The Color of the Law: Race, Violence, and Justice in the Post-World War II South (The John Hope Franklin in African American History and Culture) by Gail Williams O'Brien
English | May 31, 1999 | ISBN: 0807848026, 0807824755 | EPUB | 352 pages | 2.6 MB
On February 25, 1946, African Americans in Columbia, Tennessee, averted the lynching of James Stephenson, a nineteen-year-old, black Navy veteran accused of attacking a white radio repairman at a local department store. That night, after Stephenson was safely out of town, four of Columbia's police officers were shot and wounded when they tried to enter the town's black business district. The next morning, the Tennessee Highway Patrol invaded the district, wrecking establishments and beating men as they arrested them. By day's end, more than one hundred African Americans had been jailed. Two days later, highway patrolmen killed two of the arrestees while they were awaiting release from jail.