Page:We Charge Genocide - 1951 - Patterson.djvu/33

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THE OPENING STATEMENT
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Leroy Foley died in Breckinridge County Hospital, Hardinsburg, Kentucky in August, 1950, after he and two other Negroes lay on the floor three hours, refused medical attention for injuries in an automobile accident. Betty Graves, a nurse in the hospital, said they were refused treatment “because we don’t have facilities for colored people.” A Negro ambulance service was called to transport the men out of the hospital. It was seventy miles away and did not arrive for three hours. Jesse Lawrence, its driver, said, “the blood had not even been wiped from their faces.”

Jessie Jefferson, of Jackson, Georgia, was slain on his farm on June 12, 1948 by two men who accused him of not moving his wagon over to the right quickly enough when they wanted to pass him.

Ellis Hudson, 50, of Nacogdoches, Texas, was shot and killed by a Texas constable, one Heppenstead, who had beaten and imprisoned Hudson’s son during the week of March 31, 1948 because the boy did not address him as “sir.” The elder Hudson was killed when he came to court to arrange bail for his son.

Hosea W. Allen, of Tampa, Florida was shot and killed on September 26, 1948 when he asked to be served a bottle of beer. Victor Pinella, the proprietor of the tavern, explained that he killed Allen because he did not permit Negro customers. He was freed.

Isiah Nixon, 28-year-old war veteran, was shot and killed in the presence of his wife and children on September 6, 1948 after he had voted in that day’s primary election in Montgomery County, Georgia. A jury freed M. L. Johnson, the killer.

Willie Palmer, was shot five times and critically wounded by J. C. Bradford on June 24, 1950, because he sat in the white section of a restaurant operated at the Knox Glass Company in Jackson, Mississippi. Sheriff Troy Mashburn said the shooting was in “self defense.”

Robert Mallard, 37-year-old Negro salesman, was shot and killed in Lyons, Georgia, on the night of November 20, 1948, after he had led a campaign defending the right of Negroes to vote. His car was stopped and ambushed by three cars set up as a road block. He was killed in the presence of his wife, Mrs. Amy Mallard, his child, and two cousins. Mallard had been warned not to vote in the Democratic primary election.

Otis Newsom, of Wilson, North Carolina, 25-year-old war veteran and the father of three children, was shot and killed during the week of April 4, 1948 by N. C. Strickland, gas station operator. Strickland killed Newsom after the Negro asked that he service his car with brake fluid he had just purchased.

Roe Nathan Roberts, 23-year-old war veteran, was shot and killed in Sardis, Georgia, when he failed to say “yes sir,” to a white man in May of 1947. A student at Temple University, Philadelphia, on the GI Bill of