History
On July 25, 1946, two young African American married couples were shot and killed near the Moore's Ford Bridge spanning the Apalachee River, 60 miles (97 km) east of Atlanta. George W. Dorsey (born November 1917) a veteran of World War II, had been back in the United States less than nine months after serving nearly five years in the Pacific War. He was with his wife Mae Murray Dorsey (born September 20, 1922), Roger Malcolm (born March 22, 1922) and his wife Dorothy Malcolm (born July 25, 1926), who was seven months pregnant. They were accosted by a mob of white men as they headed to their home.
J. Loy Harrison, a Caucasian man, employed the two young couples as sharecroppers on his farm. Malcolm had been jailed for having stabbed Barnette Hester, a Caucasian man, eleven days prior. Harrison drove Dorothy Malcolm and the Dorseys to Monroe and personally posted the $600 bail for Roger Malcolm to be freed on bail. Malcolm's victim was still hospitalized. As Harrison drove the two couples from the jail back to the farm, at 5:30 p.m. the car was stopped at the bridge by an armed gang numbering between 15 and 20 people.
According to Loy Harrison:
"A big man who was dressed mighty proud in a double-breasted brown suit was giving the orders. He pointed to Roger and said, 'We want that nigger.' Then he pointed to George Dorsey, my nigger, and said, 'We want you, too, Charlie.' I said, 'His name ain't Charlie, he's George.' Someone said 'Keep your damned big mouth shut. This ain't your party.'"
Silently Harrison watched. One of the women identified an assailant, and the mob took the women to a big oak tree and tied them beside their husbands. The mob fired three point-blank volleys. The coroner's estimate counted sixty shots fired at close range.
The killings captured national attention and outrage. President Harry Truman created the President's Commission on Civil Rights. His administration introduced anti-lynching legislation in Congress, but was unable to get it passed against the opposition of the southern Democratic bloc; nonetheless, new energy flowed to the African-American Civil Rights Movement. Georgia Governor Ellis Arnall offered a reward of $10,000 for information, to no avail. After the FBI interviewed nearly 3000 people in their six-month investigation, they issued 100 subpoenas. The investigation received little cooperation, no one confessed, and perpetrators were offered alibis for their whereabouts. No one was indicted for the crime and the FBI found little physical evidence. No one was brought to trial for the crime.
Read more about this topic: 1946 Georgia Lynching
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—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt. Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“There is a history in all men’s lives,
Figuring the natures of the times deceased,
The which observed, a man may prophesy,
With a near aim, of the main chance of things
As yet not come to life.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)