during the week of January 2, 1949 by Corporal Dee E. Watson, Georgia State Trooper. Glasper had been arrested on suspicion of stealing a hog. Sheriff E. W. Miles said that the shooting was “an accident.”
Charles Phifer was shot in the back and killed in the home of his stepmother in the Bronx, New York City, by Patrolman Eugene Stasiuk on January 16, 1949. The patrolman claimed that he shot Phifer—in the back—in “self defense.”
George Waddell was shot in the back and slain in his Brooklyn, New York home by Brooklyn police on February 18, 1949. Police entered his home without a warrant and with no offense charged against Waddell. They claimed they were looking for a gambling game when they forced entry into Waddell’s home. No evidence of gambling was found.
Ike Crawford, 29-year-old prisoner in the Richmond County, Georgia jail was beaten to death on June 5, 1948 by Guards David L. Turner, Horace Wingard and Alvin Jones. The men were indicted for “prison brutality.” A coroner’s jury, however, reported that Crawford died of a “liver disease.”
Other Race Murders
Not all murders or assaults are by police. Some result from segregation, from living in fire traps, or from denying badly injured Negroes entry into hospitals because of their color. Others result from the constant declaration and determination of white supremacists that Negroes have no rights that a white man is bound to respect. The following cases are typical:
Mr. and Mrs. O'Day Short and their two little girls were burned to death two days before Christmas, 1945, in a fire of incendiary origin set by persons who did not want them to move into a “white” neighborhood in Fontana, California. They had received threatening notes and the police informed them they were “out of bounds.” While the family was away, the house was sprayed with an inflammable chemical. When a match was lighted upon the family’s return, there was an explosion and all four were fatally burned.
Three Negro children, Ruby Nell Harris, 4, Mary Burnside, 8, and Frankie Thurman, 12, of Kosciusko, Mississippi were slain on January 8, 1950 by three white men, Leon Turner, Malcom White and Windel Whitt, who also raped Pauline Thurman, 17, and shot Thomas Harris, father and stepfather of the children. Harris died of his wounds. Turner and Windel Whitt received life sentences. Malcolm White was sentenced to ten years imprisonment.
Matthew Avery, 24, student at North Carolina A & T College died after an auto accident on December 8, 1950 when he was refused admittance to Duke Hospital at Durham. He died on hour later.
