◆ SpookStack

FOREWORD On February 26, 1946, the nation’s press, charged with the re- sponsibility of reporting the news fairly and accurately, blossomed tn an orgy of race riot headlines. The New York World-Telegram under bold type screamed “7 HURT IN TENNESSEE RIOT AS NEGROES An cons" the liberal New York Post, in an As- fated Press release, headlined “SHOTS FLY IN RACE RIOTIN IN TENNESSEE”. One newspaper devoted a full page to oe" photographs under the streamer “HIGHWAY PATROLMEN AND TROD SMEN BRING RIOTING NEGROES UNDER CON. As the press wires out of Columbia, Tennessee, hummed hot with the latest flashes on the “riot”, the National Association for the Ad- s-tncement of Colored People rushed several reliable investigators into rething Southern community, They uncovered as shocking a ae Muss terrorism, unbridled vandalism, and murder as America ‘ s known since the hooded Klan first robbed, mutilated, and burned efenseluss Neuro citizens. | boone’ in re interests of all freedom loving Americans that this et is published. Te is based upen the on-the-spot findings of Maur- ice Weaver, a white Chattanooga attorney, Z. Alexander Looby, Nashville, member of the National L i le, ? i egal Committee of the NAAC and Waiter White, Secretary of the Avociation. ° ° Ae i TERROR: IN | TENNESSEE THE FACTS ’ On Monday, February 25, 1946, at about 10:00 A.M., Mrs. Gladys Stephenson went to the Castner-Knot Electric Appliance store in Columbia, Tennessee, to sce about a radio which was being re- paired. With her went her 19-year-old son James, a naval veteran, in spite of his youth, of three years in the Atlantic and the Pacific. Mrs. Stephenson was anxious to have the radio in their clean, modest little home new that James had come safely home. The three years since her boy at 16 joined up with the Navy had been filled with anxiety for her, but like millions of other Amcrican mothers, she'd waited. And she felt that God had been good to her. Her boy was home now and she wanted that radio. At the store Mrs. Stephenson was disappointed to find that the repair work done was faulty and she told the repairman so. The man, William Fleming, whose brother was a Highway Patrolman, became abusive when Mrs. Stephenson told him that the repair job was cer- tainly not worth the moncy she was being charged, and when she objected to the abuse he slapped __ and kicked her. James, secing his _ mother assaulted. rushed to her - defense, hitting Fleming, who fell through the store’s plate glass win- dow, Fleming wasn’t injured but peaple in the street immediately surrounded the mother and her son, They were slapped and punched while police officer Frazier rushed into the milling crowd and clubbed the bey. The mother remonstrated with — the policeman, telling him that he should first investigate the facts, whereupon she was smashed in the face. Mother and son were then hustled off to the jail. There were