WEBVTT 1 00:00:07.639 --> 00:00:11.080 You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking 2 00:00:11.160 --> 00:00:14.160 killers in true crime history and the authors that have 3 00:00:14.240 --> 00:00:21.519 written about them Gaesy, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every 4 00:00:21.559 --> 00:00:25.280 week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and 5 00:00:25.359 --> 00:00:29.879 infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host, 6 00:00:30.280 --> 00:00:32.719 journalist and author Dan Zupanski. 7 00:00:40.359 --> 00:00:43.719 Good evening. On a Sunday morning in the spring of 8 00:00:43.799 --> 00:00:47.840 nineteen twenty one, a small boy made a grim discovery 9 00:00:47.840 --> 00:00:50.759 as he played on a riverbank in the Cotton Country 10 00:00:50.799 --> 00:00:55.359 of rural Georgia. The bodies of two drowned men, bound 11 00:00:55.399 --> 00:00:58.920 together with wire and chain and weighed with one hundred 12 00:00:58.960 --> 00:01:04.239 pounds sack of rocks. Within days, a third body turned 13 00:01:04.280 --> 00:01:07.400 up in another nearby river, and in the weeks that 14 00:01:07.560 --> 00:01:13.359 followed eight others, and with them a deeper horror. All 15 00:01:13.439 --> 00:01:17.040 eleven had been kept in virtual slavery before their deaths. 16 00:01:17.959 --> 00:01:21.319 In fact, as America was shocked to learn, the dead 17 00:01:21.359 --> 00:01:24.760 were among thousands of black men enslaved throughout the South 18 00:01:25.200 --> 00:01:29.599 in conditions nearly as dire as those before the Civil War. 19 00:01:31.879 --> 00:01:35.280 Hell Put to Shame tells the forgotten story of that 20 00:01:35.359 --> 00:01:40.040 mass killing and of the revelations about peonage or debt slavery, 21 00:01:40.519 --> 00:01:45.159 that it placed before a public self satisfied that involuntary 22 00:01:45.239 --> 00:01:50.879 servitude had ended at appomatics more than fifty years before. 23 00:01:52.840 --> 00:01:57.560 By turns police procedural, courtroom drama, and political expose A 24 00:01:58.480 --> 00:02:04.040 hell put to shame also reintroduces three Americans who spearheaded 25 00:02:04.040 --> 00:02:08.439 the prosecution of John S. Williams, the wealthy plantation owner 26 00:02:08.840 --> 00:02:13.000 behind the murders, at a time when white people rarely 27 00:02:13.039 --> 00:02:18.400 faced punishment for violence against their black neighbours. The remarkable 28 00:02:18.479 --> 00:02:23.719 polymath James Weldon Johnson, newly appointed the first black leader 29 00:02:23.800 --> 00:02:27.479 of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 30 00:02:28.479 --> 00:02:32.919 marshaled the organization into a full on war against peonage. 31 00:02:34.120 --> 00:02:38.560 Johnson's lieutenant, Walter F. White, a light skinned, fair haired, 32 00:02:38.639 --> 00:02:42.280 blue eyed black man, conducted under cover work at the 33 00:02:42.319 --> 00:02:46.840 scene of lynchings and other Jim Crow atrocities, helping to 34 00:02:46.879 --> 00:02:50.719 throw a light on such violence and to hasten its end. 35 00:02:51.800 --> 00:02:55.800 And Georgia Governor Hugh M. Dorsey won the State House 36 00:02:56.120 --> 00:03:00.680 as a hero of white supremacists, then redeemed himself in 37 00:03:00.759 --> 00:03:07.080 spectacular fashion with the Murder Farm affair. This is a 38 00:03:07.159 --> 00:03:11.319 story that remains fresh and relevant a century later, as 39 00:03:11.360 --> 00:03:15.919 the nation continues to wrestle with seemingly intractable challenges in 40 00:03:16.039 --> 00:03:20.800 matters of race and justice, and the nineteen twenty one 41 00:03:20.919 --> 00:03:24.039 case at its heart argues that the forces that so 42 00:03:24.280 --> 00:03:29.879 royal society today have been with us for generations. The 43 00:03:29.879 --> 00:03:33.159 book that we're featuring this evening is Hell Put to Shame, 44 00:03:33.759 --> 00:03:37.840 the nineteen twenty one Murder Farm massacre and the Horror 45 00:03:38.000 --> 00:03:43.800 of America's Second Slavery, with my special guest, longtime journalist 46 00:03:44.080 --> 00:03:48.599 and author, Earl Swift. Welcome to the program, and thank 47 00:03:48.599 --> 00:03:52.159 you very much for this interview. Earl Swift, thank you 48 00:03:52.199 --> 00:03:56.599 so much, and congratulations on this book, Hell Put to Shame. 49 00:03:58.080 --> 00:04:00.520 Thank you. It's it's been a long time the making. 50 00:04:01.879 --> 00:04:05.479 Now you write later in the book, but I think 51 00:04:05.599 --> 00:04:09.240 it's important to go and do this in the beginning. 52 00:04:09.919 --> 00:04:13.960 Back in two thousand and seven, you were looking at 53 00:04:14.000 --> 00:04:18.240 some newspapers on microfilm for a book on American highways, 54 00:04:18.560 --> 00:04:22.040 and you came upon a front page headline from March 55 00:04:22.079 --> 00:04:25.759 twenty seventh, nineteen twenty one New York Times. Tell us 56 00:04:25.800 --> 00:04:29.560 about that headline and what it was the impetus for 57 00:04:30.360 --> 00:04:32.480 I'm not sure that it was that date, but it 58 00:04:32.519 --> 00:04:36.800 was certainly that month. I was trolling through microfilm of 59 00:04:37.120 --> 00:04:40.439 nineteen twenty one New York Times is because, as you say, 60 00:04:40.480 --> 00:04:42.639 I was working in a book about the American highway 61 00:04:42.639 --> 00:04:45.000 system and how it came to be. I was looking 62 00:04:45.040 --> 00:04:48.319 for a three line brief that I knew was somewhere 63 00:04:48.360 --> 00:04:52.600 in the paper that month about the Federally Highway Actress. 64 00:04:52.360 --> 00:04:57.199 Nineteen twenty one. Not exactly exciting stuff, but it was 65 00:04:57.519 --> 00:05:00.120 I needed to make a point in the in the 66 00:05:00.120 --> 00:05:02.480 story that I was trying to tell about how overlooked 67 00:05:02.519 --> 00:05:05.360 this incredibly important piece of legislation was, and so I 68 00:05:05.439 --> 00:05:08.480 needed to find this little tiny brief tucked somewhere in 69 00:05:08.519 --> 00:05:11.199 the bowels of the paper. And as I went day 70 00:05:11.240 --> 00:05:14.319 by day through the microfilm, I kept on running into 71 00:05:14.399 --> 00:05:19.000 these front page stories about this murder trial that was 72 00:05:19.079 --> 00:05:23.199 under the investigation at first, and then later on trial 73 00:05:23.839 --> 00:05:27.759 that was underway down in Georgia. The case involved a 74 00:05:27.800 --> 00:05:31.759 word that I had never seen before, that being p andage, 75 00:05:31.879 --> 00:05:35.360 And as I read, I realized, just from what was 76 00:05:35.399 --> 00:05:38.079 said in these stories that P and H was the 77 00:05:38.199 --> 00:05:41.839 word from which we get the word peon, and it 78 00:05:42.000 --> 00:05:46.240 is a form of slavery that managed to endure after 79 00:05:46.360 --> 00:05:51.839 appomatics in the Thirteenth Amendment for generations and well into 80 00:05:51.839 --> 00:05:55.879 the twentieth century, pretty much up until and including World 81 00:05:55.879 --> 00:06:00.360 War Two. Vestes even remained with us today. But this 82 00:06:01.040 --> 00:06:06.920 murder case involved the wholesale slaughter of an entire workforce 83 00:06:07.040 --> 00:06:10.639 on a plantation in World Georgia. And the more I read, 84 00:06:10.920 --> 00:06:13.439 the more I wanted to read. And I abandoned my 85 00:06:13.600 --> 00:06:16.399 research into the Federal Aid Highway Act of nineteen twenty 86 00:06:16.399 --> 00:06:19.560 one for the day and just started reading one story 87 00:06:19.600 --> 00:06:22.680 after another, you know, successive days stories, the coverage of this, 88 00:06:23.360 --> 00:06:26.480 of this investigation, and then the trial of the suspect 89 00:06:26.519 --> 00:06:27.000 in the case. 90 00:06:29.160 --> 00:06:32.720 You take us, as the reader to January nineteen twenty one, 91 00:06:33.079 --> 00:06:36.439 two special agents at the US Department of Justice Bureau 92 00:06:36.480 --> 00:06:40.839 of Instigation, the forerunner of today's FBI. You write, we're 93 00:06:40.879 --> 00:06:44.439 working when a black man named Gus Chapman walked in. 94 00:06:45.680 --> 00:06:47.879 Tell us what he told agents. 95 00:06:48.199 --> 00:06:51.120 Gus Chapman told agents that he had been working in 96 00:06:51.120 --> 00:06:54.439 Atlanta the previous year, in nineteen nineteen, and that he 97 00:06:54.480 --> 00:06:58.680 had been picked up for vagrancy. Now, vagrancy was one 98 00:06:58.720 --> 00:07:02.800 of a set of laws developed by Southern states after 99 00:07:02.839 --> 00:07:08.759 the Civil War, aimed almost exclusively at their young black 100 00:07:08.839 --> 00:07:13.160 male populations. You did not see white people being picked 101 00:07:13.240 --> 00:07:16.040 up her vagrancy. And the definition of the term is, 102 00:07:16.079 --> 00:07:17.600 of course, you have no money in your pocket or 103 00:07:17.680 --> 00:07:20.240 no job. It doesn't matter whether you're looking for a job. 104 00:07:20.279 --> 00:07:24.079 But you happen to get stopped when you're penniless and 105 00:07:24.120 --> 00:07:27.160 looking for work. You're a vagrant and you're going to jail. 106 00:07:27.800 --> 00:07:30.600 Gus Chapman had been picked up on this vagrancy charge. 107 00:07:30.680 --> 00:07:33.120 He had been hit with a fine that he could 108 00:07:33.199 --> 00:07:35.600 not pay, and so he was looking at six months 109 00:07:35.639 --> 00:07:39.920 on the chain gang. And while he pondered this fate 110 00:07:40.800 --> 00:07:45.560 in walk to farmer from Jasper County, forty miles southeast 111 00:07:45.560 --> 00:07:49.920 of Atlanta. This farmer said, look, you know, things are 112 00:07:49.920 --> 00:07:53.199 looking pretty bleak for you. The chain gangs no fun 113 00:07:53.279 --> 00:07:55.879 at all. Why don't you let me pay your fine 114 00:07:56.279 --> 00:07:58.720 and then you can come work out your sentence with me. 115 00:07:59.240 --> 00:08:01.160 I'll put you to a work, work, and then when 116 00:08:01.319 --> 00:08:02.519 you know you get to the end of your term, 117 00:08:02.759 --> 00:08:04.360 I'll let you go. But in the meantime, you know 118 00:08:04.399 --> 00:08:07.560 it'll be it'll be like a home to you. Now. 119 00:08:07.759 --> 00:08:11.160 Gus Chapman, being a young he was thirty nine years 120 00:08:11.160 --> 00:08:13.680 old at the time. A young black man in the 121 00:08:13.759 --> 00:08:18.279 South had done almost exclusively agricultural work, so this was 122 00:08:18.279 --> 00:08:21.360 pretty attractive to him. So he went off with this 123 00:08:21.560 --> 00:08:23.839 farmer who turned out to be the son of a 124 00:08:23.839 --> 00:08:28.040 plantation owner in Jasper County, and he found out that 125 00:08:28.360 --> 00:08:33.639 its charms had been oversold pretty dramatically. He was kept imprisoned. 126 00:08:33.679 --> 00:08:36.000 He was locked up at night with others in the 127 00:08:37.080 --> 00:08:39.360 same boat, other young black men who had been bailed 128 00:08:39.399 --> 00:08:43.039 out of local jails. He worked at the wrong end 129 00:08:43.080 --> 00:08:46.759 of a shotgun barrel. He was beaten for any infraction 130 00:08:46.919 --> 00:08:50.080 real or imagine, most of them imagined, and these were 131 00:08:50.120 --> 00:08:56.159 beatings with whatever was handy, bridles, trace chains, of a 132 00:08:56.200 --> 00:08:58.600 lot of the stuff that would be used to haul 133 00:08:58.639 --> 00:09:03.039 wagons and carriages. He also told the agents that he 134 00:09:03.080 --> 00:09:09.080 had witnessed the white overseers of this plantation murder some 135 00:09:09.159 --> 00:09:11.039 of his fellow peons before his eyes. 136 00:09:13.720 --> 00:09:17.639 He had told of escaping this farm and then being returned, 137 00:09:17.639 --> 00:09:20.840 and then finally escaping once again and making his way 138 00:09:20.879 --> 00:09:21.480 to Atlanta. 139 00:09:22.320 --> 00:09:25.720 Yeah, this was his second second attempt to get away, 140 00:09:26.000 --> 00:09:28.559 and this one succeeded. The first time. He was tracked 141 00:09:28.559 --> 00:09:33.399 down by fellow by some of the plantations other workers 142 00:09:33.960 --> 00:09:37.799 and using dogs, and they cornered him several miles away 143 00:09:37.799 --> 00:09:41.919 from the plantation and brought him back. And had things 144 00:09:41.919 --> 00:09:45.320 gone the way they usually did when a piano escape, 145 00:09:45.320 --> 00:09:46.679 he would have he would have died right there. He 146 00:09:46.679 --> 00:09:49.639 would have been he would have been murdered. But he 147 00:09:49.879 --> 00:09:52.159 managed to beg his way out of that with the 148 00:09:52.519 --> 00:09:55.879 assurance that if he tried it again, he'd be killed 149 00:09:55.919 --> 00:09:56.480 like a snake. 150 00:09:58.480 --> 00:10:02.840 The agent's whismer Brown had spoken to another worker named 151 00:10:02.919 --> 00:10:07.519 James Strickland. What was the information that they garnered from him? 152 00:10:08.039 --> 00:10:12.120 Well, it dovetailed almost perfectly with Gus Chapman's information. Strickland 153 00:10:12.159 --> 00:10:15.919 was another escape peon from the same plantation. This is 154 00:10:15.960 --> 00:10:20.320 the john S Williams plantation in Jasper County, roughly eleven 155 00:10:20.399 --> 00:10:24.159 hundred acres. And like Chapman, he had been, you know, 156 00:10:24.639 --> 00:10:27.799 picked up on a trifling charge and bailed out of 157 00:10:27.840 --> 00:10:30.720 jail by the Williams family, brought to the plantation and 158 00:10:30.759 --> 00:10:33.519 then put to work as a slave. And the most 159 00:10:33.519 --> 00:10:36.879 important element of being a peon, I should mention, is 160 00:10:36.919 --> 00:10:41.600 that you know if your life was in the hands 161 00:10:41.759 --> 00:10:44.919 of the plantation owner. There was very little record keeping. 162 00:10:45.320 --> 00:10:47.799 The state didn't keep track of where you were after 163 00:10:47.799 --> 00:10:50.360 you left their custody. You know, these peons would be 164 00:10:50.399 --> 00:10:53.399 bailed out of the jail and they vanished into the 165 00:10:53.440 --> 00:10:55.679 void as far as the state was concerned. So the 166 00:10:55.679 --> 00:11:00.200 plantation owners were who used this system were breeded do 167 00:11:00.279 --> 00:11:03.519 whatever they wanted, and they had very little, very little 168 00:11:04.120 --> 00:11:07.320 financial incentive to treat their people well, to even keep 169 00:11:07.360 --> 00:11:11.799 them alive. In the bad old days of chattel slavery, 170 00:11:12.759 --> 00:11:15.279 a plantation owner at least had that he had a 171 00:11:15.360 --> 00:11:20.360 financial incentive to care for his slaves insofar as he 172 00:11:20.519 --> 00:11:24.720 had a big investment in them, and that investment group 173 00:11:24.840 --> 00:11:27.720 from year to year, and so it made no sense 174 00:11:27.799 --> 00:11:30.440 to kill a slave, you know, to beat him to 175 00:11:30.480 --> 00:11:33.360 the point where he was he was crippled, because you 176 00:11:33.759 --> 00:11:37.879 were hurting your own investment. Whereas a plantation owner in 177 00:11:37.919 --> 00:11:40.320 the nineteen twenties who was getting peons out of the 178 00:11:40.360 --> 00:11:45.039 local jail. Whereas a plantation owner who kept peons had 179 00:11:45.159 --> 00:11:49.440 only the investment of the you know, the piddling find 180 00:11:49.759 --> 00:11:53.320 that he had paid and so had very little skin 181 00:11:53.320 --> 00:11:54.879 in the game. Really, when you get down to it 182 00:11:55.039 --> 00:12:00.120 in terms of treating anyone with even a modicum of humanity. 183 00:12:01.320 --> 00:12:06.080 You write about the Bureau of Visiting driving to Jasper 184 00:12:06.159 --> 00:12:09.840 County February eighteenth, nineteen twenty one, and they went to 185 00:12:09.879 --> 00:12:13.080 the john S Williams home place three hundred and twenty 186 00:12:13.080 --> 00:12:18.200 five acres. Primarily, Caughton tell us about that meeting and 187 00:12:18.279 --> 00:12:19.799 what do they see and what do they learn? 188 00:12:20.559 --> 00:12:22.879 Well, the executive summary is that they were told by 189 00:12:23.000 --> 00:12:25.679 john S Williams that what they had been, you know, 190 00:12:26.080 --> 00:12:28.360 the information that they brought with them from these two 191 00:12:28.440 --> 00:12:32.039 escape peons was nonsense. That he ran a happy place, 192 00:12:32.120 --> 00:12:35.919 that his quote boys end quote all wanted to be there, 193 00:12:36.279 --> 00:12:40.559 were treated well fed, well housed well, and the agents 194 00:12:40.799 --> 00:12:45.759 could see from just looking around that the field hands 195 00:12:45.759 --> 00:12:48.200 did in fact appear to be well nourished and well 196 00:12:48.240 --> 00:12:51.200 clothed and whatnot. But when they went on a tour 197 00:12:51.279 --> 00:12:54.559 of the property with Williams, they came upon a bunk 198 00:12:54.600 --> 00:12:58.200 house that was locked from the outside, and they saw 199 00:12:58.320 --> 00:13:01.440 other physical evidence that in the agg or get convinced them, 200 00:13:01.440 --> 00:13:05.679 you know, this guy's he's running a peunage operation. Now 201 00:13:05.679 --> 00:13:09.039 they realized after talking attempting to talk to some of 202 00:13:09.039 --> 00:13:11.919 the peans that they none of these workers would say 203 00:13:11.919 --> 00:13:15.600 a word. They were terrified of Williams. And so the 204 00:13:15.639 --> 00:13:18.840 agents agents Wismar and Brown realized they were going to 205 00:13:18.879 --> 00:13:21.639 have to figure out a way to get these these 206 00:13:21.919 --> 00:13:25.399 field hands away from the boss so they could speak freely. 207 00:13:25.919 --> 00:13:28.519 And until then their case was kind of with sky Meet. 208 00:13:29.759 --> 00:13:32.919 Well, they did speak to some people on that farm 209 00:13:33.000 --> 00:13:38.279 that day until and took them for questioning separately until 210 00:13:38.360 --> 00:13:40.519 John Williams arrived back at the farm. 211 00:13:41.039 --> 00:13:45.879 I mean, they did not These were very rudimentary interviews. 212 00:13:45.960 --> 00:13:48.360 These were done on the fly. They caught people as 213 00:13:48.399 --> 00:13:50.679 they were in the middle of work. This was not 214 00:13:50.840 --> 00:13:54.240 something that you build a case around. And frankly, they 215 00:13:54.279 --> 00:13:58.240 gleaned very little information from talking to those three because 216 00:13:58.279 --> 00:14:01.200 they liked the other. PI said, the agents try to 217 00:14:01.240 --> 00:14:02.559 talk to you. We're terrified. 218 00:14:03.559 --> 00:14:06.559 Now you're right about The investigation is stimied until four 219 00:14:06.600 --> 00:14:10.159 weeks later after agents. After the agents visit, a young 220 00:14:10.600 --> 00:14:15.000 boy discovers a body and tell us about this discovery. 221 00:14:15.919 --> 00:14:19.559 Yeah. Back, of course, the agents had visited on February eighteenth, 222 00:14:19.960 --> 00:14:23.399 and they drove off with a lot of work ahead 223 00:14:23.399 --> 00:14:25.639 of them if they wanted to build a case. And 224 00:14:25.679 --> 00:14:28.639 so it wasn't going to happen anytime soon, and so 225 00:14:28.960 --> 00:14:31.159 you know, this case fell into kind of slid of 226 00:14:31.200 --> 00:14:34.840 the back burner in their minds. And then the weekend 227 00:14:35.000 --> 00:14:37.840 a couple weeks before eastern March of nineteen twenty one, 228 00:14:39.000 --> 00:14:42.200 young boy is playing under a bridge on the Yellow 229 00:14:42.279 --> 00:14:46.759 River in neighboring Newton County. This is fourteen miles from 230 00:14:46.759 --> 00:14:51.360 the Williams place by road, and he notices something odd 231 00:14:51.399 --> 00:14:54.879 in the middle of the river, a foot sticking up 232 00:14:54.919 --> 00:14:58.279 out of the water. So it goes and gets some neighbors. 233 00:14:58.279 --> 00:15:01.399 They take a boat out that this foot belongs to 234 00:15:01.440 --> 00:15:03.960 a young black man who is drowned in the water, 235 00:15:04.440 --> 00:15:09.440 and he's tied with wire to another young black man 236 00:15:10.000 --> 00:15:12.840 also in the water, also drowned. They dragged the bodies 237 00:15:12.879 --> 00:15:17.639 to the shore. There before them are two field workers, 238 00:15:17.679 --> 00:15:20.559 obviously by the way they're dressed and cover alls and whatnot, 239 00:15:21.200 --> 00:15:25.639 who had been wired together, what wired, you know, their hands, 240 00:15:25.960 --> 00:15:28.720 Their hands were tied behind their backs with wire and 241 00:15:28.759 --> 00:15:31.639 then that wire was tied together so they were bound 242 00:15:31.679 --> 00:15:34.480 to each other, and then wrapped around their necks was 243 00:15:34.919 --> 00:15:38.240 a heavy chain, a trace chain, and tied to the 244 00:15:38.320 --> 00:15:42.600 trace chain was a one hundred pounds sack of rocks. 245 00:15:43.240 --> 00:15:45.799 So the you know, the local some in the sheriff, 246 00:15:46.240 --> 00:15:49.799 who in turn some of the county coroner, the local 247 00:15:49.799 --> 00:15:53.639 doctor who operated as the coroner, and a corner's inquest 248 00:15:53.639 --> 00:15:56.039 took place right there in the river, and they determined 249 00:15:56.080 --> 00:15:59.679 that these men, who were in their twenties if not younger, 250 00:16:00.320 --> 00:16:02.120 had been alive when they hit the water, and that 251 00:16:02.159 --> 00:16:05.080 they had been thrown off that bridge that the little 252 00:16:05.120 --> 00:16:08.039 boy had been playing under. That bridge was called Allen's Bridge, 253 00:16:08.720 --> 00:16:12.960 and it's between Monticello and Jasper County and Jackson, the 254 00:16:13.000 --> 00:16:15.120 county seat of neighboring Butts County. 255 00:16:16.559 --> 00:16:19.759 Now, this story hits the papers the next day, and 256 00:16:19.919 --> 00:16:27.000 also those agents in Atlanta read about the story as well. 257 00:16:27.159 --> 00:16:30.639 Well, it does hit the papers. You know. One of 258 00:16:30.639 --> 00:16:33.679 the really intriguing things about this case. I would love 259 00:16:33.799 --> 00:16:35.480 to be able to go back in time, Dan to 260 00:16:36.320 --> 00:16:38.720 just to see how this worked. But you know, this 261 00:16:39.360 --> 00:16:41.960 little boy made this discovery in the Yellow River in 262 00:16:42.000 --> 00:16:43.879 the middle of nowhere, and it was the middle of 263 00:16:43.919 --> 00:16:46.440 nowhere back in nineteen twenty one. It remains the middle 264 00:16:46.480 --> 00:16:48.919 of nowhere. Now this is at the very far tip, 265 00:16:48.960 --> 00:16:51.120 at the southern tip of Newton County and there's just 266 00:16:51.159 --> 00:16:55.720 nothing around. People have some houses on the river, but 267 00:16:56.519 --> 00:17:00.840 you know they're a long ways away. This is in 268 00:17:00.879 --> 00:17:04.559 this is the back of beyond. And within no time 269 00:17:04.640 --> 00:17:08.440 at all after this discovery was made, two hundred people 270 00:17:08.440 --> 00:17:11.160 had gathered on the riverbank. That's how many people watch 271 00:17:11.200 --> 00:17:14.640 the Carner's inquest when it took place. And it just 272 00:17:14.720 --> 00:17:17.799 boggles my mind to think that it with the communications 273 00:17:17.839 --> 00:17:21.200 such as they were at the time, you know that 274 00:17:21.200 --> 00:17:25.559 that a crowd like that would materialize almost instantly, you know, 275 00:17:25.599 --> 00:17:30.400 at this tiny rural bridge over a over a river 276 00:17:30.480 --> 00:17:32.920 that nobody gave much thought to. 277 00:17:36.559 --> 00:17:38.759 You're right that there was an occurrence in this Jasper 278 00:17:38.839 --> 00:17:42.839 County in October nineteen nineteen, tell us about this incident. 279 00:17:46.160 --> 00:17:49.400 But Jasper County had a mixed reputation in terms of 280 00:17:50.319 --> 00:17:54.839 racial harmony. The you know, there was a real divide 281 00:17:54.880 --> 00:17:58.880 between Newton County where these bodies have been discovered in Jasper, 282 00:17:59.400 --> 00:18:02.920 Jasper being almost viewed almost as like kind of a 283 00:18:02.960 --> 00:18:09.640 Timbuctou of Georgia, just a place beyond civilization. That wasn't 284 00:18:09.640 --> 00:18:12.920 helped when in October of nineteen nineteen, a school teacher 285 00:18:13.000 --> 00:18:19.680 and part time preacher was lynched in Jasper. He certainly 286 00:18:19.720 --> 00:18:23.480 wasn't the first lynching there, but that was unsolved at 287 00:18:23.519 --> 00:18:27.440 the time that this case came to be. 288 00:18:27.480 --> 00:18:30.240 This Jesus has an opportunity to stop to hear these messages. 289 00:18:33.000 --> 00:18:36.920 Now tell us what happens. After the agents discovered that 290 00:18:36.960 --> 00:18:39.400 there was more bodies thrown into the river. 291 00:18:41.880 --> 00:18:44.519 There was a third body that was discovered in the 292 00:18:44.559 --> 00:18:48.799 water and a neighboring river, the South River. Man's bridge 293 00:18:49.039 --> 00:18:51.880 crossing that river was about a mile away, And so 294 00:18:51.960 --> 00:18:56.599 once that happened, you know, the general realization in the 295 00:18:56.640 --> 00:19:00.640 state was that this, you know, the double murder in 296 00:19:00.680 --> 00:19:04.759 the and the Yellow River, had not been a one off. 297 00:19:04.799 --> 00:19:07.160 That there was something going on here. Somebody was getting 298 00:19:07.240 --> 00:19:12.000 rid of these young black men. So eventually this story 299 00:19:12.079 --> 00:19:15.960 wound up on the desks of agent Squismar and Brown, 300 00:19:16.279 --> 00:19:20.960 who instantly saw that these bodies have been recovered from 301 00:19:21.000 --> 00:19:25.279 waterways that were in the neighborhood of the john S 302 00:19:25.279 --> 00:19:29.160 Williams Plantation in neighboring Jasper County, And they took a 303 00:19:29.160 --> 00:19:33.000 trip down and found that a lot of the black 304 00:19:33.079 --> 00:19:35.880 faces that they'd seen on the plantation on their first 305 00:19:35.960 --> 00:19:41.279 visit appeared to be missing now to their horror, horror 306 00:19:41.759 --> 00:19:46.000 realized that they may have inadvertently kicked off, kicked off 307 00:19:46.000 --> 00:19:46.960 these deaths. 308 00:19:49.359 --> 00:19:52.319 So tell us about the rule of Governor Hugh Dorsey 309 00:19:52.640 --> 00:19:54.839 in this investigation and this case. 310 00:19:56.680 --> 00:20:02.039 Well, Hugh Dorsey was an international pariah when he became 311 00:20:02.319 --> 00:20:05.839 governor of Georgia in nineteen seventeen. He had been the 312 00:20:05.920 --> 00:20:09.880 lead prosecutor in the Leo Frank case of four years before, 313 00:20:10.559 --> 00:20:14.200 and that's generally remembered as a great miscarriage of justice 314 00:20:14.240 --> 00:20:20.200 in which the Jewish manager of a local pencil company 315 00:20:20.960 --> 00:20:23.960 was put on trial for the murder and rape of 316 00:20:24.000 --> 00:20:27.240 a young girl, thirteen year old girl who worked for him, 317 00:20:28.079 --> 00:20:30.839 despite strong evidence that he had nothing to do with 318 00:20:30.920 --> 00:20:35.759 the with her death, and in fact, despite the fact 319 00:20:35.799 --> 00:20:39.359 that the state's main witness against him was most likely 320 00:20:39.400 --> 00:20:42.759 the killer. In the course of getting the conviction, Dorsey 321 00:20:43.960 --> 00:20:48.359 pulled every dirty trick in the book and debased himself 322 00:20:48.400 --> 00:20:53.400 as a lawyer pretty dramatically, but was heralded as the 323 00:20:53.440 --> 00:20:57.160 protector of white womanhood in the Georgia of the day 324 00:20:57.480 --> 00:21:01.599 and swept into office and then one reelection in nineteen 325 00:21:01.640 --> 00:21:06.079 eighteen for another two year term, and was approaching the 326 00:21:06.200 --> 00:21:09.920 end of his second term when these events unfolded, and 327 00:21:10.839 --> 00:21:14.079 you know, when the agents put two and two together 328 00:21:14.119 --> 00:21:16.319 and realized that John S. Williams might have something to 329 00:21:16.319 --> 00:21:18.880 do with the you know, with the appearance of these 330 00:21:18.920 --> 00:21:23.200 bodies and local rivers. They also realized that Jasper County 331 00:21:23.200 --> 00:21:29.319 and Newton Counties might be incapable of adequately bringing a 332 00:21:29.400 --> 00:21:32.759 case against him. For one thing, he was cousins with 333 00:21:32.799 --> 00:21:37.119 the sheriff, he had done business with the local prosecutor. 334 00:21:37.880 --> 00:21:40.079 You know, there were conflicts of interest all over the place. 335 00:21:40.160 --> 00:21:41.720 And layered on top of that was the fact that 336 00:21:41.720 --> 00:21:44.799 he was the richest man in Jasper County by reputation 337 00:21:44.920 --> 00:21:48.920 at least, and one of its largest landowners, you know, 338 00:21:48.960 --> 00:21:51.599 a pillar of the community, a pillar of his church, 339 00:21:52.519 --> 00:21:56.000 a major donor to every public cause. So this guy 340 00:21:56.079 --> 00:21:59.240 was a first citizen. And so the agents worried that 341 00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:02.839 these kindies were just not going to be able to 342 00:22:02.839 --> 00:22:06.799 put together the political wherewithal to make a case happen, 343 00:22:06.880 --> 00:22:10.240 and so they went to Hugh Dorsey. Now they knew, 344 00:22:10.240 --> 00:22:13.480 of course, everybody knew Dorsey's past, and you know, the 345 00:22:13.480 --> 00:22:18.799 fact that he had participated in what's viewed as the 346 00:22:18.839 --> 00:22:23.079 worst case of judicial anti semitism in American history, didn't 347 00:22:23.200 --> 00:22:26.200 you know, left them with a strong impression that he 348 00:22:26.319 --> 00:22:30.799 was no friend to minorities, And he surprised them once 349 00:22:30.839 --> 00:22:33.480 they described the story to him, told him what was 350 00:22:33.519 --> 00:22:39.400 going on. He promised to devote the entire weight of 351 00:22:39.440 --> 00:22:45.160 the state behind the prosecution and pretty much commandeered the 352 00:22:45.599 --> 00:22:48.440 state's case against Johns Williams at that point. Now he 353 00:22:48.519 --> 00:22:51.079 was former prosecutor. He knew what he was doing and 354 00:22:51.160 --> 00:22:51.920 did it very well. 355 00:22:53.000 --> 00:22:55.400 Who are a couple of the other people that are 356 00:22:55.440 --> 00:22:59.000 important in this story in terms of getting this investigation 357 00:22:59.480 --> 00:23:05.359 under way? You write about James Weldon Johnson well. 358 00:23:05.039 --> 00:23:10.720 As Dorsey began strategizing with the prosecutors and investigators working 359 00:23:10.720 --> 00:23:13.359 in the case down down south. Of course, he was 360 00:23:13.400 --> 00:23:16.839 in Atlanta. The case began to attract the attention of 361 00:23:17.039 --> 00:23:22.519 folks elsewhere, and one of the people who paid close 362 00:23:22.519 --> 00:23:26.119 attention to what was happening in Georgia was a New 363 00:23:26.200 --> 00:23:30.680 Yorker named James Weldon Johnson, the first black leader of 364 00:23:30.839 --> 00:23:38.680 the NAACP. Johnson is one of those amazing polymaths that 365 00:23:39.200 --> 00:23:42.920 every American how to know about. And I'm embarrassed to 366 00:23:42.960 --> 00:23:45.000 say that before I started working on this book, and 367 00:23:46.039 --> 00:23:47.759 I did not know who he was. I would not 368 00:23:47.799 --> 00:23:51.079 have recognized his name, right. I hang my head in 369 00:23:51.119 --> 00:23:53.599 shame for that, because now that I know who he was, 370 00:23:54.119 --> 00:23:57.400 it's impossible. It seems to me that I could have 371 00:23:57.839 --> 00:24:01.839 lived so long without knowing. But anyway, he was this 372 00:24:02.079 --> 00:24:08.079 remarkable black man born in Florida. He created the first 373 00:24:08.440 --> 00:24:11.720 black high school in his state. He became the first 374 00:24:11.960 --> 00:24:17.119 black person admitted to the Florida Bar. He became a 375 00:24:17.160 --> 00:24:22.559 celebrated poet. He was a memoirist, a novelist. He was 376 00:24:22.599 --> 00:24:27.200 a founding spirit behind the Harlem Renaissance. He and his 377 00:24:27.319 --> 00:24:32.599 brother were best selling songwriters. They wrote two hundred songs 378 00:24:32.599 --> 00:24:36.599 for the Broadway stage and had a number of really 379 00:24:36.640 --> 00:24:41.079 big hits, international hits. He wrote lift every Voice and 380 00:24:41.160 --> 00:24:46.680 sing since you Know, ever since labeled the black national anthem. 381 00:24:47.319 --> 00:24:51.079 He was just a phenomenal, even the force of nature. 382 00:24:51.119 --> 00:24:52.799 He could do it anything he put his mind to. 383 00:24:52.920 --> 00:24:56.480 He succeeded at and he was also an early member 384 00:24:57.000 --> 00:24:59.880 black member of the US Foreign Service. He served as 385 00:24:59.880 --> 00:25:03.960 a consul in Venezuela and Nicaragua. Then he became a 386 00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:06.720 columnist for The New York Age, which was Weekly, one 387 00:25:06.759 --> 00:25:09.359 of the biggest black newspapers, certainly one of the most 388 00:25:09.440 --> 00:25:12.799 influential in the country, and it was as a columnist 389 00:25:12.920 --> 00:25:15.400 for the Age that he caught the attention of the 390 00:25:15.480 --> 00:25:19.880 NAACP's leadership, the board of which was almost entirely white. 391 00:25:20.519 --> 00:25:23.799 And we forget that the NAACP was largely founded by 392 00:25:24.680 --> 00:25:29.480 by whites. The only black person directly involved in its 393 00:25:29.480 --> 00:25:33.119 founding was W. E. B. Du Bois. Johnson came on 394 00:25:33.200 --> 00:25:36.559 board with the organization in the mid teens as its 395 00:25:36.599 --> 00:25:40.319 field secretary, which was basically a recruiting position, and he 396 00:25:40.440 --> 00:25:42.759 put the end in the NAACP. He made it a 397 00:25:42.799 --> 00:25:46.440 truly national organization and grew it from a few thousand 398 00:25:46.519 --> 00:25:49.640 to several hundred thousand over the course of his five 399 00:25:49.720 --> 00:25:52.680 years or so as his field secretary. And then eventually, 400 00:25:53.759 --> 00:25:58.079 after the previous secretary was attacked on a visit to Austin, 401 00:25:58.160 --> 00:26:03.680