Posted on 07/25/2005 3:33:34 PM PDT by Libloather
Re-Enactment of 1946 Lynchings Planned
By ERRIN HAINES
Associated Press Writer
ATLANTA Civil rights activists in Georgia hope to stage a re-enactment today of the lynchings that took place on July 25, 1946. They are looking to gain support for the arrest and prosecution of anyone still alive who may have been involved.
As a 20-year-old civil rights activist in 1968, Tyrone Brooks drove 40 miles from Atlanta to Walton County to meet Dan Young, who ran the county's only black funeral home.
"Young man, I want to show you something," Brooks remembers Young telling him.
In the basement of the funeral home, Young opened an old file cabinet and pulled out a manila folder containing photographs of bodies the victims, Young told Brooks, of the last open public mass lynching in the United States.
"That really got my attention," said Brooks, who is now a representative in the Georgia House.
Nearly 40 years later, those disturbing photos still have Brooks' attention.
On Monday, the 59th anniversary of the lynchings that took place on July 25, 1946, he and other civil rights activists hope to stage a re-enactment of the violent act in hopes of gaining support for the arrest and prosecution of anyone still alive who may have been involved or responsible.
Just one month ago, 1,000 members of the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials unanimously passed a resolution urging prosecutors to bring charges for the first time in the unsolved lynchings.
The photos were of Roger and Dorothy Malcom and George and Mae Murray Dorsey, four young black sharecroppers who were gunned down on July 25, 1946, along the Apalachee River.
The re-enactment will start on what is believed to be Barney Hester's property, where Roger Malcom had been arrested not long before the lynching. A fight between the two men hospitalized Hester, who was white, and landed Malcom in jail.
A few days later, according to the FBI's 500-page report on the killings, the Malcoms and Dorseys were riding with a white farmer when 20 to 25 white men stopped the car on the Moore's Ford bridge. The mob forced the couples out of the car, dragged them down a wagon trail about 50 yards from the bridge and shot them with pistols and shotguns. The farmer was spared.
The FBI report named 55 suspects. Brooks said he knows of two living in Walton County, and a few others still alive outside Georgia.
"This is a stain on our history, and a burden on our soul," Brooks said. "But the stain can be erased, and the burden can be lifted. The eyes of the nation shall now focus on Monroe, Georgia, just as the eyes of the nation focused on Philadelphia, Mississippi, and Birmingham, Alabama," he said, referring to the recent prosecutions and convictions in civil-rights era slayings in those cities.
Walton County District Attorney Ken Wynne has said he understands the desire for justice, but that the case lacks sufficient witnesses and evidence.
The FBI was ordered to investigate the case in 1946 by President Truman but was thwarted by a lack of witnesses. Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent Fred Stephens said recently that his office is pursuing every lead it gets.
"They are sparse," he said, "but we have no doubt that there are still people in that community who have specific information about this case."
Rev. Jesse Jackson , left, embraces Georgia State Rep. Tyrone Brooks, right, as the two appear at the 59th anniversary commemoration and re-enactment of the lynchings at the Moore's Ford Bridge service at the 1st African Baptist Church in Monroe, Ga., Monday, July 25, 2005. Jackson spoke as part of the day-long activities in memory of the 1946 lynchings at the bridge. The re-enactment comes exactly a month after 1,000 members of the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials unanimously passed a resolution urging prosecutors to bring charges for the first time in the unsolved lynchings. (AP Photo/Ric Feld)
Loy Harrison, left, shown in this file photo taken July 26, 1946, shows Sheriff J.M. Bond, center, of Oconee County and Coroner W.T. Brown of Walton County, where four blacks were slain near Monroe, Ga., a day earlier. Bond is holding a rope which had allegedly been used to bind the hands of two of the victims. On July 25, 1946, George Dorsey, Mae Murray Dorsey, Roger Malcom and Dorothy Malcom were lynched by a mob on the old bridge that spanned the Apalachee River some 60 miles from Atlanta. No one has ever been charged in the murders. Monday July 25, 2005 marks the 59th anniversary of the lynchings that took place on July 25, 1946. (AP Photo/File)
Randy Ansley, left, portraying Roger Malcolm, Jerry Ansley, second left, portraying George Dorsey, Rosie Crowley, portraying Dorothy Malcolm, and Rachel Howard, right, portraying Mae Murray Dorsey, wait tied up in the woods as members of the Klan prepare to shoot them as they run through a reenactment of the 1946 lynching at the Moore's Ford Bridge outside of Monroe, Ga., Monday, July 25, 2005. Monday marks the 59th anniversary of the lynchings that took place on July 25, 1946. (AP Photo/Ric Feld)
Ray Ansley, portraying a Klansman, waits on the road as a group runs through a reenactment of the 1946 lynching at the Moore's Ford Bridge outside of Monroe, Ga., Monday, July 25, 2005. Monday marks the 59th anniversary of the lynchings that took place on July 25, 1946. (AP Photo/Ric Feld)
Ben Reed, right, and Keith Christian, left, portraying Klansmen, wait by the side of the road with a rope as they run through a reenactment of the 1946 lynching at the Moore's Ford Bridge outside of Monroe, Ga., Monday, July 25, 2005. Monday marks the 59th anniversary of the lynchings that took place on July 25, 1946. (AP Photo/Ric Feld)
Ben Reed, standing left, Keith Christian, right, Haywood Crawford, bending down center, and Doug Love, third from right, portraying Klansmen, put a rope around the neck of Randy Ansley, on ground left, portraying Roger Malcolm, and Jerry Ansley, on ground, second left, portraying George Dorsey, as they run through a reenactment of the 1946 lynching at the Moore's Ford Bridge outside of Monroe, Ga., Monday, July 25, 2005. Monday marks the 59th anniversary of the lynchings that took place on July 25, 1946. (AP Photo/Ric Feld)
Ben Reed, left, and Keith Christian, right, portraying Klansmen, put a rope around the neck of Randy Ansley, center, portraying Roger Malcolm, as they run through a reenactment of the 1946 lynching at the Moore's Ford Bridge outside of Monroe, Ga., Monday, July 25, 2005. Monday marks the 59th anniversary of the lynchings that took place on July 25, 1946. (AP Photo/Ric Feld)
Georgia State Rep. Tyrone Brooks walks past the overgrown yard of the home outside of Monroe, Ga., believed to be the farmhouse of Barney Hester, Sunday, July 24, 2005. As a 20-year-old civil rights activist, in 1968, Brooks met Dan Young, who ran the Walton county's only black funeral home, where he viewed pictures of dead bodies, who were the victims, Young told Brooks, of the last open public mass lynchings in the U.S. On Monday, the 59th anniversary of the lynchings, Brooks and other civil rights activists will re-enact that fateful day with a march starting at this property, in hopes of gaining support for the arrest and prosecution of anyone still alive who may have been involved or responsible. (AP Photo/Ric Feld)
String and wire hold the name plate on the mailbox in front of the home outside of Monroe, Ga., believed to be the farmhouse of Barney Hester, Sunday, July 24, 2005. As a 20-year-old civil rights activist, in 1968, State Rep. Tyrone Brooks met Dan Young, who ran Walton county's only black funeral home, where he viewed pictures of dead bodies, who were the victims, Young told Brooks, of the last open public mass lynchings in the U.S. On Monday, July 25, the 59th anniversary of the lynchings, Brooks and other civil rights activists will re-enact that fateful day with a march starting at this property, in hopes of gaining support for the arrest and prosecution of anyone still alive who may have been involved or responsible. (AP Photo/Ric Feld)
Georgia State Rep. Tyrone Brooks, right, talks with Walton County (Ga.) civil rights activist Bobby Howard, left, on the overgrown porch of the home outside of Monroe, Ga., they believe to be the farmhouse of Barney Hester Sunday, July 24, 2005. As a 20-year-old civil rights activist, in 1968, Brooks met Dan Young, who ran the Walton county's only black funeral home, where he viewed pictures of dead bodies, the victims, Young told Brooks, of the last open public mass lynchings in the U.S. On Monday, the 59th anniversary of the lynchings, Brooks and other civil rights activists will re-enact that fateful day with a march starting at this property, in hopes of gaining support for the arrest and prosecution of anyone still alive who may have been involved or responsible. (AP Photo/Ric Feld)
Get Over It Already Alert!
Well, yes and no. If anybody responsible is still alive, they should go to the chair.
Yes, but that's a legal issue--a re-enactment is a publicity-whore-camera-time issue.
If I were Rep. Brooks, I'd be checking my pocket for my wallet right after picture no. 2.
Re-enacting this is just sick.
Alright! Next up there will be a Re-Enactment of the Carr brothers killings......
But wait, there is more ... Colin Ferguson, NYC railroad gunman, is writing his script at this very moment.
Robert Byrd will show up to play himself.
Don't vomit!
Try not to vomit!
Please don't vomit!
I'm gonna vomit!
Gee whiz, sorry Je$$e! That must be a $200 shirt. Did your love child get that for you?
Did they get the pictures from Sheets Byrds Family Foto Album?
All the KKK's were democrats. They should sue the democrats.
I'm all for re-enacting all of this stuff. At one level, its a blessing that there is almost no one left alive who remembers the bad old days of lynchings, and those of us who were old enough to remember how things were before Martin Luther King are getting gray.
The younger folks have no idea how bad it was. Thats actually a good thing. Those memories will die with us.
The problem with that, though, is that the Democratic Party gets away literally with murder. The Democratic Party is running from its past, and they have been incredibly successful at re-writing history.
So lets be clear. Slavery was Democratic Party policy. Jim Crow was Democrat Party policy. Race repression is Democrat history. Race obsession is Democrat history. Lynch mobs and firehoses and night-riders, all of this is Democrat history.
Republicans were on the right side of history all during the bad old days, and remain so today. Republicans should never make the mistake of trying to explain or defend Democrat history.
Let Democrats explain Democrat history. We're on the side of the angels, and we always were.
Wonder when they will do a re-enactment of the Watts and Detroit Riots?
I'm not saying this or any other unsolved murder case should be closed and forgotten, but I think this media hyped re-enactment is designed more to draw publicity (and political advantage) to the participants than to re-opening the investigation.
It's interesting that these reenactments featured black men in white masks. What, they could've find some guilt-ridden white liberals to play the role of the evil KKK'ers? Bet they never even asked around.
Get real. Jesse Jackson pimps for the Democrats, and the Democrats pimp for Jesse Jackson.
Lynching is no joke. It terrorized the Black population of the South. Remarkably, Franklin Roosevelt would not support a Federal anti-lynching law as late as 1938. This was because Southern Democrats opposed such a law.
Don't I recall having read (probably by Thomas Sowell or the like) that most lynchings were of white victims?
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. . . If anybody responsible is still alive, they should go to the chair.
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I feel that way about ANY murder. If they have real suspects, then pursue it. That having been said, I think this is just grandstanding like the dilweed who "reopened" the atlanta child murder case.
Black-on-white crime is re-enacted by the prosecution every day in every county courthouse in the US.
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