Lay This Body Down : The 1921 Murders of Eleven Plantation Slaves

by Unknown

• ISBN13: 9781556523571
• ISBN10: 1556523572
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 1999-09-01
• Publisher: Chicago Review Press

Summary

The John S Williams plantation in Jasper County, Georgia, was operated largely with the labour of slaves. This may not come as a surprise, except that the year was 1921, fifty-six years after the conclusion of the Civil War. Williams was not alone in using 'peons' -- poor blacks bailed out of local jails, forced to work under the threat of whipping, locked up at night, and chased down by bloodhounds it they tried to escape. But Williams' reaction to a federal investigation was almost unbelievable. Williams decided to destroy the evidence. He resolved to kill eleven black men who could testify to the situation on the farm -- a farm that would have been considered inhumane even when slavery was legal. To do the job, Williams enlisted the aid of his trusted farm boss, twenty-seven-year-old Clyde Manning -- a poor, scared black man, just like those he was told to kill.

Author Biography

Gregory A. Freeman is the author of Sailors to the End and has written for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He lives in Roswell, Georgia.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix	(2)
Introduction	xi	(6)
Participants	xvii
1 "Don't Throw Me Over"	1	(8)
2 "When I First Remember Myself, I Was in Jasper County"	9	(12)
3 "The River Was Full of Dead Negroes"	21	(14)
4 "You Lying Scoundrel, You"	35	(6)
5 "I Hate to Do It"	41	(8)
6 "I'll Go, Mr. Johnny"	49	(8)
7 "Don't Make No Miss Lick"	57	(8)
8 "I Believe Clyde Can Tell You All About It"	65	(20)
9 "Things Were Sort of Bad on the Williams Place"	85	(16)
10 "He Wanted to Look Good Because He Was Going Home"	101	(20)
11 "Before God, I Am as Innocent as a Man Can Be"	121	(18)
12 "This Is the Spirit of Justice in Georgia"	139	(10)
13 "There Was Fear Among the Hands"	149	(12)
14 "Stand Up, Clyde"	161	(16)
Epilogue	177	(2)
Conclusion	179	(6)
Notes	185