march was dispersed. Unfortunately, there were some hotheads in the groups who attempted to riot, but quick action by both community leaders and the police quelled it quickly, although five officers did have to go to the hospital.

Cain’s trial started in October and he was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison. He was released upon appeal, a process that took nearly four years until the Supreme Court of the United States refused to hear the case. Cain went to prison in 1977 but only served two and a half years due to good behavior. He became an insurance claims adjuster. He died at age 75 in 2019.

Multiple memorials were held for Santos Rodriguez over the years. In 2013 Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings made an official apology to Bessie Rodriguez and David Rodriguez. The city dedicated a statue to Santos at the Pike Park Recreation Center on Feb. 9, 2022. The center was renamed the Santos Rodriguez Center.

 

Sources:

https://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/dallas/article277530848.html

https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/rodriguez-santos

https://humanrightsdallasmaps.com/items/show/9

https://smudailycampus.com/1008155/news/dallas-apologizes-for-40-year-old-murder/

 

 

 

The Petway Family: Freedom Flyers Against Segregation

The Petway Family and Cecil Thomas mug shots from July 24, 1961

July 24, 1961 – Jackson, Mississippi, The summer of 1961 is the summer of the “Freedom Riders” when hundreds of protesters, both Black and White, descended on the Southern states to try and break the hold of Jim Cros and segregation on the states most determined to keep segregation as the way of life. The Supreme Court had ruled in the case of Boynton V. Virginia that laws dictating segregation on interstate travel were unconstitutional and the Freedom Riders were determined to ensure that the law was enforced. Everyone who took part had an individual story of those protests, from the tragic events like the mob beatings of Freedom Riders in the cities of Anniston and Montgomery Alabama to the mundane of arrests and hearings.

On this day one family attempted to desegregate the municipal airport in Jackson, Mississippi. The Reverend Matthew Petway and his two children, daughter Kredelle, 20, and son Alphonso, 16. They had flown in from the segregated airport in Montgomery, but the intention was to test the law in Mississippi. Once at the airport they got off the plane and headed for the White-only restaurant, only to find it closed. Then they noticed the heavy law enforcement presence. So, the city knew they were coming and decided to try to preempt the protest. The family of three headed for the Whites only water fountain which was when police stepped in and arrested them for breaking the peace. Cecil Thomas, a YMCA secretary in Berkeley, California was also arrested. Thomas’ son Steven and friend Tom Schooley were also on the flight but did not enter the airport and were not arrested.

Reverend Petway had been an activist since he was discharged from the army after World War Two. He then settled in Pensacola Florida and married. In 1958 He took on the role of pastor at the AME Zion Church in Montgomery. In the spring of 1961, he was approached by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Reverend Ralph Abernathy about doing a “Freedom Flight” with his two children.

Reverend Petway’s daughter Kredelle was 20 and a student at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, Florida. Kredelle had been very active with the student union there and was involved in protests for equal rights. She had been exposed to many of the tactics of law enforcement used in Alabama, fire hoses, and attack dogs. She had also been arrested. In Montgomery, she worked with her father and brother as part of the Montgomery Improvement Association’s voter registration campaign. 

Alphonso Petway was 16 at the time and had not been to a protest actively yet but attended meetings with his father and had experienced racism as a student in Florida where he had to walk past a White school to get to his and had often been verbally attacked and had objects thrown at him. He also was protecting his family, while his father was out of town, from the Klan.

After being arrested Reverend Petway, Alphonso, and Thomas Cecil were taken to the Hinds County Jail and Kredelle to the women’s jail. The family was separated for two days before a bond hearing and then another day before being released. The Pettways felt fortunate they said because they did not experience the violence so many others did. The experience did reinforce their will to see things change, particularly for Alphonso. He has said in interviews that the “stupid illogic of segregation,” bothers him still.

A year after the arrests all charges were dropped. The Petway family didn’t end what they were determined to do though. Reverend Petway worked on different civil rights campaigns until his death in 1972. Kredelle went back to college to finish the semester and at that time got tear-gassed. She married and had three children. In 1967 she went to work at the IRS and started the subtle work of recruiting more African Americans to work in the service and push them upward in the administration. Alphonso followed his father’s footsteps and became a pastor. He also continued to work with the NAACP and the Poor People’s Campaign. He’s still actively involved in voting rights. 

While men like Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett tried to keep segregation alive  the  Commerce Department and the Justice Department used the Interstate Commerce Act and associated court rulings to end segregated bus services and segregated airports in 1962 and in 1962 after two civil suits.

Sources:

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/freedom-rides

https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/desegregation-airports-american-south

https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/news/2020/03/16/kredelle-petway-womans-view-freedom-rider-flight-and-life-service-followed/5021930002/

https://breachofpeace.com/blog/?p=9

https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/news/2019/06/04/freedom-flyer-alphonso-petway-reflects-1961-bus-attacks-jackson-mississippi-airport-arrest/1202293001/

 

White Men In Missouri Get Impatient Decide They Have To Lynch A Black Man

 

Postcards of Frank Embree after being whipped

July 22, 1899, Howard County Missouri: Today the White anger in the county was finally relieved as a mob took accused Negro rapist Frank Embree off the train, whipped him, and then hung him from a tree.

Embree was on the train from Mexico, Missouri to the county seat of Fayette, Missouri to be tried for the crime of raping Miss Willie Doughtry a 14-year-old White girl. It was reported that Embree had pulled the girl off her horse and “ravished” her. Of course, the crime lit the fuse for all of the White people in Howard County.

From the beginning, Embree swore his innocence but he was the Black man arrested for the crime so it was as good as a conviction in Jim Crow. The first reports were that two Black men had taken the girl from the horse, and the sheriff did arrest a man named John Brown for the crime. There is no other mention of Brown in the newspapers of the time, except for a vague mention of a Black man who was whipped 150 times for helping Embree escape to Garnett Kansas.

Later as the story was cleaned up, apparently, the “Black Brute” who raped Willie Doughtry was also riding a horse and that horse belonged to a man named John Collins who was the uncle of Embree. Several times the sheriff took a posse and searched for Embree and he put a $150 reward out, this reward was matched by Missouri Governor Lon Stephens. Embree was finally tracked down in Kansas on July 3^rd. His family and white supporters requested that Kansas Governor William Stanley get a promise of protection from Stephens before allowing extradition. Stanley said he did, and Stephens said he would have never would have agreed

Regardless Embree was brought back to Howard County and indicted by a grand jury on July 18^th. Knowing that the community was enraged over the alleged crime he had his deputies take the train at 3:45 am with Embree for trial. What happened next is somewhat clouded by newspaper reports, Some newspapers reported that while deputies did take the train they got off at one point and loaded Embree into a wagon and the wagon was stopped by the White mob, There were also reports that three times the mob stopped the train and searched it but the deputies had his themselves and Embree too well.

Whatever the real story was about the mob kidnapping Embree the result was the same. They took him to the site of the alleged crime and when just stripping him didn’t get him to confess they whipped him. This is where one begins to question how a story is reported. There were reports that Embree swore his innocence up until he had been whipped nearly 100 times, and flayed open so he was bleeding badly. At this point, Embree begged for mercy and said he would confess. No reporters were on the scene and no one was named as a source but it was well known that Embree did finally confess and beg for the mob not to burn him. Apparently, the alleged victim Willie Doughtry, and her father Wood Doughtry were on the scene so Willie could identify Embree, which was also questionable since she was not called as a witness at the grand jury. What swayed the crowd was Doughtry asking them not to burn Embree.

So the mob dropped a rope over a tree limb and around Embree’s neck then members of the mob pulled him into the air and choked him to death. They then tied the rope leaving the body hanging. A coroner’s jury ruled that the deceased came to his death “by parties unknown to cause his death by parties unknown to us.”

The papers, such as the St. Louis Dispatch praised the crowd for warning to other “fiends” who may be tempted to commit horrible crimes. Someone took pictures at the lynching, and they are very clear. Still, as always no one was arrested or prosecuted for the murder of Frank Embree.

 

Sources:

https://tinyurl.com/mrxsfmss

https://tinyurl.com/2mpmhr7b

https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-daily-news-and-intelligencer-embree/151832149/

The Harlem Uprising Ignighted The Long Hot Summer Of 1964

 

Police watch protesters at Robert F. Wagner Sr. Junior High School on East 76th Street, July 17, 1964. Photo by Marion S. Trikosk, U.S. News & World Report Magazine Collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

July 18, 1964, Harlem ~ It began, as it so often has, with the shooting of a Black youth and ended in burned buildings, hospitalizations, and arrests. The Harlem Riots of 1964 were four days of a violent uprising that changed little between the police and Black citizens.

On July 16 several Black youths were on the stoop of a building across the street from Robert F. Wagner Sr. Junior High School on East 76th Street. This was normal but did aggravate the building superintendent Patrick Lynch and on the afternoon of the 16^th he had, had enough and sprayed the assembled boys with a hose, he reportedly shouted, “Dirty niggers, I'll wash you clean," at them. James Powell a 15-year-old who was a student at the school ran inside chasing Lynch. The other boys had been throwing bottles and trash at Lynch.

Drawn by the noise an off-duty police Lieutenant, Michael Gilligan, who was White, came out of a store next to the brownstone when he saw the commotion he drew his gun. Gilligan said he held up his badge and came up the stairs to find Powell running out of the building, then he shot Powell twice killing him. The facts of the shooting are disputed with Gilligan swearing Powell lunged at him with a knife and witnesses claiming Powell did not have a weapon. A pocketknife was found in the street gutter later.

At the same time of the shooting the students of the junior high were released for the day, and they rushed to support their fellow students. This led to a tense situation with the police now on the scene. At least 75 officers had to come to the scene to quell the disturbance. No arrests were made at the time.

The morning following the shooting saw peaceful protesting in Harlem at the school led by the Congress of Racial Equality, or CORE. The protesters at the school chanted “Stop killer cops!”, “We want legal protection” and “End police brutality!” They were met by 50 officers with nightsticks but there was no violence. CORE was calling on the police department to fire Lt. Gilligan or for him to resign.

The backdrop to all of this was how Black New Yorkers were mainly segregated in worn-out neighborhoods, denied employment opportunities, and frequently profiled and mistreated by police. The summer Powell was killed the majority of Black New Yorkers were angry and ready for rebellion.

On the third day, July 18, the situation was still tense and escalating. It was hot and humid, and the police were being unnecessarily aggressive and provocative. James Powell’s funeral was that morning and the police had installed barricades but also held a rally to protest the crime rate in Harlem. After the funeral, CORE held a peaceful rally, and the Reverend Nelson C. Dukes called for protestors to march on the 28th police precinct. At the precinct rally organizers attempted to meet with precinct commander police Inspector Pendergast. However, whatever was said between organizers and Pendergast was lost as the crowd turned violent. They started throwing bottles, bricks, and anything they could find, others had gone to the rooftops to bombard the police. Pendergast told officers to stop the violence and clear the streets.

By ten that night over a thousand people had gathered at the intersection of Seventh Avenue and 125th Street. Police were using megaphones and speakers to tell the crowd, “Go home, go home." The crowd was recorded screaming back: "We are home, Baby!" The police tactical team was called in as rioting began, the mob marched down 123^rd Street wrecking storefronts and destroying city property. Some police fired into the air while others went directly into the rioters. By 8 am when this first major burst of violence settled one man had been killed, 19 others injured as well as 14 police officers injured enough to receive care. This was another disputed fact as area hospitals reported over 100 serious injuries tied directly to the rioting.

As the morning of the 19^th went on, a statement from Police Commissioner Michael J. Murphy was sent to all the churches in Harlem that read, “In our estimation, this is a crime problem and not a social problem!" No less than Malcolm X responded to this with what many considered a warning or a threat. "There are probably more armed Negroes in Harlem than in any other spot on earth. If the people who are armed get involved in this, you can bet they'll really have something on their hands," said the famed civil rights leader.

Tensions remained high with both sides allegedly taunting the other and by afternoon the riot was full scale again. This time the chaos appeared to settle by 1:30 am with another 200 people being treated in hospital reports, while the official police report only said 93 people. 103 arrests were made.

The next two nights and days were very much the same with peaceful protests being disrupted by police who charged into protesters and began indiscriminately beating people. Also, the police announced a major investigation targeting protest organizers and Black Nationalists such as the Harlem Progressive Labor Club, the Harlem branch of the Progressive Labor Party.

The violence seemed to burn itself out by the night of July 22 and clean-up began. The uprising had an incredible cost with 500 shops damaged, and many destroyed. One person was listed as killed in the official police records with 465 men and women arrested. There was between 1 million and 2 million dollars in damages, approximately $19 million in 2024 dollars.

Two months after the shooting, Lt. Gilligan was cleared of any wrongdoing by a grand jury. He maintained Powell had lunged at him with a knife. Coincidently the riot broke out one month after President Lyndon Johnson signed the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act and at the same time as Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, an opponent of the Civil Rights Act was being named the Republican candidate for president in 1964. Goldwater was promising to be tough on crime, a theme every Republican presidential candidate has carried since.

Two reform attempts were made to help the Black residents of Harlem and New York City at large. The first was “Project Uplift” which was funded by Johnson’s Great Society program. For the summer of 1965 thousands of young Blacks were able to get jobs and job training, but it only lasted that summer. In 1966 New York City Mayor John Lindsay changed the Civilian Complaint Review Board, the board that investigated complaints against the police. Lindsay added four civilians to the board which had previously been all police, The move outraged the Police union which organized with business owners and the Chamber of Commerce to reverse the decision by a public vote. The police campaign was run on fears of rising crime and racism.

Sadly the Harlem Uprising was just the first outbreak of violence in major American cities in the summer of 1964 which eventually became known as the “Long Hot Summer” in our history books.

 

Sources:

https://www.britannica.com/event/Harlem-race-riot-of-1964

https://crdl.usg.edu/events/ny_race_riots

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/harlem-race-riot-1964/

https://www.rutgers.edu/news/inside-harlem-uprising-1964

The Groveland Four Arrested: Racist Corruption Of A Florida Sheriff And Community

 

Three of the Groveland Four. Left to right: Sheriff Willis McCall, jailer Reuben Hatcher, Walter Irvin, Charles Greenlee, and Samuel Shepherd. Not pictured: Ernest Thomas, killed earlier by law enforcement. Library of Congress photo

July 16, 1949, Groveland, Florida ~ Three African American men were arrested today, as the search goes on for a fourth. The men are charged with raping a White woman and assaulting her husband on a rural road. Willie Padget stated that he had pulled over on a county road when his car broke down, he then said four Black men approached his car and at first offered to help but then turned on Willie and beat him before driving off in his car with his wife.

They reported this to Lake County Sheriff Willis McCall a man known for his brutal treatment of Blacks and strict belief in segregation. The Padgets did not explain how they were reunited if in fact the men had kidnapped Norma Padget, or how a car that broke down was driven off. Of course, these were incidental details the sheriff wasn’t interested in. He had identified four men as suspects, Ernest Thomas, Charles Greenlee, Samuel Shepherd, and Walter Irvin. McCall had already determined that Shepard and Irvin were malcontents because they refused to work in the orange groves and against his orders often wore their Army uniforms. Both men were veterans of World War Two and duly proud of their service, but for many Whites in Lake County this was a sign of disrespect and of two Black men being too proud.

McCall arrested Shepard and Irvin quickly and, Charles Greenlee. Greenlee did not know the other men. A warrant was issued for Ernest Thomas who was a friend of Greenlee. The three men were taken by the sheriff and his deputies to the supposed site of the crime and frustrated by the shoe prints not matching and the unwillingness of the men to confess they beat them badly with blackjacks and nightsticks. They were then taken to the jail and in the basement cuffed to overhead pipes and the beatings continued.

The next day a mob of at least 500 men came to the jail demanding the three captured men, McCall told them the men were not there because he wanted them to be tried, he had already taken them to the penitentiary for holding. The mob angrily left the jail and attacked Groveland shooting into Black homes and setting other homes ablaze. The mob blocked roads and attacked anyone trying to get in. They burned Samuel Shepard’s father’s home to the ground. Most of the residents though had fled in trucks.

By the next day, the Florida National Guard was in Groveland on the order of Governor Fuller Warren. The NAACP was now involved and had been putting pressure on Warren. The NAACP was something else that Sheriff McCall hated because it challenged his worldview and order. He had worked hard to keep Blacks under Jim Crow provisions and he had used all his power to keep union activity out of the orange groves.

On July 26 the posse McCall had assembled found Ernest Thomas in the swamp land approximately 200 miles north of Groveland. They shot him over 400 times because he was allegedly reaching for a weapon. Still, the coroner's jury determined that Thomas had been lawfully killed and ruled his death a justifiable homicide.

A grand jury was convened, with one Black member for the first time, and they quickly indicted Charles Greenlee, Samuel Shepherd, and Walter Irvin.

All three were represented by NAACP attorney Franklin Williams. Williams interviewed all three and found solid evidence to support that Shepard and Irvin had been in Orlando the night of the alleged attack on the Padgets. Greenlee had witnesses that said he was 19 miles away. Williams also had a doctor who had examined Norma Padget prepared to testify that he found no evidence she was raped. Judge Truman Futch refused to allow the doctor to testify. Regardless of the evidence it took an all-White jury just 90 minutes to convict the three. Futch then sentenced Shepard and Irvin to death and Greenlee to life in prison because he was a minor.

All three appealed their conviction with the help of the NAACP and future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. In 1952 Marshall argued the case in front of the Supreme Court which overturned the convictions, on the grounds it wasn’t a fair jury. The NAACP and Marshall had the Department of Justice and FBI to interview the three men. They gave statements that they were all badly beaten, and Shepard and Greenlee confessed under duress. The FBI presented their evidence to U.S. Attorney Herbert Phillips of Florida to prosecute, but a grand jury did not return indictments of the Lake County deputies James Yates and Leroy Campbell.

A new trial was ordered in 1951 but when Sheriff McCall was transporting Shepard and Irvin from Raiford State Prison. He suddenly pulled over claiming a bad tire. He then shot both men, killing Shepard and wounding Irvin. McCall claimed he was jumped by both men and they tried to escape, this was backed up by Deputy Yates. Irvin again gave a statement to the FBI stating that he was on the ground when he was shot by both men. McCall did go to the hospital where he was treated for a head injury. The coroner's jury cleared McCall and even praised him for his bravery.

At the second trial, Marshall represented the surviving two men and did get the venue change. However, this didn’t help and even with more evidence of their innocence, they were again convicted in 90 minutes. Irvin again was sentenced to death.

The appeal this time failed to make it to the Supreme Court. Irvin turned to Florida Governor Charley Jones; Jones rejected clemency for Irvin. Irvin was saved by the November election when the more moderate LeRoy Collins. Collins had requested a report on the trial and determined to his satisfaction that there was enough unfairness that he commuted Irvin’s sentence to life.

Greenlee was paroled in 1962 and moved with his family to Tennessee and never returned to Florida. He died in 1912. Irvin was finally released in 1968. He initially went to Miami but returned to Lake County in 1970 and died soon after. Sheriff McCall was reelected several times and was finally removed from office in 1972 after a controversial accusation and trial for killing a Black prisoner. McCall died in 1994 never regretting any of his actions. In 2005 a Lake County Road named after him in 1985 was renamed after local Black residents petitioned for a change, expressing concerns of memorializing a man with his history.

Beginning in 2016 there was a concentrated effort by leaders on all levels in Florida to exonerate all four men. It began with Groveland mayor Tim Loucks and Lake County commissioners who issued a formal apology to the men’s surviving family. The state legislature took up the cause and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis issued full posthumous pardons in 2019 this was followed by State Attorney William M. Gladson making a motion for the court to exonerate the men, Judge Heidi Davis granted the motion to posthumously dismiss the indictments of Thomas and Shepherd and vacate the convictions of Greenlee and Irvin.

Most of the facts for this post come from Gilbert King’s fantastic 2012 book Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America

Other Sources:

https://www.pbs.org/harrymoore/terror/groveland.html

 

Angry Racist Southerners Form Dixicrat Party To Oppose President Truman

 

Southern Democrats Convention At The Birmingham Municipal Auditorium.
Photograph by Marion Johnson, the Atlanta Constitution

July 14-17, 1948, President Harry Truman took to the podium at the National Democratic Party Convention in Philadelphia and delivered a speech that marked a sea change in the Democratic Party and set a direction for the future. Truman spoke passionately about Civil Rights and the need to make America a nation of real equality.

The Democrats of the South didn’t like it. They didn’t like the inclusion of a party plank calling for Civil Rights changes. They had met on their own to decide to walk out of the convention during the state roll call to make their point.

So, on July 14 when the party began delegate roll call most of the Alabama delegation turned and walked off the floor. When the roll call reached M, Mississippi delegates all walked out. These were people committed to keeping segregation in place and enforcing Jim Crow.

This angered some of the high party bosses who were already concerned that Truman was vulnerable. These men saw little hope in a win for Truman without the Southern states in the pocket as they had been for decades.

Regardless, the party had taken a courageous step forward. On the other hand, the Southern states were determined to create something that would protect their way of life and something that in the 1960s would transfer the voting bloc to the Republicans in the “Southern Strategy”

Led by South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond and Arkansas Governor Benjamin Travis Laney these Democrats decided to call themselves the “States Rights Party” They met for their convention on July 17 in Birmingham, Alabama. While they did not identify as a real third party the intention was to draw enough votes from Truman and Republican nominee Thomas Dewey into through the election into the House of Representatives. Calling themselves “Dixiecrats” the breakaway Southerners nominated Thurmond as their presidential candidate and Mississippi governor Fielding L. Wright.

6,000 registered Democrats came to Birmingham to endorse the new segregationist party. This was the main plank of the party and their hope was by sending the election into the House they would be able to negotiate to support whichever candidate agreed to the continuance of segregation.

Somewhat surprised by the turnout for their quickly put-together convention in Birmingham, the party held another convention in Oklahoma City on August 14. At this convention, they adopted a very racist platform:

“We stand for the segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each race; the constitutional right to choose one's associates; to accept private employment without governmental interference, and to earn one's living in any lawful way. We oppose the elimination of segregation, the repeal of miscegenation statutes, and the control of private employment by Federal bureaucrats called for by the misnamed civil rights program. We favor home rule, local self-government, and a minimum interference with individual rights.”

This platform and campaigns targeting both Truman and Dewey as authoritarians who wanted to end the Southern way of life. Thurmond was able to win four states and 39 electoral votes. The Dixiecrat ticket won South Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi. These upset wins did take votes from Truman in what would prove to be one of the closest presidential elections in history. Though he still won he wasn’t as powerful in the party as most sitting presidents are and so when the party drifted back some on Civil Rights, he wasn’t able to stop them, still even with the moral high ground taken from him Truman still ended segregation in the military and set the tone for the next 20 years.

 

Sources:

https://www.bhamwiki.com/w/1948_States_Rights_Democratic_Party_convention

https://data.philly.com/conventions/1948-d.html

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/1948-democratic-convention-878284/

An Arrest For A Marriage Changes All Of The United States

Richard & Mildred-Loving in their Living Room by Grey Villet, LIFE, 1965

July 11, 1958, Early this morning in Central Point, Virginia Sheriff R. Garnett Brooks turned his flashlight on a couple in bed, waking them and he demanded from Richard Loving who the woman was in bed with him. The sheriff and two of his deputies were responding to an anonymous tip that a White man had the audacity to bed a Black woman.

Mildred Loving sat up in bed and told the sheriff, “I’m his wife.” The sheriff ignored her and continued to question her husband. Finally deciding that the couple was telling the truth, he arrested them for breaking Virginia’s miscegenation law, barring interracial marriage. They had married in Washington D.C. where interracial marriage was legal.

Booked into jail, Richard Loving received a bond and was released after one night. Mildred was treated as any Black person of the time might be and was denied bond, spending three nights in a cramped cell before being released into the custody of her father. This incident began a nine-year battle that ended at the Supreme Court and changed the nation.

When the Lovings appeared in January of 1959 and pleaded guilty, the judge sentenced them to a year in jail but offered the compromise that if they left Virginia for 5 years, he would commute the sentence. They agreed.

For the Lovings, this was a particularly hard decision as they had lived in Caroline County for more than a decade. Their families had spent time together when they were adolescents. Still, they returned to Washington D.C. rather than face prison time. That did not mean they chose to surrender. They took precautions and frequently returned to see family. Although this often meant traveling separately and remaining inside when in Virginia.

Growing tired of these problems and wanting to get out of the city Mildred took a chance in 1964 and wrote to Attorney General Robert Kennedy. Kennedy did not feel there was a legal way for him to intercede on the Lovings's behalf but did refer them to the American Civil Liberties Union. ACLU lawyers Philip J. Hirschkop and Bernard S. Cohen enthusiastically agreed to help the Lovings obtain their rights.

The first appeal of the conviction at Virginia's Supreme Court of Appeals in Richmond was presented on February 11, 1965, and denied on March 7, 1966. So, they appealed to the United States Supreme Court. On June 12, 1967, the Court unanimously ruled that Virginia's miscegenation law was unconstitutional, effectively erasing all miscegenation laws in the 16 states that had them on the books.

Freed of the racist law and conviction the Lovings returned to Caroline County to raise their three children. Richard was killed when their car was hit by a drunk driver in 1975, in the same accident Mildred lost her right eye. She though continued to live in Caroline County until she died in 2008.

The triumph at the Supreme Court is now celebrated on June 12 as “Loving Day” where communities celebrate the verdict and their rights and multiculturalism. In  2016, the award-winning film “Loving” was released starring Ruth Negga as Mildred and Joel Edgerton as Richard.

Sources:

https://co.caroline.va.us/308/The-Lovings#:~:text=They%20returned%20to%20Caroline%20County,the%20state's%20anti%2Dmiscegenation%20law.

https://www.history.com/news/mildred-and-richard-the-love-story-that-changed-america