emory university professors hank klibanoff and brett gadseden talk about the intersection of politics and violence in the mid-20th century georgia. they talk about a number of unsolved murders during the segregation era and the georgia civil rights cold cases project. this class is about 90 minutes. >> i'm going to open up the georgia civil rights cold cases class by taking note of a particular milestone that occurs this week. does anybody know who this is? this is emmett till. on this day, none of you

august 20 6, 1955, remember what happened, but i will take a measure of how long ago it was in a minute. emmett till was a 14-year-old boy from chicago. spending the summer with his uncle in mississippi. his uncle was a farmer. he had a son who was his age. wright.e is moses his son was simion wright. they were all living together in mississippi, having a good summertime, two days before this day. emmett till had gone into a country store called brian's meats and grocery.

he goes into the store to purchase something. he was at the cash register and there, he sees the grocery store owner with her husband. something happened at that point. there's only one person who knows what happened. that is carolyn bryant. ok? he purchases something, and he either whistles at her in a sassy way, a wolf whistle, that construction workers and others are known to do with women walk by, or, as he is leaving, he says something like, "bye, baby," or, as his mother says, he started to say something and stutters. blowd a stutter and would

air out, it sounded like a whistle. whatever he did, he crossed the line in the eyes of carolyn bryant. a couple of days later, lloyd bryant, and his brother-in-law, showed up late at night at the door of moses wright's house. they demand to see the boy that was in the store. all these boys are sharing a big bed. emmett till, half asleep, goes to the door. bryant grabs him, and they take into a truck. they can hear them say, is this the boy that did that? a woman says, yes, that is him. they take him away not to be , seen for several days.

that was on the 28th. two days from now, 60 years ago. they took into -- him to milam's barn where they beat him, tortured him, and shot him. they took into the tallahatchie river where they strapped barb wire and a cotton gin fan to his neck. he is missing and people are looking for him, even before the body surfaces. the spotlight turns to bryant and milam, who say, well, yeah, we did that. we showed up, took him, roughed him up, and whatever else happened, we had no hand in. somebody else must have done it.

then he surfaces. , what i will show you is a gruesome picture. at the time, it was only shown in the black press. it later made its way out to the larger press. the body was bloated beyond recognition. one eyeball was dangling from its socket. his tongue was extended from its mouth, swollen to eight times its normal size. there was a bullet hole behind his left ear. he was recognizable only by the ring his mother gave him. she fitted it onto his finger. it was his father's, louis till, and it had "l.t." on it. this is a civil rights cold case, unsolved, unpunished. as with many cases, there are small elements of the prosecution of it.

ultimately, this is the chicago defender, the black newspaper. this is only part of the front page. if i recall, the entire front page was devoted to this. it was not just a black press that was interested. he became a national story. you can see a column here, to go on trial, for murder, to the top left of the cartoon. the chicago daily news. "till case goes to jury for verdict." this is what happened as it went to trial. three weeks after the body is found, it goes to trial. it seems like forever now between an arrest someone goes to trial. milam and bryant are tried. it is in a courthouse in sumner,

mississippi. if you come back with this kind of detail in a piece, we will of -- love you. guess what the slogan of the town was? don't guess, i will tell you. "a great place to raise a boy." great detail. a detail that you, as writers, ought not miss. it may not be a surprise to you, they were to white men, milam and bryant were acquitted. the jurors were out only 67 minutes. they said they would not be out that long except that they , stopped for a drink. the prosecution did a very effective job according to the public.

the judge was a fair judge. now.l not go into that the one thing that was milam and bryant were not even convicted of abducting him, which they admitted to. it was a few months later in which they sat with a journalist from alabama and told the story. in effect, they confessed to the murder. it was a piece that ran in "look" magazine. you can read the piece and know they never spoke to the reporter. he vowed never to reveal that they admitted it. he would have to write a story in a bizarre, contorted way that would tell the story without acknowledging.

he agreed that they could go out in the world and deny it. later, the writer couldn't take it and made sure everyone knew they confessed. we have copies of the documents were he paid the money for the interviews. it was an early example of checkbook journalism, you will need to take journalism school to go into that. emmett till was not a civil rights activist. he was 14 years old. he was seven years from being able to vote. that was not the case. he was killed for violating what scholars referred to primly as "racial etiquette." he crossed the line, the social codes, with whatever he did or was believed to have done. this is a case from a different

part of mississippi. they were trying to get people to vote and did it anyway even though they were warned not to. this is the case of george w lee and lamar smith. it was the 1948 murder of isaiah nixon and the town of alston. it is about three hours from here. he was shot dead for voting. he voted in 1948. i will talk about this extreme

period ofdinaryper 1946 >> "washington 6 and 1948, the highlights of which were two statewide races for governor in 1946 and 1948. 2 or 3 black men were killed for voting in that time. i will open the floor. why would white people go to such lengths to stop black people from voting? what do you think was so trouble >> "washington journal" -- would so trouble white people that anytime they would murder someone for voting? yes sir? >> at that point, politics was a way to voice one's opinions. there was a power structure in the south.

black people will voting would most likely upset that. >> absolutely. >> at the time, politics, all the mayors were white men. if there were black men voting, they could change that. people would have to give up their power, because they would go after white man killing -- white men killing people if ir friends are in politics. >> if you have the right to vote, politicians have to cater to your needs because they are a part of getting you elected. prof. klibanoff: you mean that white people would never want to cater to a black man? >> yes. >> it was a legal equalizer. it was one of the only things that could equalize what was going on in society.

prof. klibanoff: it is worth knowing. the details are what makes it so extraordinary. like.egregation was it was absolute. in the 1940's. we are talking about before. some people would say it was a little more liberal atmosphere in the 1940's, leading up to the brown versus board decision. youre 1940's, even liberals never believed for a minute that segregation would end. editors,e for liberal prominent people, who later worked in the roosevelt

administration. jonathan daniels was an editor in raleigh north carolina who said it segregation will absolutely never and in the south. you might as well believe they will become night-- day will become night. all the armies of the world, axes and allies combined, said mark edwards of the roosevelt administration, will never end segregation. it was absolute. when we say why people did not want black people to vote, it was just one of the absolutes. let's get to the technical detail. you may say they didn't want them to vote because they might elect a black person. do you think a group of blacks in these counties could ever elect a black person in the

40's? no? why not? >> they didn't have the structure there to get someone in to office, to win political office. it would be hugely expensive, a campaigning endeavor. they were in such a situation where the main concern of their day-to-day life is getting food on the table rather than putting somebody into a system that has never been beneficial for them. prof. klibanoff: that's all true. but, i would remind you that white people down there were very poor too. white people were struggling day-to-day. here is what i want you to keep in mind.

in georgia, alabama, mississippi, a population was heavily african-american. in some counties, it would be 70% african-american. maybe the voting age would be 60%. in some counties, maybe seven people would be registered to vote. it was the structure that barred them from voting at all, because whites feared they would be the minority. whites were the minority. if the majority rules, they lose power. i want someone else to quickly name one other important reason why the vote mattered. what happens when you register to vote? year after year, what happens? how many of you are registered?

what do you get in the mail every now and then? jury duty. jury duty, what does that mean? >> you go sit on the jury. >> you have an influence on the criminal justice system. right? a widely overlooked consequence that white people understood. so many of these cases are about criminal justice. whether people got justifiable verdicts. normally i would not start off till, he has mississippi, not georgia. we are focused on georgia, but i

for another it reason. someone tell me how old they grandfather is. >> 88. prof. klibanoff: someone else? >> 92. prof. klibanoff: anybody else? >> 70. prof. klibanoff: how old would emmett till be? he would be 74 years old. 60 years ago is not that long ago. i can name one person in this room who was alive at the time. [laughter] prof. klibanoff: i want you to know we are closer in time than you might think. >> what was the influence of him being from chicago? is that why it was published

more? prof. klibanoff: yes, and the fact that he was 14. it crossed the line that did not make sense outside the south for the most part. it drew massive press coverage. this town of sumner, mississippi was overrun by the reporters. the new york times was covering it every day. ap, upi. the only newspapers that didn't cover it were the mississippi papers. ok. now, just to go further here, as we go forward in these cases, we will examine not the whodunnit as much as the why. in most cases, we know who. what states of mind were in place, social, political, economic? what forces would come together. all religious precepts, all

acceptable behaviors that would lead them to such means of widespread murder as control. ok. this is the website that i've asked you to look at. it is the civil rights cold cases project. this began as a joint journalism and african-american studies class. we had students do senior honor's theses related to this. this is examining the history of the time. not just the murderous

activists, these are racially motivated murders. you will use primary evidence at the eye level. we will get this to you. we want you to dig out naacp records. we discovered a mother load of stuff over at the research library. rare book libraries. this is a real gold mine of opportunities. we want you to understand history that is little known from the inside looking out. it is long forgotten from the outside looking in. that is our goal, for you to see it from a new, fresh perspective.

this is a bunch of different cases. people who were targeted because of who they were. it wasn't even their beliefs, always. in most cases, these opted no local investigations. in many, they received inconsistent investigation by the fbi. things are not always what they seem or what you would expect. this is james brazier, he was 35 in 1958. he worked three jobs. his wife worked too. he had three children. he loved, with a great passion, new cars.

in 1956, he bought himself a new 1956 chevrolet from his dealership where he worked. in 1958, he bought a chevrolet impala. ok? we have examined, in this class, why it was that was so offensive to whites in boston, georgia, terrell. a few days before 1958, it did matter-- didn't matter. he was taken to the jail where he was examined by doctors. he said he was going to be ok, but wasn't. in the middle of the night, he was dragged out and beaten, all but dead. then, he dies. five months or four months before that day, he had been

stopped by a police officer, and said why are you stopping me , again, why do you keep doing this? the police officer says you have a lot of nerve driving a car like that when we can't hardly live. i will get you yet. we know all of this. in whichhe records that whole dialogue to place. by the way, james frazier, no news coverage, not a word. a month later, one of the same police officers killed another man. knife found later with a under him that his family said he never had, it was planted. that.no coverage of

his wife spent five years trying to get his case to a federal jury, and finally succeeded. the consequence was that the jury, in the civil case never held the police officers responsible for james frazier's death. it produced a large transcript. this is the transcript that one of our students found at the national archives. it is is nisnipes. tilde butler, 1956. here is the detail that is interesting. when you study these things, you want to glom onto these interesting moments.

the family says that after he was shot, and he had to walk three miles to get a ride to the hospital, he got to the hospital, the doctor examines him, and he says, will my gosh, he is going to need a blood transfusion. the family tells us this. the family says, give me a transfusion. the doctor says, i cannot do that. the doctors were white. this is the time when just about all doctors were. they said, we cannot, we don't have any black blood. you've heard me talk about the mythology that people operated on african americans at the time. they adopted a lot of myths that were hard to break, even if they wanted to. by the way, the murder deeply upset young college students at

that time, a student at morehouse college, who was provoked to write a letter to the atlantic constitution. do you see it? see who wrote this letter? on the far right, in the middle? m.l. king. martin luther king. this happened within a couple of weeks of another murder. i will click on through. this is a story about clarence pickett. will he had spent six months at the statement hospital. he returns to columbus. he would wonder around, drink a little bit, maybe a little too much. he gets arrested on one particular day. 1957, around christmas. he is yelling and screaming, calling the police officer's

names. the officers say, hey, that is pickett. when officer decided not to take it. he goes in the jail cell and kicks him and beaten and it stops him-- stomps him to near-death. he has to be taken to a columbus medical center where a white physician sees him. the doctor says, i think he is putting this on. ok? the next day, he was dead.

what students were able to do was look at the medical report from one day and look at the autopsy next day. they said, will gosh, based on the autopsy, here is what the doctor should have seen and done. he should never have released him to go home. the doctor, who said he was putting on when he released him, gave him 75 milligrams of a painkiller. clearly, there is some problem here. he tells the police officer he is putting on. he just wants to be a part of the boys and the team. he gives him a painkiller on the way out. clarence pickett died the next day.

you need to be aware not to jump to some assumptions about things. one student we had, a very good student, was determined to betray the police officer as this southern, racist cracker. white cop, stereotypical, straight out of central casting. another student was looking into it too and discover something. what does that say to go where was he from? new york. we traced him enough to know that he came south from when he was in the military to be at fort benning.

so, i say this to you, as a means to say, we want you to challenge some assumptions going into these things. lemuel p was an administrator in the washington, d.c. school system. and to other african-americans come south in 1960 44 army reserve training. a really important summer. three civil rights workers are on, and so forth. they finish up with their military service at fort benning.

little did they know, as they get close to athens, they cross paths with a group of three klansmen looking for trouble. penn takes the wheel. within minutes, the klan car pulls up, pulls out a shotgun, and blows them away. there are two gruesome pictures i have to show you. it was just breathtaking. how brutal this murder was. i will show you in detail we -- a detail of what we learned. there was a trial. the three klansmen were caught. they were indicted and tried. ok? in state court. not federal, state.

we will go later into these distinctions. during the trial, two of the witnesses against the klansmen were the other two men in the car. ok? with penn. two african american men, who walked into the courtroom to testify. one was a major with the stripes to show it. the other was a corporal who also had stripes. suddenly, the press took note of the fact that when they came

into the courtroom, the white jurors, all men, all white, just as suddenly had these expressions of disdain for these black men who had higher ranking . this was what? after truman's orders. something like that. way, the lawyer for the defendant, the klansmen, was very adamant that the white tree -- the white jury would be letting down the race were they to convict these men.

he very much appealed to their anglo-saxon tradition. and, that they would have to answer to their neighbors. of course, they did find the men not guilty. a couple more. this man was 17 years old in 1962, when he walked home from the dance. a.c. hall and his girlfriend had gone to a dance. they were walking past the school. they don't know that some hour earlier, a white woman has called the police and said, "i just saw a black man in my carport reach into my glove compartment, and now my gun is missing." the police go, pick her up, and go looking for these people. they see a.c. hall and the woman says, "that's him."

the only thing she knew was that he was wearing a white shirt, the guy she'd seen was in a white shirt. he was first to run. does this sound similar to anything you've heard recently? a.c. hall runs and the police shoot him. when they finally get up to him, he is all but dead. he tries to right himself. he lifts his hands to surrender and falls dead. they look for a gun. 2 days later, they find the gun in a coroner's jury, it's called. they have a gun. somebody in the jury calls in the man and the wife.

they say "is this your gun?" they say, no, this is not your gun. the jury, the coroner's jury, they do a complete statement that says we believe this was murder. a group of white people meeting and examining the evidence concluded was murder. it is picked up by a grand jury. the grand jury would not bring charges against the officers. as you can see, we have a lot of unrestrained agents of white supremacy acting to enforce, what they believe, to be the social order of things. they brought injury and death to untold numbers of african

americans in georgia and the south. we are going to ask you, during this time, as i have said, to ask the question about the why. why would police officers be so offended that a black man had a nicer car than them that they would kill them? why would a white physician examining black patients ignore the signs of great injury, withhold treatment, and send a patient home to die? the purpose of this course is clear, we want you to learn how to locate, how to dig out records, how to analyze the documentation of these crimes, find the truth, find the context. beyond the primary evidence we will give you, and that you will dig out, we have a lot of secondary reading. ok?

there are others who have examined the issues more broadly. when a student was looking at why a man would be killed for driving a nice car. there are two or three other examples. some of the scholars have done, you know, the work that is the glue that helps expand our understanding. our understanding that these were not isolated one-off incidents. that is the work we will be engaged in. as professor gadsden will now examine the broader context of the cases, and then we will we come back to me to talk about georgia. if you have questions, let me just ask that about what i just talked about. you must've had questions, thoughts in your mind at the time. yes?

>> i believe you mentioned one of the officers, one of the people that killed someone was from new york instead of the south. wouldn't that -- i don't think that would change much because they did consider themselves, i mean, the north was more like, the mentality would not change depending on where he was from. prof. klibanoff: right. i think that's right. there's a question of what people knew at the time. that's part of the challenge, not to apply what we know in 2015 to what they knew in 1964 or 1948. you have a number of northerners who came south.

there they came south and , decided to fit in. they would have to adopt southern ideologies on these things. yes? >> so he was in the military, right? that's another structure of group thinking and sitting in ideology and brainwashing. beck influences his thoughts-and actions- --that influences his thoughts and actions. prof. klibanoff: correct. any other questions? prof. gadsden: so how do we think about racial violence in american history? that is the underlying question of this class and project. how violent is the united states? who are the victims, who are the perpetuators? how does the justice system resolve this violence?

these are some of things i'd like us to consider. i think a good place to start, when we think about the problem of violence in american political development is in, "an american dilemma." the author was a swedish theologist, contracted by rockefeller federation, he magisterial document of american race relations, called, "an american dilemma." it is one of the finest copperheads of studies of american relationships ever published. he worked with a bevy of academics to discuss a variety of aspects of the south,

including the biological and social foundations of race. he published population statistics and trends. he explored the institution of slavery and the evolution of the southern planter economy. he looked at the economic conditions and social stratification of african-american communities. he explored white, southern politics. he looked at the problem of violence in the south. he explored at the problem of segregation, equality, and looked at a variety of different institutions in african american communities. uplifting institutions. it is a study that we return to again and again.

in a very provocative way, myrdal offered a particular interpretation of black southern culture. he developed an argument that he called, "the american creed." in his telling, and this is a quote, "there's a basic homogeneity in this nation's evaluations. americans of all origins, creeds, classes, colors, have something in common, a social ethos, political creed." he continued, "it is difficult to avoid the judgment that this american creed is the cement in the structure of this great and disparate nation." the ideals contained included notions familiar with us if you have read our founding documents. recognition of the dignity of

the individual human being. the fundamental equality of all men. inalienable rights to freedom and justice. we can read these sentiments and the declaration of independence, and the u.s. constitution, in state constitutions. he recognizes the recurrence of these themes in all these documents. because he was doing a study of american race relations, he did concede that there was a kind of tension between this creed and to the everyday experiences of americans. still, he maintained, and this is another quote, that the ideals of the american creed are the highest law in the land. they were expressed repeatedly by national leaders, thinkers, jurists, statesman, and it was

myrdal's opinion that it had triumphed as a guiding ideology of american political culture at the time. now, it in his assessment,-- now, in his assessment, he constructed racism as a contradiction to the creed. it was a kind of problem to which other people succumbed. it was a problem that demanded moral redress of education. he was of the opinion that if americans understood the complexity of the problem, of these kinds of insults to the american creed, that they would discover quickly a remedy for these problems of segregation

and equality and violence. in many ways, he is telling an exploration of american political culture, providing the essential subtext for american history today. if you pick up the average u.s. history textbook from your high school or even university, you will see a kind of argument in that in the text about american history as an inexorable struggle towards greater levels of freedom and equality. right? you can see kind of echoes of the argument, right, in arguments about american exceptionalism. that somehow america is different from the rest of the world, and we are better. that americans are kind of innately inherently freedom loving democratic egalitarians.

of his critics offered another take on the american creed, the notion that americans subscribed or had an abiding commitment to these notions of freedom and equality and democracy. they noted that myrdal demonstrated great skill in celebrating american democracy, it even as he detailed the breadth and scope of america's brand of racial apartheid. they charged that he depths ofated the between allexisted classes of whites upper-class , and working-class whites. they treated racism and racist acts as vestiges of the bygone era, marked by pre-rational, pre-democratic, prescientific

movements. he render these problems of segregation as something kind of removed from the essence of american sentiment, something kind of not fitting with the american creed. african-american sociologist , oliver carton, in particular chided him for treating it as something specific to american culture and contended instead that the problem with race and racism was part of the american political and economic structure. the debates that myrdal had with his critics are interesting and frame a lot of discussions about american history.

it creates an interesting interpretive tension, when we think about u.s. political and economic culture as inherently democratic or something else. it does a lot to shape our perspectives, right, of different events. but, i think the tension between myrdal and his critics is interesting for the purposes of the class. you think about the specific problem of violence, and the extent to which it is something central and intrinsic to u.s. history. it is something that is out there, right, that people on the margins of society engage in, right, something that is kind of bound up and woven throughout, you know, a variety of different american traditions and practices, right?

is it embedded in the actions of different institutions. it is a really interesting way, really interesting problem for us to ponder over. so, i think when we think about racial violence in history, it is important to think about it as a kind of long arc, and think about it in its various iterations. in many ways, we can look to the institution of slavery and see the kind of practice of violence as inherent and essential to the institutionalization of slavery in the american south. slaveowners went to great lengths to convince themselves and others that the institution of slavery was a kind of benevolent arrangement between masters and slaves.

right? they were the ones that provide, the masters provided a kind of shelter and food and civilization and religion for their slaves in exchange for labor and obedience and love. right? but, we understand a cursory review of american slavery revealing that the violence was an essential component of the master-slave relationship. right? that masters frequently resorted to corporal punishment, to discipline the slaves and to maintain the essential imbalance between a masters and slaves. masters frequently whipped slaves. i'm sure we've seen yet on a photograph of the gentleman with the crosshatched scars on his back, where he had been whipped repeatedly. slaves were whipped and beaten for disobedience, when they failed to meet their quotas,

they were subject to corporal punishment when they attempted to run away, or when they broke a myriad of rules that governed plantation life. it wasn't always clear that there was a logic to the violence, that sometimes it was unexpected and unanticipated. slaves lived in constant folder ability to the vulnerability to the masters. slave women were subject to rate -- rape and other forms of sexual exploitation. what is striking about the south is the fact that all of the

violence, short of murder, or serious maiming of the slave, was considered legal, the state regarded this as a purview of masters, as long as they did not kill their property, that was fine. even in cases where masters were found, were determined to have killed at their slaves or mean to them, they were rarely charged with murder or rarely charged and prosecuted for their actions. i think violence, it is interesting to think about it as a defining feature of the post slave south, and we see a continuation of that world which originated in the slave south. new constitutional amendments that establish rights for citizens, african-americans, they gained a degree of freedom and independence unimaginable in the slave south.

that's not to be underestimated. we have to think about the different gradations of freedom. i think the fact that emancipation mattered, that it did not result necessarily in equality of races, but was a profound change form the pr-- -- from the previous regime, creating a great deal of an anxiety. it is in this context that you see the rise of institutions like the ku klux klan. it had been seriously undermined with emancipation. the ku klux klan were punishing slaves for their moral behavior and they often resorted to

violence and intimidation to prevent competition from the newly freed people. right? they would take night rides, take people from their homes, and many victims were killed execution style by shooting and hanging. they were raped and whipped and otherwise humiliated. i think, in these ways, you can see the violence, right, as a continuation of patterns and traditions of racial domination that were endemic to racial culture. i think it is also important to think about violence and is interesting tension between arthur tools of domination. it is a question we discussed yesterday, that white southerners didn't necessarily turn to violence when all other methods of domination failed. right?

violence was a kind of tool in a large toolbox, right? it provided them the means to exert their power that they lost in the war, right? we can see that kind of play out, played and replayed in different variations throughout the late 19th and 20th century. lynching is arguably the most conspicuous form of racial violence in the late 19th and early 20th century. what do you know about lynching? it is difficult to avoid if you know anything about u.s. history. nobody knows anything about lynching? yes? >> it was almost kind of a

show. people would come and bring their families to watch a lynching. during different periods. >> it could get out of hand really quickly. sometimes it would just turn into mob violence or anger not directed toward the individual but to whoever was on the street who could get caught up in this anger, this general, in towns there would be an anger of like, what are we doing, we are losing power, things are out of control. prof. gadsden: yes. >> it was somewhat like a religious spectacle. people side as, a churchgoer would see a sacrifice. it was something they believed in. there were showing an offering to the people. prof. gadsden: yes. it has elements of all of that. for our purposes, is important to define lynching. it is killing perpetuated by a group of persons working outside the law to avenge a crime, real or imagined. to impose a social order.

the origin of the term "lynch" comes from the revolution. colonel charles lynch of the virginia instituted an extra-legal court that used flogging. this practice of lynching evolved over the 19th century. initially, we are most associated with the west, with the frontier. white and mexicans and native americans were the primary victims. but once we get into civil war and reconstruction, we see practice of lynching becoming increasingly a southern phenomenon and increasingly an exercise perpetuated against african-americans by whites.

and it involves various kinds of meetings of different forms of torture -- of beatings, of different forms of torture. but what is essential to understand is the extent to which this was public ritual. it was often times carried out in town squares. it was advertised, right? lynchings were performed with the knowledge and understanding and permission of authorities, even with the police not actively participating, they stood by, they allowed victims to be removed from jail, to be taken further from the mob.

this institution of lynching really you thoughts kind of hand-in-hand -- really even often kind -- evolved kind of hand-in-hand with the disenfranchisement of african americans after the war. it was another tool in the toolbox that whites used to disenfranchise african-americans. between 1882 and 1950, we don't have exact figures of how many people were lynched, but it is estimated that roughly 6000 americans died at the hands of lynch mobs. mississippi, georgia, and texas led the way. of those who were lynched, roughly 1/3 were suspected of rate, or attempted rape. the most -- next most popular category was murder or attempted murder. but african-americans were lynched for a variety of other transgressions not including assault, burglary, petty theft, or theft. but there was a problem with lynching, perceived or imagined, but i think the study of the work reveals something

interesting about the practice of lynching. it was not just african-americans suffering lynching for perceived wrongs, but they also suffered lynchings when they succeeded. when they demonstrated economic success, when they demonstrated political independence, right? they often aroused consternation and antagonism of local lights who descended upon them and took their lives. there is a terribly important incident of lynching that occurred in 1889, right down the street of i-85 and you can, georgia, where a man, a black farmer, was accused of murdering his white employer and raping his wife. i think the important problem here is accused of -- none of these victims were ever accused

or found guilty of a crime, but even if they were found guilty, there was an extralegal outlook to this, or the state abdicated its responsibility towards disciplining and holding to account actual criminals. but the significant thing about this lynching was the public spectacle of it all. thousands of people turned out to witnesses lynching. excursion trains were organized to bring people from atlanta out to nuven georgia. he was tortured and mutilated before he was eventually burned to death, and his body parts were then distributed and sold afterwards. local photographers snapped and distributed pictures of the violence, and with many lynchings there actually

developed a considerable market -- there is a great exhibition on lynchings if you have an opportunity to see it. it is really moving. the composition of lynch mobs is often difficult to discern, but researchers believe that the participants held -- hailed across the spectrum. they were rich folks, poor folks, civil leaders, church leaders. there was this interesting element of mass complicity. whether or not -- we tend to focus on the most immediate perpetuate her's of violence, those people who made the nooses and actually kill the people, but i think what is interesting and important about the lynching and the public spectacle was the way that it was kind of this mass, popular effort of violence

against an individual and assertion of white supremacy and the face of perceived black crimes or black insertion into political and economic authority. there is another form of violence i think is important to remember about southern history. i would like to just borrow from european and russian history and thick about -- and think about that. in russia, there is a term used to define the wrecking of -- their waking of havoc or to demolish violently. it typically refers to a tax -- attacks of non-jewish populations toward jewish populations. in america, they are called race riots.

in 1898 in wilmington, north carolina, a mob of nearly 2000 men attacked a black newspaper after it published what was perceived as an inflammatory article, questioning the motives of lynch mobs. this is kind of against the backdrop of a really important election in which democrats and republicans were vying for political power in the city. two dozen african-americans -- more than two dozen were killed, and many others were forced from towns. this is an important moment in southern history, one around which there is great discussion in wilmington, north carolina. and there was also the tulsa race wyatt -- racer riot in 1921

-- race riot in 1921. in this case, a group of whites performed a 16 hour attack on the greenwood district, then known as the black wall street. in this riot, it is estimated that between three dozen and 300 african-americans were killed, 35 blocks were raised, and over 1000 residents were destroyed. there are amazing photographs of burnt out structures as far as the eye can see. with the rising tide of civil rights activism, we can discern a wave of anxiety throughout the white south. a kind of next chapter in the history of racial violence in america. african-american soldiers returned for more than -- from war, intent on demanding rights from citizens. the naacp and other

organizations organized and took on challenges to structures of segregation and inequality. and they began to compile a record of success, small, but gradual successes. and they mobilized efforts to regain the right to vote through voter registration campaigns. through all of these things, we can measure forms of white -- whites responded with various forms of violence. violence comes in a variety of different ways. interpersonal violence was a kind of persistent quality of southern society in the mid-20th century. in many instances, african-americans for perceived violations of etiquette could be met by many forms of

interpersonal violence. when we talk about racial etiquette, i think it is important to consider and to use the satellite but more, but we have to imagine a time and a place in -- and to tease this out a little bit more, but we have to imagine a time and it plays in which african-americans were expected to act in a subservient manner to whites, to refer to them as mr. or ms., never in the first name, to take off their hats, to concede the sidewalk so the white person who was walking in the opposite direction. and real or perceived violations of these rules were often met with readings and takings and other forms of humiliation. -- teachings and takings and -- beatings and kickings and other forms of humiliation. as a black man, to make any kind

of gesture, especially a sexualized gesture, towards a white woman. he paid for that in his life. there are many other examples of that. we can see examples of political assassination in the south. the cases of george leeann lamarr smith, who attempted to organize voter registration. -- george leeann lamarr smith, who attempted to organize voter registration. -- george lee and lamarr smith. the president of the mississippi conference of the naacp was assassinated by a sniper for his civil rights efforts in jackson, mississippi. the biggest example is martin luther king, junior, who i think was a victim of a political

assassination for his political activities. we can see episodes of racial terrorism in the south, i think. terrorism is the kind of fraught word to be used in the contemporary context, but i don't think it is a stretch to talk about racial terrorism in the jim crow south, especially when we think about the bombing of the 16th street that discharge in 1968. the large amount of dynamite that was placed in that church and detonated with the express purpose of killing and intimidating african-americans for a particular political and, which was to kind of undermine and subvert the growth of the african-american civil rights movement at that time will stop

-- at that time. there were numerous incidents of white mob violence in the jim crow south. white demonstrators. if anybody is familiar with the stories of the freedom riders, when they pulled into those stations in anniston, and montgomery, with the kind of tacit support of the police, whites descended on the buses, on the station, and mercilessly beat these civil rights activists while police stood by and allow that to happen. we can see other incidents of that. and then there is the problem of police violence, which seems to factor in our cold case project here. there is this terrible incident in 1946 that involved a gentleman named isaac.

-- isaac woodard. he was a u.s. army sergeant. he was on a bus and had a dispute with a bus driver. he wanted to use the restroom, the bus driver objected, the bus driver later called the police, the police removed him from the bust and jailed him. during incarceration, police beat wondered and blinded him. this is a case that became very important in thinking about -- in moving president truman to begin to support various civil rights measures. you think about this american soldier, it became -- it was an

important moment, and emblematic moment in thinking about violence in the south. and there is eugene o'connor, most of us know about him and these iconic images and footage of his police force and then unleashing dogs on nonviolent protesters and such. for us, i challenge us to think about the problem of islands as we give context to the events set -- the events surrounding the murder of isaiah nixon. it is to think about the extent to which what happened to nixon was an aberration, right? i think there is a way in which we might frame is murder as that, as the kind of outcome of two deranged individuals' crazy racism. but i think it is important for us to work to give context to

all of these incidents of violence, right? and maybe kind of challenge the thesis a little bit about these problems that were aberrations to the american creed. that the problem of violence -- we can talk about race violence or other forms of violence being more central to our collective history than we other times -- oftentimes are willing to admit. and there is this interesting problem of complicity, that it is certainly the case that two men approached isaiah nexen and killed him, literally. but these men were part of a community. there were witnesses, literally and figuratively, to their violent action.

these men had the choice, they had a myriad of choices to hold these men to account or let them go. in the kind of community's decisions, i think we can tell an interesting story about u.s. history. i would like to kind of leave you with that final challenge, because i think that -- and therein lies the possibility inherent in our work in this class. prof. kilbanoff: we will keep going unless you have some questions. we will push on to the end.

prof. gadsden: we will have time for the end, too. prof. kilbanoff: i just started thinking as you were talking, i hadn't put this together. of course, we are looking at isaiah nixon in 1948. look at the atlanta race riot from 1906. atlanta was very widely known and understood -- atlanta had and still does one of the most significant upper-middle-class african-american populations in the country, and it did even then. they came under serious attack in the 19 oh six race riots. it just occurred to me that there would have been -- 1906 race riots. it occurred to me that there would have been people alive in 1946 or 48 who lived through the atlanta race riot and would have remembered it, and it would have sort of been a benchmark moment in their lives.

there were in georgia other klan-like groups. there was the black shirts. they would threaten businesses that had any thought about hiring blacks. particularly in the city, they did not want cities to hire blacks. a used to walk around with signs that said "city jobs are for white folks." they would enforce it brutally. there was the supreme kingdom, the colombians, there were homegrown georgia groups that were significant perpetrators of violence. it is interesting, because we were talking yesterday, and we did have this topic where we were noodling through this idea that violence is not necessarily

the last resort. when everything else has failed to keep the social order and white supremacy intact, if you can't keep them from voting and you can't keep them from sitting in the schools, we are going to go to violence -- that wasn't the case. violence was often the first order of business. it was embedded into the laws, the voting laws, and the political infrastructure. you can't jump to any presumption that nothing else was working, let's just go and kill. i want to talk about two things that are really important, i don't know if they will astonish you or surprise you, about the way that georgia was built in one case, and the way that south -- the south was built in the other. i want to talk about political

decision-making, electoral politics just briefly in georgia. we will dive into the works of a professor at georgia southern, he is looking at this in a big way, that is the georgia county unit system. what can be more boring than to say -- prof. gadsden: these are political scientists in this room. they should be judging for this. -- jonesing for this. [laughter] prof. kilbanoff: that's right. georgia was known for being distinguished by the county unit system. it was a perversion -- don't mean to give you a political statement, but you will see what i mean -- it was a perversion of the political structure that gave the rural parts of the states far more influence in electoral politics than the urban areas.

it went back to the 1700s in georgia, but it really caught fire in the mid-1800s. this system where both the legislature was set up, and the power was distributed, and elections, and the electoral college. we all know in this country, the person who wins the most votes does not necessarily become president, it is whoever gets the most electoral votes. georgia had a similar situation called the county unit system. i am going to give you an idea of how that worked, but it was seen as a way of protecting the rural areas and not letting the big-city slickers run roughshod over the county in the world

-- and the rural folks. this is how it works. at the time, georgia had 132 counties, which is a lot. today it has 159. and it has so many counties because that's where the power was. people wanted their own counties so they can have their own power. i'm just going to take you back to the mid-1800s. 132 counties. the reason i had my board here, i couldn't find a marker, but you all write down and see the maps yourselves. the six largest counties in population had three seats each in the house of representatives, that's 18 seats held by the six largest counties. the 31 next largest had two each. and the 95 others had one each. the smallest had 95 seats out of 132. the middle counties had 62.

the largest counties had 80 -- 18. so you can see how they created this intentional balance to keep our out of the city slickers. the best politicians were not those who merely played to the rural interests, but those who targeted the city and urban interests as anathema to the overall best interest of the state. that is something we will look at more closely to understand why when you're running for governor you can almost abandon the campaign in the cities, because if you could stack up enough rural counties, you -- -- you won. what was not unique, but pretty much south wide, was known as the all-white primary.

the all-white primary existed in georgia, south carolina, texas, and many states. what that meant was when the democrats had their primary to decide who their candidate would be in the general election, only white people could vote. now, blacks could vote in the general election, but not in the primary. why is that significant? why is it significant that blacks could not vote in the democratic primary? what would be the simplest explanation? did he beat you to it? student: no, he raised his hand. prof. kilbanoff: all you did was give me a nod. student: wouldn't the primaries

be the place -- it's the front runner or whatnot, so you are already putting out representatives of that white belief, so you are not doing much in the general election, because it is already a preordained type of thing. prof. kilbanoff: who was the dominant party in the 1940's? you are absolutely right, and i'm going to put some more flash flesh on those bones. who was the dominant party in the south, political party? the democrats. they were the party of the white people, ok? are you familiar with to the party of african-americans might have been when they had the vote? republicans. why?

why were african-americans in the 1920's, 1930's, even the late 1800s, more republican? student: [indiscernible] prof. kilbanoff: lincoln was a republican, they were the party of the emancipation proclamation. because african-americans did not participate and were not allowed to in the political system that much, what really mattered is what happened in the democratic primary. whoever won the democratic primary won the election. in the general election, there would be one person on the ballot. but challenges to this system began mounting in the 1940's. chief among them was a challenge mounted in this state by a man we may not even want to profile this semester, a man named

trimus king. he was aided greatly in his challenge to the all-white primary by a manual see on our website when you get to it, thomas brewer, a physician in columbus, an african-american. he helped him in a lawsuit challenging in federal court the muscogee county, they are saying, their failure to allow me to vote in the democratic primary is a violation of my 14th and 15 amendment -- 15th amendment rights. equal protection and voting rights.

the federal court, two of them found in favor of king on this in 1945 and 1946. do you see the period we are talking about? we are talking about the period leading up to the murder of dixon. while this was pending, another case reaches the state supreme court and they actually rule on the texas case first. what they said was the democratic party in the state of texas bank cannot have an all-white primary. the party is an extension of state government, and state government cannot discriminate. interesting dynamic. what does georgia do? they quickly pass a law that says "a party of georgia is not a part of state government, it is -- that says the democratic party of georgia is not a part

of state government, it can do whatever it wants. the supreme court has to take this issue up separately. on april 1, it was no april fool's joke. april 1, 1946, just three months before the next door to democratic primary, in which a leading democratic candidate for governor, jean thomas, had been governor three times already. .- jean talmage jintao meant had been governor three times already. i caution you to not overuse the word "racist." let's be a little more specific about what that means.

white supremacists often means something different. i will use the word out and out racist with you jintao much. -- with eugene talmage. he was a populist, he supported the new deal, but he would do anything to try to get elected. he is trying to reclaim the governor's office in 1946. he is on the ballot. the united states supreme court ruled that george's all-white primary was unconstitutional, and said they cannot and black -- ban black people from voting in the primary. you would think that we succeeded, we are all going to vote. georgia was not going to give up. it spread to the 1946 election and the days leading up to that. -- it spent the 1946 election

and the days leading up to that purging a lot of blacks. a lot blacks were disenfranchised further and were not allowed to register, all sorts of barriers. eugene talmadge gets elected governor in 1946. even as he is awaiting inauguration, and this gets pretty good, the fbi had been investigating the disenfranchisement of blacks in the 1946 election, and had so many cases that they were considering indicting eugene talmadge. now the governor elect in the state of georgia for disenfranchising blacks. one man was the only black man in taylor county to vote, and he was killed shortly after. eugene talmage, as governor elect, escaped indictment. how did he do this? because you will never guess this one.

he died, ok? talmage died before he was able to take office. it unleashed this remarkable period of georgia history where three men claimed to be governor at the same time. the sitting governor, who really by some standards back then had a very progressive reputation, ellis arnold. he said, i am the sitting governor, i am just going to stay here and hold onto this. the lieutenant governor elect, who was talmadge's ballot with him, and gets elected lieutenant governor, says, wait a second, i am the next person -- by the way, this is the first election in georgia history where there

was a lieutenant governor candidate. they had never had one. this is all new to them. he said that his name -- he said, no, i am the governor because the governor who was elected died, and i am due to the governor. talmadge's son, herman, here is how he got the claim to be governor. it was known that eugene talmadge was sick. they thought there was a possibility he would not make it. so they deployed people right into herman town. but at that point, there is no republican on the ballot, there is only talmadge.

so who comes in second? herman, with a small number of write-in ballots. so he claims it. this creates a real crisis in georgia. ultimately, the powers that be, all these parties, negotiated and decided the only way to solve this is a do over. let's have another election in 1948. so it is the 1948 election that will be the focus, with isaiah nixon. as we know, like snipes, he too was killed for voting. closing out here, as you dig into this case, and you say, ok,

who was isaiah nixon? and you think about what you know, what you read, even in high school, and maybe read "invisible man" by ralph ellison, maybe you read other literature, whether fiction or nonfiction, about the subservient role that whites treated blacks with, sort of not knowing they were there. and understand that most of these men and women, when they died, they did not make the papers. it was not known, it was tragic and their families. but the world at large did not take note. and they are buried in some cases in unmarked graves, and in some cases in ways that they can

never be identified. i want to show you what we discovered when we went down to terrell county to dawson, georgia and met with the james bridger family, the man who was killed for driving the car. we met with his sister, sarah, who was with him the day that his wife -- rushed, took them to the hospital, for which he never returned. two of his daughters were there the day he was beaten on the lawn by the police. they agreed to take us to the grave site where he is buried. we are really glad they did, because we would have never found it on our own. this is his gravesite, down in dawson, and this is his headstone. i don't even think a rubbing would tell us who he is.

here is a man who is at risk of being lost to history, of being a cipher in history, of remaining an invisible man. what we are doing here is restoring whatever dignity they had by telling their stories. these aren't perfect people. that doesn't matter. they have a story. finding a story, telling their story, trying to get their story something they, we can bring them back to life -- bring their story some dignity. we can't bring them back to life, but we can bring their life meaning. any questions or conversations? student: [indiscernible]

prof. kilbanoff: snipes voted in the primary. student: when did isaiah vote? prof. kilbanoff: i'm trying to remember the month, i believe that was also the primary. what was most going to be a front to the whites was people voting in the primary. prof. gadsden: i think this is such a great image that i think helped to frame the work that we are doing, that the subject of our work in the cold case project has been lost to history, and we have the opportunity to recover them. i think it was very powerful to meet the family who showed us the grave, and his headstone that seemed weathered away and will be lost.

so i think it will be interesting for us to think about how to recover isaiah nixon and how to tell his story, and how to maybe hold some of the people to account for their actions against nixon. i think it will be a really interesting opportunity for us as writers, as researchers, to consider our obligations to a much rotter community than typically asked of students at university. generally, you are writing for your faculty.

i think here, we are asking you to write to a much broader audience. i think that presents a wonderful opportunity for you to bring to bear your diverse interests and skill sets to recovering these stories and kind of -- doing the work of recovery and the remembering that so desperately needs to happen. prof. kilbanoff: i might also add that since i have been making this presentation, i did a tedx talk on this. i did it at a board of ethics will stop i had three people -- at a board of ethics. i had three people come forward wanting the family to replace

-- wanting to help the family replace that headstone. prof. gadsden: look for e-mails on friday, and we will reconvene next week at the same time, same place. theuncer: on the eve of gettysburg,olution, we will belie from the historic district. we will see revolutionaries and loyalists. we will hear about colonial slave life, learn from a master blacksmith and go behind the scenes of william berg's custom designs -- costume designs.

can ask questions of historians and curators throughout the day. williamsburgonial beginning at 11:00 a.m. eastern here on c-span 3. week, "realach america" bring your couple films that help provide context for today's public affairs issues. >> our first impression of damascus is one of surprise when we notice a modern appearance in the center of the city. our opinion soon changes as we step two paces away. of the 300,000 inhabitants, about 80% are muslims and there are naturally many pledges of worship.