In The Blogosphere One year ago today, on August 13, 2004, Winston “DeRoyal” Carter was found hanging from a tree on County Road 65 in Tuskegee, AL. DeRoyal was 29 years old. DeRoyal was an African American man. The story wasn’t going to get outside of Tuskegee, except a brave individual got the matter to [...]
Tag Archives: alabama
Timothy Mays, 1944-2005
Timothy Mays was a former Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) worker and member of the Black Panthers in Lowndes County, Alabama. He became famous to the world on March 7, 1965 in Selma, Alabama. Mays was among the civil rights marchers who set out that day to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge and were beaten [...]
Selma, Alabama – June 21, 2005
Scott B. Smith looks out at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, site of Bloody Sunday and early point on the Selma to Montgomery March (photo by Benjamin T. Greenberg). For more about Scott B., see: Cleophus Hobbs Day Sitting across from a black panther, watching him eat octopus
Cleophus Hobbs Day
Cleophus Hobbs Day Saturday, June 10, 2006 David Hall Campsite 1 on the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail Sponsored by the White Hall Village Educational Association Here’s the story: After my trip to Mississippi for the 41st Annual Chaney Goodman Schwerner Memorial, I spent some time in Montgomery, Alabama with Scott B. Smith and [...]
Last Week Was An Interesting Week
Two Fridays ago (4/8), my mother called to tell me she had just talked with a retired journalist, named Jeff Prugh. Apparently Jeff had come across my posts on the Roosevelt Tatum story, and he wanted to talk with me. Between my father’s name and the mentions of Delmar, NY in the Tatum series (I [...]
Exhibit No. 43
Langston Hughes wrote this poem for Robert F. Williams as a New Years greeting and published it in The Panther and the Lash (1967). Nina Simone set it to music and recorded it [mp3] on ‘Nuff Said (1968).
Though it ruins the poetry, change “Vietnam” to “Iraq,” and the line about taxes, and you’ve got a song for Winston Carter and the United States in 2004.
I try to follow the little bits of discussion on blogs, live journals, and discussion boards about this story. I can’t say I’m surprised, but still it’s bothers me when I see some people say it couldn’t be a lynching, that such things don’t really happen anymore.
Tuskegee Lynching Update: Family Members Don’t Believe Carter’s Death Was Suicide
The family does not believe Winston Carter would have committed suicide. Winston Carter’s family has further stated that they will take any legal measure necessary to contest the coroner’s report if the coroner declares Mr. Carter’s death a suicide.
Winston Carter’s family has also raised some concerns about the police investigation of his death. Mr. Carter’s family reports that the crime scene was never sealed off. . . .
Political Autobiography
Maybe it was 1937 when my oldest brother and I were in a local WPA theater production of Waiting For Lefty. I remember thinking that a union organizer was the noblest of all jobs even better than playing right field like Mel Ott. I also thought that Jewishsocialist was one word and that Jews who were not socialists were the exceptions even though my mother’s family was among the exceptions.
We were a decidedly secular family. Judaism was some old fashioned thing that my paternal grandmother held onto and it was sort of embarrassing. I did love seders at my Aunt Beck’s house because my Uncle Sam made Exodus come alive. To me Moses was a union organizer and socialist revolutionary and John L. Lewis all rolled into one.
Nothing New In Tuskegee, Alabama
A key piece of the struggle of activists against racist brutality has always been to get enough press to compel authorities, often at higher state or federal levels, to take action. In the 60s the US was fighting the Cold War against Communism. At that time media coverage of racist violence embarrassed the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. What kind of holy democratic alternative to communism was this if brutal, repressive racism was part of the American way of life?
Today we have the War on Terror and the war in Iraq, both in the name of our American freedoms, and we have a similar set of contradictions. We are losing freedoms in the name of freedom. A generation of young people is killing untold numbers of Iraqis and sacrificing their own lives in the name of our freedom and to stop terrorism. Meanwhile, America continues to brand its own sick forms of terror for use against its own citizens. As Scott B. put it, it’s just “another kind of hell in a different period of time.”
If You’re Following The Tuskegee Lynching Story
I will be talking with Scott B. again, early this coming week and posting an update on the situation. So stay tuned . . .
Lynching In Tuskegee —blog this now!!
Yesterday, on Wednesday, August 18, Scott B. was a guest on Montgomery, Alabama’s WKXN call-in radio talk show, It’s For Real. Scott B., who is now retired in Montgomery, Alabama with his wife Linda, was talking about some of the issues facing African Americans in Montgomery today. During the show, a caller called in from Tuskegee and said that a man was found lynched on Friday morning.
Delmar to Bombingham (6) — COMING FORWARD I
On Saturday morning, June 22, 1963, at around 9:00 a.m., A. D. King answered his front door and found Roosevelt Tatum. He was crying and saying he had something in his heart he wanted to tell. Tatum came inside and immediately noticed Paul Greenberg, the only white man among the dozen or more people in the house. Tatum had overcome his fear and wanted to say what he saw. When Tatum explained what he’d seen six weeks earlier, King asked him to talk to the FBI. Tatum agreed and King called the FBI office to say that a man was at his home who saw persons responsible for the bombing.
From Delmar to Bombingham (5) — THE BOMBING
From where he sat on the steps, Tatum could see Birmingham Police Car 49 coming down Avenue H from 13th Street towards 12th Street. The patrol car turned left onto 12th Street, cut its headlights and rolled to a stop across the street at 721 12th Street Ensley, the residence of A. D. and Naomi King. From where she sat, behind one of the porch posts, Miller couldn’t see the car pull up. Tatum whispered not to move or speak. To the officers he was invisible on the shadowy steps. (RT, 15-16, 24-25; AGM1, 17-19, 20)
From the passenger side, a police officer got out from Car 49, walked around the back of the car and across the Kings’ lawn. He seemed to be tossing something near the porch. The officer ran back to the passenger door and got back into Car 49. As the car pulled away the driver tossed something out of his window and onto the Kings’ lawn. The officers weren’t yet three houses away, when the first bomb exploded. (RTD, 3; RT, 15-16, 24-25)
Cindy Adams’ Show Business Report On AGVA’s Show In Birmingham, Ala.
An estimated 20,000—colored and white—brought their own bridge chairs, camp chairs and backyard chairs in what was tagged locally, “Seats for Freedom.” Those without chairs rented them on the grounds for 25c. Or brought pillows. Or squatted on the grass. . . .
An additional 45-minute delay was caused by the late arrival of Ray Charles. His bus couldn’t proceed to the stage because opening the gate would have meant thousands could pour in helter skelter. Near mayhem was averted by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King who quickly stepped forward toward the helmeted policemen on duty, he formed a human chain to stem the onrush. It wasn’t needed. His presence was enough.
Some More on Ray Charles
Charles may have had the strength of character not to complain, yet his strength as a musician came from his mastery of European (“Classical”) traditions and diverse American vernacular traditions.
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- St. Petersburg Police Bind Hands And Feet Of 5-Year-Old African-American Girl
- Lynching In Tuskegee —blog this now!!
- More On The Prisoners From Orleans Parish Prison
- Edgar Ray Killen Says God Will Get You (If You Helped Put Him Away)
