Moore's Ford lynchings



The Moore’s Ford Lynchings, also known as the 1946 Georgia lynching, refers to the July 25, 1946 murders of four young African Americans by a mob of white males: two married couples — George W. and Mae Murray Dorsey, and Roger and Dorothy Malcom — in Walton County. Tradition says that the murders were committed on Moore's Ford Bridge in Walton and Oconee counties between Monroe and Watkinsville, and they are often referred to as the Moore's Ford lynchings. The four victims were actually shot and killed on a dirt road in Walton County near the bridge.

The case attracted national attention and catalyzed large protests in Washington, DC and New York City. President Harry S. Truman created the President's Committee on Civil Rights and his administration introduced anti-lynching legislation in Congress, but could not get it past the Southern Democratic block. The FBI investigated for four months in 1946, the first time they had been ordered to investigate a civil rights case, but it was unable to discover sufficient evidence for prosecution of any suspects. In the 1990s new publicity about the cold case led to a new investigation starting in 2000 by the FBI and the state. The state of Georgia and the FBI finally closed their cases in December 2017, again unable to prosecute any suspect.

The lynching victims have been commemorated by a community memorial service in 1998, a state highway marker placed in 1999 at the site of the attack in what is the first official recognition of a lynching in the state of Georgia, and an annual re-enactment held since 2005. According to the 2015 report by the Equal Justice Initiative on lynchings in the Southern United States, Georgia has the second-highest number of documented lynchings.

History
In the aftermath of World War II, there was considerable social unrest in the United States, especially in the South. African-American veterans resented being treated as second-class citizens after returning home and began to press for civil rights, including the ability to vote. But many white supremacists resented them and wanted to reestablish dominance. The number of lynchings of black people rose after the war, with twelve lynched in the Deep South in 1945 alone. The states' exclusion of most black people from the political system across the South had been maintained since the turn of the century, despite several court challenges.

In April 1946, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that white primaries were unconstitutional, making way for at least some African Americans to vote in Democratic Party primaries that year. In Georgia, some black people prepared to vote in the summer's primary, against the resistance of most whites. In the 21st century, some commentators have related this change to the lynchings, seeing them as motivated by an effort to suppress the political voting rights issue. In July 1946, J. Loy Harrison employed two young African-American couples as sharecroppers on his farm in Walton County, Georgia. One was George W. Dorsey and his wife Mae (Murray) Dorsey. George W. Dorsey (born November 1917) was a veteran of World War II; he had been back in the United States less than nine months after having served nearly five years in the Pacific War. He was married to Mae (Murray) Dorsey (born September 20, 1922), who was seven months pregnant. The other couple consisted of Roger Malcom (born March 22, 1922) and his wife Dorothy (born July 25, 1926).

On July 11, Roger Malcom had allegedly stabbed Barnette Hester, a white man; Malcom was arrested and held in the county jail in Monroe, Georgia, the Walton county seat. On July 25, Harrison drove Malcom's wife Dorothy and the Dorseys to Monroe, where he personally posted the $600 bail for Roger Malcom to be freed. At the time, Hester was still hospitalized from his wounds.

Harrison drove with the two couples back to his farm. At 5:30 p.m. that day, he was forced to stop his car near the Moore's Ford Bridge between Monroe and Watkinsville, where the road was blocked by a gang of 15 to 20 armed white men. According to Harrison: "A big man who was dressed mighty proud in a double-breasted brown suit was giving the orders. He pointed to Roger Malcom 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.'"

Harrison watched. One of the black women identified one of the assailants. The mob took both 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. They shot and killed them near Moore's Ford Bridge spanning the Apalachee River, 60 mi east of Atlanta. After Mae Murray Dorsey was shot, a man cut her fetus from her body with a knife.

The mass lynchings received national coverage and generated outrage. There were large protests and marches in New York City and Washington, DC against the lynchings. President Harry S. Truman created the President's Committee on Civil Rights. The Truman administration introduced anti-lynching legislation in Congress, but was unable to get it passed against the opposition of the southern Democratic bloc in the Senate. Together with outrage about the Columbia, Tennessee 1946 race riot, the Moore's Ford lynchings garnered awareness and support from more of the white public for the Civil Rights Movement.

Georgia Governor Ellis Arnall offered a reward of $10,000 for information, to no avail. For the first time, President Truman ordered the FBI to investigate the murders. They interviewed nearly 3000 people in their six-month investigation, and issued 100 subpoenas. The investigation received little cooperation, no one confessed, and perpetrators were offered alibis for their whereabouts. The FBI found little physical evidence, and the prosecutor did not have sufficient grounds to indict anyone. No one was brought to trial for the crimes.

Grand jury investigation
U.S. District Judge T. Hoyt Davis selected and charged a 23-man grand jury, which included two African Americans, to hear testimony in the case on December 2, 1946. At the time Governor Ellis Arnall claimed "that 15 to 20 of the mob members are known by name." The case was presented to the jury by United States District Attorney John P. Cowart and John Kelly from the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice. The judge "pointed out that federal courts have no jurisdiction over the offense of murder except under well defined conditions."

Harrison testified for six hours after Barnette Hester, the man allegedly stabbed by Roger Malcom, concluded his testimony. The following Monday was the fifth day of testimony. On that day Harrison's sons Loy Jr. and Talmadge testified. Additionally, B.H. Hester, the father of Barnette, testified. Perry Dillard, Eugene Evans, Emmerson Farmer, and Ridden Farmer, who lived near the location of the shooting murders, testified that day as well. The last to be questioned that day was FBI Agent George Dillard.

On December 10, the sixth day of hearings, ten witnesses were heard. They were: Joe Parrish, Harrison's brother-in-law; George Robert Hester and James Weldon Hester, brothers of Barnette Hester; Grady Malcom, Weyman Fletcher Malcom, Cleonius Malcom, Levy Adcock, Willie Lou Head and FBI Agent Dick Hunter.

On the seventh day of testimony, six people were questioned. Among them were Mrs. Elizabeth Toler, Eugene White, Boysie Daniel and Paul Brown.

Monday's testimony was highlighted by the appearance before the grand jury of Mrs. Jesse Warwick. The wife of a Monroe minister, she testified to seeing men in at least two carloads gather on a roadside in the vicinity of Monroe at some point between the stabbing of Hester and the incident at Moore's Ford. That event was believed to have been a rehearsal for the lynching. The government intended to show planning, possibly with the knowledge of Walton county law officers and Harrison. Other witnesses that day were Monroe chief of Police Ben Dickerson; Gene Sloan, a youth from the Georgia Boys' Training School at Milledgeville; and Mrs. Moena Williams, mother of Dorothy Malcom, who said that Dorothy was killed on her twentieth birthday.

George Alvin Adcock, a resident of Monroe, was indicted by the federal grand jury for perjury. He was accused of two counts of false testimony regarding his statements on December 11, 1946. The first count alleged he denied leaving his house the day of the crime. He supposedly visited the town of Monroe that day. The second count states that he denied visiting the scene of the crime on July 26. Sixteen witnesses were questioned that day, including Mrs. Powell Adcock.

After hearing nearly three weeks of testimony, the grand jury was "unable to establish the identity of any persons guilty of violating the civil rights statute of the United States."

On February 11, 2019, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, in a 2-1 decision, affirmed a lower court's ruling that the transcripts of the grand jury proceedings should be released.

Beating of Lamar Howard
At about four o'clock on January 1, 1947, brothers James and Tom Verner walked into the municipal ice house, briefly speaking with plant manager Will Perry. When the pair walked to where Lamar Howard was sitting, Tom Verner slapped the cap of the young African American to the floor. James asked him, "What did you tell 'em down at Athens?" To which he replied that he knew nothing to tell them. They started to attack him. Howard's employer, Will Perry, allegedly suggested for the two to "take him out in the back."

The Verner brothers continued beating Howard while questioning him. The beating concluded after 10 or 15 minutes with no resistance from Howard, as he feared he would be killed. When the Verners stopped, Howard got to his car and drove home. U.S. Attorney John P. Cowart arrested the Verner brothers and charged them with "unlawfully injuring Golden Lamar Howard because of his having testified before a federal grand jury" and "conspiring to injure" him. The Verners' $10,000 bonds were signed by H.L. Peters of Walton County, who put up 316 acre of land as security. Howard had testified to a grand jury in the Moore's Ford lynchings, but it was supposed to be secret.

James Verner acknowledged he had beaten Howard until his fists were bloody. His brother Tom testified, as did other witnesses, who said that James Verner committed the crime for which he was charged. Despite the testimony, the jury deliberated for nearly two hours and rendered a verdict of not guilty.

Memorial committee and reopened investigation
In 1992, Clinton Adams told the Federal Bureau of Investigation that he had been a witness to the murders at Moore's Ford Bridge. Only ten years old when he saw the lynchings, Adams had been on the run for 45 years, fearing for his life. After extensive research, reporter Laura Wexler wrote a book about the case, Fire in a Canebrake: The Last Mass Lynching in America (2003). She said that Adams had "holes in his story."

In 1992, The Atlanta Constitution reported Adams' story and the history of the unsolved lynchings. Five years later, the Oconee Enterprise, Walton Tribune, and the Athens Daily News also published accounts. With the renewed publicity, some people in the community decided to act.

In 1997 Georgia citizens established the biracial Moore's Ford Memorial Committee to commemorate the lynching and work for racial reconciliation. They have conducted a number of activities, including restoration of cemeteries where the victims were buried, erecting tombstones at the previously unmarked graves, conducting education about the events, and setting up scholarships in the names of those who died. In 1998 they held a biracial memorial service on the anniversary of the attack.

They worked with the Georgia Historical Society to ensure a state historical marker was placed near the murder site. It was erected on U.S. Highway 78 in 1999, on the fifty-third anniversary of the incident. The marker, 2.4 mi to the west, identifies the site as the location of the last unsolved mass lynching in America. Additionally, it recognizes the 1998 memorial service. It is believed to be the first highway marker to commemorate a lynching. Also in 1999, the Memorial Committee arranged for a military memorial service to honor veteran George Dorsey on the anniversary of the lynching.

In 2001 then-Gov. Roy Barnes officially reopened investigation into the case with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. By 2006, the FBI had reentered the case. In June 2008, as part of the continuing investigation, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and FBI searched an area at a farm home in Walton County near Gratis and collected material which they believed to be related to the lynching. While the FBI questioned an 86-year-old man about the lynchings in 2015, it closed its investigation, unable to prosecute any suspect. In January 2018, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation officially closed the lynching investigation, officially ending the effort to bring the perpetrators of the lynching to justice. No one was ever charged or prosecuted in the case, which has become known as "America's last mass lynching".

Since 2005, a group has annually re-enacted the lynchings at Moore's Ford in July as a living memorial to the victims. This effort was initiated by Tyrone Brooks, an activist and state legislator. In recent years, most of the participants have come from Atlanta, about an hour away.

Grand jury testimony unsealed
Researcher Anthony Pitch, author of The Last Lynching: How a Gruesome Mass Murder Rocked a Small Georgia Town (2016), located the sealed grand jury testimony in the National Archives. He sued, 72 years later, to have the records unsealed, and despite government opposition, a federal appeals court upheld his request.

Site location
The site exists near a newer highway bridge at the extreme eastern edge of Walton County, Georgia, between Monroe and Athens, near the Athens-Clarke County region west of the University of Georgia system. A historic highway sign marker was erected near the site. The sign is at 33° 51.417′ N, 83° 36.733′ W. The marker is near Monroe, Georgia, in Walton County. The marker is at the intersection of U.S. 78 and Locklin Road, on the right when traveling east on U.S. 78.