New Acts of Genocide
Since the preparation of the first edition of this petition in October, 1951, the following new acts of genocide against the Negro people have been reported:
A Florida Sheriff, Willis V. McCall, killed Samuel Shepherd and wounded Walter Lee Irvin, 23-year-old Negro prisoners whom he was driving to a re-trial which would have proven conclusively their innocence of a false “rape” charge. Neither federal government nor Florida officials have acted to punish Sheriff McCall for this cold-blooded murder.
Deputy Sheriff Lanclos of Opelousas, Louisiana, killed John Lester Mitchell, a 33-year-old Negro who had filed suit in a federal court seeking the right of Negroes in St. Landry Parish (county) to vote. No action to punish Lanclos has been taken by the Dept. of Justice or the State of Louisiana.
Instead, following Mitchell’s murder, Opelousas police terrorized the Negro community with a “manhunt” for five Negroes who allegedly “attacked” a night-club employee who held a “non-salaried sheriff’'s commission.”
William Harvey, a Negro seaman aboard the U.S. freighter Flying Trader, was shot and killed by the ship’s captain, Franklin Weaver, who was notorious for his racism. The seaman was 1n shock and pleading for mercy when he was shot to death. Weaver was exonerated by a government commission on the ship’s return to the United States.
Mark Ingram, 44-year-old Negro share-cropper of Yanceyville, North Carolina, was indicted on a second charge of intent to commit assault for looking at a 17-year-old white girl from a distance of 75 feet. He had previously been convicted of assault “with intent to commit rape” because of the same accusation.
In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, forty police officers killed: an unarmed 21-year-old Negro youth, Joseph Austin Conway, allegedly being sought for questioning in a robbery. He died in a hail of police bullets while seeking to draw fire away from his family and neighbors.
In Highland Park, Michigan, an 18-year-old Negro youth, William Washam, was shot and killed by Patrolman Paul Gytevai following an automobile traffic incident. Gytevai fired four shots at Washam and left his body huddled against a building where it was found the next morning.
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