The story of Willie McGee
May 7, 2010 5:23 PM Subscribe

"In a small Southern town during the Jim Crow era, a black man is accused of raping a white woman. During his stormy trial there are threats of lynching, as well as intimations that the white woman had been the sexual aggressor." No, Scout isn't the narrator of this, this is the story of Willie McGee, who was put to death on May 8th, 1951 after being convicted of raping a young, white woman. The case became of interest to notable individuals such as Albert Einstein, William Faulkner and Josephine Baker. Bella Abzug handled the final appeal.

Bridgette McGee-Robinson never knew her grandfather and, recently, returned to Laurel, Miss to attempt to discover the truth.

The story on NPR's Radio Diaries is moving.

posted by HuronBob (96 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: poster's request -- jessamyn

Willie McGee was granted three separate trials and numerous stays over several years. A Supreme Court justice issued one of the stays but the full court declined to hear the final appeal. It can hardly be said that he was railroaded.

Interesting excerpt from the NPR article:

But McGee-Robinson had one more person she wanted to talk to. She went to the home of Jon Swartzfager, who was the son of Paul Swartzfager, the district attorney who had prosecuted McGee in his last trial — the man who had essentially sent McGee-Robinson's grandfather to the electric chair.

Swartzfager welcomed McGee-Robinson into his home, and they sat and talked about the case. Swartzfager told her that on the night of the execution, his father smuggled a bottle of whiskey into the jail where McGee was being kept. He asked to speak to McGee alone, and the two men sat and shared the whiskey.

Paul Swartzfager asked McGee, "Did you do it?" McGee answered, "Yes, but she wanted it just as much as I did."

The she-was-asking-for-it defense?

In To Kill A Mockingbird, Tom Robinson was innocent. It's disrespectful to the victim of this crime and her family to conflate the two stories in this way.
posted by ferdinand.bardamu at 6:08 PM on May 7, 2010

"The she-was-asking-for-it defense? "

I just deleted my initial response to this comment, perhaps someone who didn't make the fpp can explain this to you.... I'll talk to you after you've actually listened to the NPR piece...
posted by HuronBob at 6:13 PM on May 7, 2010

ferdinand.baramu, you do realize that a black man having sex with a white woman is not a crime, let alone a crime punishable by death, right?
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 6:19 PM on May 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

Paul Swartzfager, the district attorney who had prosecuted McGee in his last trial ... He asked to speak to McGee alone, and the two men sat ... Paul Swartzfager asked McGee, "Did you do it?" McGee answered

Did you read what you quoted? It's a second hand account from the guy who prosecuted him. That wasn't his "defense", it's just something someone with a vested interest claimed someone with a vested interest claimed.

It might just have been some B.S. the prosecutor told his son, and no one else. Or it might just have been something the son made up.
posted by delmoi at 6:22 PM on May 7, 2010

ferdinand.bardamu, I'm assuming that your statement is based upon a complete lack of knowledge about US historic race relations, the Jim Crow Era and all that that entails. So, in good faith I will attempt to explain. The accusation of rape against black men by white women was endemic to the pre-, and post civil rights South (and in the North, but we're focusing on the South here). Affairs were masked in this way. White women achieved attention in this way. And sometimes it was just that the black man (or black boy, as in the case of Emmett Till) just looked at the white woman wrong. This is not supposition, it is fact. It is an ugly chapter of US history that is seldom remarked upon. My father grew up with the knowledge that one did not even look at white women, it was a possible death sentence, whether through the court or through lynching. This was a common bit of knowledge in black communities at the time. In fact, in the radio story, a man was interviewed who spoke about being taken to Willie McGee's funeral to view the body. He was a child. He was not taken out of any sense of mourning. His father took him to the funeral to view the body as an object lesson--you do not mess around with white women.

Now, what this says about the patriarchal and proprietary nature of white manhood that was followed at the time is another discussion. As are the tensions that this legacy has engendered for interracial couples in the black community, and the lasting negative feelings toward the justice system, white society, and white women specifically in poorer black communities.

It is very, very likely that she did want to have sex. It is very, very likely that upon its being discovered she chose to characterize it as rape to save her own reputation and standing in the community. It wouldn't have been the first time that that happened nor was it the last.
posted by anansi at 6:28 PM on May 7, 2010 [9 favorites]

ferdinand.baramu, you do realize that a black man having sex with a white woman is not a crime, let alone a crime punishable by death, right?

The charge was rape, not miscegnation. Isn't "she-was-asking-for-it" what we hear all the time from date rapists?
posted by ferdinand.bardamu at 6:29 PM on May 7, 2010

Yeah, you might want to listen to the NPR piece.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 6:30 PM on May 7, 2010

AHWO and delmoi... thanks, my initial response to that was over the top... your cooler voices are appreciated.

Ironically, when I listened to the show this afternoon, that last few minutes was the most powerful.. I clearly heard in that the Prosecutor's son implying that his father understood that the act had been consensual, based on a relationship...that, in reality, it wasn't a case of rape...without really coming out and saying that...

A lesson to be learned in how words can be twisted I guess.. I never suspected this post would draw out the inner racist in anyone like that.....

About when I was thinking we had come a long way as a culture, I get slapped in the face with how short the distance we've traveled really is.

Mods, I suspect that this post was a mistake... deleting it may be the best thing that could happen, but, I'll leave that up to your wisdom....
posted by HuronBob at 6:31 PM on May 7, 2010

anansi...thanks to you as well...
posted by HuronBob at 6:31 PM on May 7, 2010

Did you read what you quoted? It's a second hand account from the guy who prosecuted him. That wasn't his "defense", it's just something someone with a vested interest claimed someone with a vested interest claimed.

It might just have been some B.S. the prosecutor told his son, and no one else. Or it might just have been something the son made up.

The allegation of an affair was indeed made at trial by the defense.
posted by ferdinand.bardamu at 6:33 PM on May 7, 2010

So, are you tone deaf or just so wedded to your own argument that you choose to disregard historical fact?
posted by anansi at 6:36 PM on May 7, 2010

The author of The Eyes of Willie McGee does not reach the easy conclusion people here are reaching:

But that note of doubt disappeared in the years and decades after the case ended. Since then, the woman—whose name was Willette Hawkins—has been demonized by journalists, academics, and bloggers, most of whom didn’t bother to read the trial transcripts, instead refracting their views through a prism of guilt or anger about the past. If you troll around on the Web today, you’ll see it stated with certainty that the affair was proven and that Mrs. Hawkins concocted the rape charge to save her neck once it came to light. A few months after McGee died, an African-American poet and actress named Beaulah Richardson—who, under the stage name Beah Richards, was nominated for an Oscar in 1968 for her supporting role in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner—set the tone in a poem called “A Black Woman Speaks.” Its chief villain was Willette Hawkins, “the depraved, enslaved, adulterous woman, whose lustful demands denied, lied and killed what she could not possess.”
posted by ferdinand.bardamu at 6:37 PM on May 7, 2010

ferdinand, the author also contradicts your earlier point about McGee receiving a fair trial. From the link you provided:

That charge wasn’t made public until very late during McGee’s long legal ordeal, which involved three circuit-court trials in as many years, several reversals and stays, and four failed bids for a full review by the U.S. Supreme Court. Despite all this procedure, McGee never got a completely fair trial or equal protection in the appeals courts. Fear of lynching prevented his defense attorneys from raising the affair allegation at the local level. When it was finally spelled out during his state and federal appeals, the basic response from judges was, “You should have brought that up at the trials.”

At this point you just seem to be intent on derailing instead of actually advocating any sort of position or discussing the posted content. Adieu.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 6:42 PM on May 7, 2010

Yeah, actually what he says is that the truth is more complicated than he suspected.

Richardson, alas, didn’t know what she was talking about, and when I started looking into the case several years ago, I didn’t either, assuming at first that the affair had been certifiably proven in a court of law. It’s not that simple, not by a long-shot. And when you look into this case deeply, you see a story in which both sides have been hurt by different forms of injustice and distortion.
My chief goal was to tell the story accurately, relying as much as possible on original sources, with an eye toward answering fundamental questions about this long-dead tale, starting with: Who was telling the truth, Willie or Willette?

You'll notice that he doesn't answer this in your link. I don't see how what you linked bolsters your point.
posted by anansi at 6:43 PM on May 7, 2010

The charge was rape, not miscegnation. Isn't "she-was-asking-for-it" what we hear all the time from date rapists?

Are you saying that there is any evidence he actually said that?
posted by delmoi at 6:43 PM on May 7, 2010

Or, do you even have a point? At this juncture you appear to be a,"Its just the facts--not racism" troll.
posted by anansi at 6:45 PM on May 7, 2010

Black men did rape white women in that day and age. White men also raped black women. Completely throwing yourself in one direction of 'not-guilty' or 'guilty' when it happened so long ago, without the forensic evidence to prove one way or another is silly. We don't know what actually happened. We can assume, but berating people like ferdinand for their assumption is just showing you have already decided one way and anyone thinking another way is wrong.
posted by Malice at 6:48 PM on May 7, 2010 [5 favorites]

If you troll around on the Web today...

I saw what you did there.
posted by stinker at 6:49 PM on May 7, 2010

You'll notice that he doesn't answer this in your link. I don't see how what you linked bolsters your point.

My point is that, in the face of the impossibility of determining the "truth, truth, truth" this many years out, it's best to go by the judgement of the people who were there at the time, people who acted not in the hidden recesses of some backwoods courtroom but under intense national and international scrutiny over the course of several years. In cases like this, it is too easy for progressives to lose their shit in indignation because they think they know the story when, in fact, they don't. Discounting the outcome of this trial out of hand simply because of the time and place the alleged action took place is a disservice to the victim and her family.
posted by ferdinand.bardamu at 6:50 PM on May 7, 2010

I was listening to this on my way home from work today and I had to pull over to the side of the road to give it the attention it deserved. It's an incredibly powerful piece of radio, and one that had extra resonance for me because I'm a non-white man married to a white woman from small town Texas. I can't even begin to imagine what life would have been like back then if you were a minority. Things are still far far far from perfect, of course, but it's a thousand times better than it used to be.

This is also why people who yearn for the "good old days" of the 50s are ignorant or worse.

.
posted by kmz at 6:53 PM on May 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

it's best to go by the judgement of the people who were there at the time, people who acted not in the hidden recesses of some backwoods courtroom but under intense national and international scrutiny over the course of several years.

From your link, repeated emphasis mine:

Despite all this procedure, McGee never got a completely fair trial or equal protection in the appeals courts.

Despite all this procedure, McGee never got a completely fair trial or equal protection in the appeals courts.

Despite all this procedure, McGee never got a completely fair trial or equal protection in the appeals courts.
posted by kmz at 6:55 PM on May 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

We don't know what actually happened. We can assume

Okay...

but berating people like ferdinand for their assumption is just showing you have already decided one

My point is that, in the face of the impossibility of determining the "truth, truth, truth" this many years out, it's best to go by the judgement of the people who were there at the time

Except, that's not actually what you said in your first comment. What you said was this:

The she-was-asking-for-it defense?

In To Kill A Mockingbird, Tom Robinson was innocent. It's disrespectful to the victim of this crime and her family to conflate the two stories in this way.

Which sounds like you were saying he was guilty and did make that defense. If you're backing off from that claim, you should be a little more specific.

it's best to go by the judgement of the people who were there at the time, people who acted not in the hidden recesses of some backwoods courtroom but under intense national and international scrutiny

Except the claim you quoted wasn't under any scrutiny at all. There isn't even any way to verify that the prosecutor even made that claim and if he did, there is no way to verify it.

If a person makes two statements, A which is verifiable, and B which can't ever be verified. A being verified does not make B true.
posted by delmoi at 6:57 PM on May 7, 2010

ferdinand, you're being highly, highly disingenuous. In your first comment you say that "It can hardly be said that he was railroaded." Regardless of guilt or innocence this is just so obviously false it's hard to take the rest of your comments seriously. Further, in your first comment, you speak of the "victim of the crime", thereby assigning guilt/innocence. Before your comment, no poster had talked of innocence or guilt, yet you come out swinging and declare that McGee was guilty. To then later castigate others for choosing a side is more than a little disgusting. As you say, "In cases like this, it is too easy for progressives to lose their shit in indignation because they think they know the story when, in fact, they don't. Discounting the outcome of this trial out of hand simply because of the time and place the alleged action took place is a disservice to the victim and her family." So, essentially, you know the entirety of the story but others who disagree with you don't. To sum, you're being an asshole.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 6:57 PM on May 7, 2010 [2 favorites]

Yes, I read that too. Does that mean he was thus automatically innocent? No.
posted by ferdinand.bardamu at 6:59 PM on May 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

...and you're still avoiding the central point of this story. Even if, as Heard claims, the story of Hawkins having an affair with McGee is "shaky", the fact remains that that defense wasn't allowed to be examined in court: (again, from the NPR article)

The alleged victim testified that a black man had broken into her house, told her he had a knife, and raped her while her baby slept next to her. Prosecutors linked McGee to the crime. McGee's own lawyers put up a half-hearted defense. They encouraged McGee to plead insanity and failed to cross-examine the prosecution's witnesses.

McGee's first trial lasted only half an afternoon; the jury deliberated only two-and-a-half minutes before sentencing McGee to death. No white man in Mississippi had ever received a death sentence for rape.

But McGee-Robinson spoke with some people in Laurel who said McGee's true defense couldn't be brought up at trial because it was too inflammatory. There were people in the black community who believed that McGee had been having an illicit affair with the woman who accused him of rape.

McGee-Robinson's aunt Della McGee Johnson told her that the family had always believed that McGee was involved with the white woman — and that he was charged with rape when they were caught. Most white people that McGee-Robinson spoke to, however, believed that a consensual relationship between a black man and a white woman would have been impossible, given the societal norms of the time.

Do you get it yet?
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:00 PM on May 7, 2010 [3 favorites]

I do not claim secret knowledge, only skepticism. But even skeptics wind up on one side or the other and, lacking omniscience, I defer to those who were there.
posted by ferdinand.bardamu at 7:02 PM on May 7, 2010

ferdinand.bardamu: "You'll notice that he doesn't answer this in your link. I don't see how what you linked bolsters your point.

My point is that, in the face of the impossibility of determining the "truth, truth, truth" this many years out, it's best to go by the judgement of the people who were there at the time, people who acted not in the hidden recesses of some backwoods courtroom but under intense national and international scrutiny over the course of several years. In cases like this, it is too easy for progressives to lose their shit in indignation because they think they know the story when, in fact, they don't. Discounting the outcome of this trial out of hand simply because of the time and place the alleged action took place is a disservice to the victim and her family."

So basically, your assumption that justice was served is more accurate than mine that it is quite likely that justice was denied? And this is because we no longer have evidence and we should trust the judgment of those nice, civic-minded white folks who found him guilty during the Jim Crow era. Fuck that. Really, Fuck that. Apologists like you really make me ill. Since it seems that mentioning someone's posting history in specific is a faux pax, I won't. But a glance at yours lets me know where you're coming from. Fuck this. Good day, sir.
posted by anansi at 7:02 PM on May 7, 2010 [6 favorites]

McGee-Robinson's aunt Della McGee Johnson told her that the family had always believed that McGee was involved with the white woman — and that he was charged with rape when they were caught. Most white people that McGee-Robinson spoke to, however, believed that a consensual relationship between a black man and a white woman would have been impossible, given the societal norms of the time.

Why do you believe the first group but not the second?
posted by ferdinand.bardamu at 7:05 PM on May 7, 2010

Yeah, this is getting sort of weird/icky.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 7:05 PM on May 7, 2010

...and it turns out that you're really just interested in trolling "progressives", i.e. anyone who believes that people are innocent until proven guilty in a fair trial. Right.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:07 PM on May 7, 2010

Yeah, I think it's just another one-man threadshitting band.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:08 PM on May 7, 2010

Okay, time to stop feeding the troll.
posted by delmoi at 7:08 PM on May 7, 2010

Most white people that McGee-Robinson spoke to, however, believed that a consensual relationship between a black man and a white woman would have been impossible, given the societal norms of the time.

I'm sure you believe Ahmadinejad when he says there's no gay people in Iran too.

Fuck, now I remember why your username sounded familiar. No more feeding the troll from me.
posted by kmz at 7:10 PM on May 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

There were people in the black community who believed that McGee had been having an illicit affair with the woman who accused him of rape.

There are black people who will swear to you that OJ didn't really do it. What's your point?

No white man in Mississippi had ever received a death sentence for rape.

Well, that's unfortunate. I support capital punishment for all rape cases, regardless of the perpetrator's lineage.
posted by ferdinand.bardamu at 7:11 PM on May 7, 2010

I've let the mods know that I wouldn't mind this being deleted... my sincere apologies to all of you....

That said, it is, as KMZ noted upstream, a powerful piece of radio... and I can't even begin to imagine what it is like listening to it as a black man...

Peace... and a hope that someday this is no longer the way we live and think...
posted by HuronBob at 7:12 PM on May 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

I defer to those who were there.

Like who? The son of the prosecutor? Is there more somewhere that indicates that he was there, and not that he's repeating stories his father told him?
posted by rtha at 7:14 PM on May 7, 2010

Discounting the outcome of this trial out of hand simply because of the time and place the alleged action took place is a disservice to the victim and her family.

As a white southerner let me just say this; bullshit.
posted by nola at 7:15 PM on May 7, 2010

This thread is getting weird and icky - mostly because there seems to be some sort of "let's believe the poor, oppressed minority and vilify the evil white (not-a-)victim even though we have no evidence and can't prove anything" going on here. This is insane and ripping at each other does no good (nor does calling anyone a racist do any good here - if you're going to start dropping names, then kindly attach 'misogynist' and 'racist' to yourself as well).

The basic fact here is that this case is not like the situation in "To Kill a Mockingbird"; there, the author made sure the audience knew the man was innocent. Here, we have no proof that McGee was innocent or guilty.

Did he receive a fair trial? Considering the atmosphere of that day and age, probably not. Sounds to me like he had weak-willed, scaredy-cat lawyers who did not zealously represent their client.

On preview: Nola? Really? Looking backward through time and judging that a woman couldn't possibly be a victim because she was/is white and her alleged attacker black doesn't do her and her family a disservice? I can't fathom how you would justify that statement.
posted by LOLAttorney2009 at 7:21 PM on May 7, 2010 [3 favorites]

I don't know if Willie McGee was guilty. I don't know if he was innocent, either. What I do know is that he did not receive a fair trial. Hell, a fair trial might not even been possible.

So all we're left with a miscarriage of justice - for Willie McGee. For Willette Hawkins. And for the generations that followed.
posted by m@f at 7:23 PM on May 7, 2010

Found an excerpt for the book.
posted by ferdinand.bardamu at 7:25 PM on May 7, 2010

I'm glad it hasn't been 1951 for almost 6 decades. Except for the cars, and the being able to afford a house with a blue collar wage, and the milkman, the drive-in, the GI Bill, Les Paul recorded "How High the Moon", A Streetcar Named Desire, The African Queen, J. D. Salinger published The Catcher in the Rye, Bobby Thompson hit the "Shot Heard Round the World".

1951 was a million years ago.
posted by vapidave at 7:27 PM on May 7, 2010

From the link above:

The rape allegedly happened in the predawn hours of November 2, a warm autumn Friday. As the still-traumatized Mrs. Hawkins told police after daybreak that morning, she was asleep in a front bedroom with a sick, twenty-month-old girl at her side. Her thirty-seven-year-old husband was in a room near the back of the house, having gone there after spending several hours helping Willette take care of the infant. She said she woke up and heard a man crawling toward her on the floor. In an instant, he was on top of her, smelling like whiskey and threatening to kill her and the child if she didn’t shut up and submit. Once he was done, he told her never to say a word about what happened or he would come back and kill her. Then he ran out the front door. Mrs. Hawkins said it was too dark to see the rapist’s face, but she knew he was black by the texture of his hair.

McGee became a suspect in part because he didn’t show up for work on Friday, but also because Laurel police found witnesses—including two male friends of his—whose statements seemed to place him in the vicinity at the time of the assault. He was arrested the next day in a nearby city, Hattiesburg, briefly taken back to Laurel, and then driven to jail ninety miles away in Jackson, the state capital. Jackson was home to a massive county courthouse with a two-floor, upper-story lockup that was considered safe from attacks by lynch mobs. Often in cases like this, black defendants were whisked away from wherever they’d been arrested and taken straight to the Hinds County jail.

The trial was held in early December, amid so much local hostility that the governor of Mississippi sent McGee back to Laurel under heavily armed guard. It lasted only a day, with an all-white jury sentencing him to death after deliberating for less than three minutes. There would be two more circuit-court trials—the first two verdicts were reversed on procedural grounds by the Mississippi Supreme Court—followed by a three-year period of state and federal appeals, including multiple appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court.

McGee’s story was just as grim but much more carnal. In Mockingbird there was no sex, just fabricated accusations about it. In the McGee case, the sex—if it happened—was rampant and insanely risky, given the time and place. According to McGee, it all started when he was waxing floors in Mrs. Hawkins’s home one afternoon and, he said, “she showed a willingness to be familiar.” With small children in the house and her husband at work, she took him to a bedroom, stripped, and flopped down on a mattress. This wouldn’t be their only encounter: in a story that evolved considerably over time, McGee said they had sex frequently during an affair that lasted for several years.

Though McGee said he tried to break off the relationship, knowing he’d be lynched if they were found out, Mrs. Hawkins supposedly wouldn’t let go. She publicly harassed him and his wife, Rosalee, accosting them both on the streets of Laurel and calling Rosalee a “Negro whore.” She turned up at his house to knock on his door, drove him to a graveyard for midnight encounters, and left a note in a gas-pump nozzle at a service station where he worked.

Her final misdeed was to condemn McGee to death by crying rape once the affair came to light, and for this she would be pilloried in the years ahead. A few months after McGee died, an African-American poet and actress named Beaulah Richardson—who, under the stage name Beah Richards, was nominated for an Oscar in 1968 for her supporting role in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner—set the tone in a poem called “A Black Woman Speaks.” One of its chief villains was Mrs. Hawkins, “the depraved, enslaved, adulterous woman, whose lustful demands denied, lied and killed what she could not possess.”

Tennessee Williams weighed in, too, years later, in his 1957 play Orpheus Descending. In act one, Carol Cutrere, an eccentric white Mississippian, talks about her early involvement in civil rights causes, saying, “I delivered stump speeches, wrote letters of protest about the gradual massacre of the colored majority in the county. . . . And when that Willie McGee thing came along—he was sent to the chair for having improper relations with a white whore—I made a fuss about it. I put on a potato sack and set out for the capitol on foot. This was in winter. I walked barefoot in this burlap sack to deliver a personal protest to the Governor of the State. . . . You know how far I got? Six miles out of town—hooted, jeered at, even spit on!—every step of the way—and then arrested!”
posted by ferdinand.bardamu at 7:32 PM on May 7, 2010

"Yes, but she wanted it just as much as I did."

This comes at the story climax, and the most amazing thing is it doesn't, in 2010 looking back at 1951, conclude anything. That quote above was almost verbatim what said three years ago by the man who was, according to my friend, the man who raped her.
posted by Maude_the_destroyer at 7:43 PM on May 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'm going to bow out of this, but wanted to add one thing..

There is a huge difference in how you will come away from this between reading the articles and listening to the interviews...

I really encourage folks to listen to the NPR piece.... there are nuances in meaning in the voices that don't come across in the written word...
posted by HuronBob at 7:47 PM on May 7, 2010

So, ferdinand, he was put to death for having an affair with a white woman. How is this thread disrespectful to the victim, again?
posted by goo at 7:48 PM on May 7, 2010

Nola? Really? Looking backward through time and judging that a woman couldn't possibly be a victim because she was/is white and her alleged attacker black doesn't do her and her family a disservice? I can't fathom how you would justify that statement.

I'm speaking to this part of his comment, Discounting the outcome of this trial out of hand simply because of the time and place . . .
That is bullshit, everyone knows it's bullshit.
posted by nola at 7:49 PM on May 7, 2010 [2 favorites]

So, ferdinand, he was put to death for having an affair with a white woman. How is this thread disrespectful to the victim, again?

[Sigh...]

Because there is no evidence to support that claim.
posted by ferdinand.bardamu at 7:56 PM on May 7, 2010

So, ferdinand

No feeding the troll.
posted by delmoi at 8:02 PM on May 7, 2010

So, ferdinand, he was put to death for having an affair with a white woman. How is this thread disrespectful to the victim, again?

No feeding the troll.

Excuse me? Posting a completely unsubstantiated claim isn't trolling but pointing out that the claim is unsubstantiated is?
posted by ferdinand.bardamu at 8:18 PM on May 7, 2010

In retrospect, if I hadn't used the term "black man" in the fpp... this might have gone very differently...
posted by HuronBob at 8:27 PM on May 7, 2010

In retrospect, if I hadn't used the term "black man" in the fpp... this might have gone very differently...

Wrong. If you hadn't made the connection with this story to one about a black man who was undoubtedly innocent yet nevertheless unjustly convicted by a racist jury, then this might have gone very differently.
posted by ferdinand.bardamu at 8:32 PM on May 7, 2010

we have no proof that McGee was innocent or guilty.

Did he receive a fair trial? Considering the atmosphere of that day and age, probably not. Sounds to me like he had weak-willed, scaredy-cat lawyers who did not zealously represent their client.

Gee thanks, detective. Anyone who actually bothers to read about this case can only conclude that the accused never received anything even remotely like a fair trial: that much is patently obvious, and frankly nullifies any second-guessing about McGee's possible guilt (the evidence for which seems thin at best, and downright misleading at worst). Since we have a veritable mountain of evidence the accused never received anything like a fair trial, and since in our system a person is innocent until proven guilty, then calling McGee an innocent victim of a racist justice system (i.e., you better believe he was fucking railroaded) seems not just technically correct but morally incontrovertible--and that has nothing to do with politics, despite what the troll says.
posted by HP LaserJet P10006 at 8:33 PM on May 7, 2010

Since it seems that mentioning someone's posting history in specific is a faux pax, I won't. But a glance at yours lets me know where you're coming from. Fuck this.

"You are from the South so your opinion has no validity."
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 8:34 PM on May 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

I was listening to this on NPR this afternoon. But I don't think I heard much after the granddaughter's interview with the journalist who couldn't believe that a white woman could be in a consensual relationship with a black man; by that point I was just seething. Thanks for posting the link, I need to go listen to the rest.
posted by donajo at 8:38 PM on May 7, 2010

Excuse me?

Trying. It's hard.
posted by hermitosis at 8:39 PM on May 7, 2010

There's no absolute concrete evidence either way, because all parties involved are now dead. Given the time, place and all the evidence to hand (circumstantial at best in favour of rape) lead me to believe this was a travesty all round.
posted by goo at 8:40 PM on May 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

ferdinand.bardamu: Well, that's unfortunate. I support capital punishment for all rape cases, regardless of the perpetrator's lineage.

.
posted by mazola at 8:42 PM on May 7, 2010

ferdinand...

your racist attitude is clearly shown in your posting history. why would you think that the members of metafilter aren't smart enough to figure that out?

Do a search on your name here... posts about why you wouldn't eat a black woman's pussy, you put it so nicely... "The idea of going down on black girl gash makes me want to ralph" ...posts about how men should treat women...how did you put it... oh yeah "Your job is to keep touching her and kissing her in more places and in progressively less clothing until you are having sex."...

your fear of black people...stated as "white people in neighborhoods like mine are targeted by black shitheads and criminals simply because we're white." is so evident..

and you want us to believe that your opinions on this topic are worth listening to? You've wasted a lot of time typing and cutting and pasting... we're not that stupid.

Let me suggest that you find a forum that caters to your phobias, your sickness, and your hate..'cuz I don't think metafilter is the place...

I am so sorry this went in this direction due to the hate in one person... the responses from the rest of you have been outstanding...thank you....
posted by HuronBob at 8:48 PM on May 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese: "53Since it seems that mentioning someone's posting history in specific is a faux pax, I won't. But a glance at yours lets me know where you're coming from. Fuck this.

"You are from the South so your opinion has no validity.""

Actually, I'm from the south and I currently live in the south. So kindly take your misinformed snark elsewhere.
posted by anansi at 8:50 PM on May 7, 2010 [2 favorites]

"Well, that's unfortunate. I support capital punishment for all rape cases, regardless of the perpetrator's lineage".

Even with evidence as thin as this? When the relationship is entirely taboo? I do feel sorry for Mrs Hawkins, because (from all the evidence available) she fucked at least one man who wasn't her husband, and had to deal with that, but i'm glad you're not a judge.

I'm sorry for what your friend went through, Maude_the_Destroyer.
posted by goo at 8:58 PM on May 7, 2010

HuronBob, I really appreciate this and I'm glad you made this post, regardless of how the comments have gone. I wouldn't have even known about it otherwise. So, thanks.
posted by six-or-six-thirty at 8:59 PM on May 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

People can read into my posts whatever they want. It doesn't change the facts of the case nor your inappropriate and disrespectful conflation.
posted by ferdinand.bardamu at 9:01 PM on May 7, 2010

So kindly take your misinformed snark elsewhere.

If my snark is misinformed it is only because your snark says quite plainly that you are judging his comments based on his provenance.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 9:04 PM on May 7, 2010

"People can read into my posts whatever they want."

heh... no, they can read into your posts what you intended...there's not much room there for misunderstanding who you are...
posted by HuronBob at 9:06 PM on May 7, 2010

anansi: "16 At this juncture you appear to be a,"Its just the facts--not racism" troll."

Its a bit recursive to quote myself, but seriously folks, don't feed the troll.

Anyway, HuronBob this was an interesting post. If we ignore the derailing, racism-apologist asshats then this discussion can be refocused on the actual post, not the social hang-ups of our in-the-closet racist members (and yes, even though this will likely reinforce in the mind of LOLAttorney2009 that I am obviously racist myself, lets not beat around the bush here, we are being trolled by a racist).
posted by anansi at 9:09 PM on May 7, 2010

And on non-preview, ewwww. I'm sorry for feeding the troll. Thanks for an interesting post, HuronBob.
posted by goo at 9:09 PM on May 7, 2010

Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese: "If my snark is misinformed it is only because your snark says quite plainly that you are judging his comments based on his provenance."

Seriously? Seriously? You can say that with a straight face? My comment was on the content of his post. Go grind your axe somewhere else.
posted by anansi at 9:11 PM on May 7, 2010

aaaand . . . I just fell for it myself.

let me rephrase, let's not feed the trolls.
posted by anansi at 9:12 PM on May 7, 2010

Sometimes when the darkest parts of who we are shows it's face, as bitter and angry, and unpleasant as it is, there's an opportunity for the best of you to shine through... maybe it is that contrast that is so important... just like in photography, it's all in the light...
posted by HuronBob at 9:14 PM on May 7, 2010

*sigh* Again. Feeding trolls doesn't help. If you feel like you have to talk about his prior comments, you can do it without addressing him directly.

If my snark is misinformed it is only because your snark says quite plainly that you are judging his comments based on his provenance.

People are judging his comments based on his racist comments he's made in the past in the past, which Huron Bob went over, not where he lives. (Some of the comments have been deleted, but they caused quite a ruckus)

And since when is Washington DC "the south"? It's 200 miles from NYC. I think you're a little confused here.
posted by delmoi at 9:18 PM on May 7, 2010

(Remove one 'in the past' from that last comment)
posted by delmoi at 9:20 PM on May 7, 2010

So, let me see I understand what you're trying to say: ferdinand.bardamu's assumption (supported by 3rd hand gossip as fact) was reasonable, whereas making assumptions the other way is wrong? Do I have that right?

No. I'm saying you're all but screaming 'YOU'RE RACIST GTFO' because the man doesn't agree with your assumption.
posted by Malice at 9:24 PM on May 7, 2010

No. I'm saying you're all but screaming 'YOU'RE RACIST GTFO' because the man doesn't agree with your assumption.

They're saying that because he's posted a bunch of racist comments in the past.
posted by delmoi at 9:30 PM on May 7, 2010

My comment was on the content of his post.

What are you talking about? You said "Since it seems that mentioning someone's posting history in specific is a faux pax, I won't. But a glance at yours lets me know where you're coming from." So you're dismissing him because he's from the South.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 9:34 PM on May 7, 2010

They're saying that because he's posted a bunch of racist comments in the past.

I haven't delved into his posting history, but from what I've read above that others have posted, he may very well be. Or, maybe what he posts is just the truth in his neighborhood. (His personal sexual preferences aside, and I'm not even going to go into the fact that you can't, and shouldn't, force everyone to be sexually attracted to every race.)
posted by Malice at 9:34 PM on May 7, 2010

Um, KAC, do you not know the slang meaning of "I know where you're coming from"?
posted by Bookhouse at 9:39 PM on May 7, 2010

Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese: "74My comment was on the content of his post.

What are you talking about? You said "Since it seems that mentioning someone's posting history in specific is a faux pax, I won't. But a glance at yours lets me know where you're coming from." So you're dismissing him because he's from the South."

So are you some sort of Rain Man-esque literalist who is incapable of parsing idiomatic speech? Or are you just being disingenuousfor the sake of an argument?

where one is coming from phrases / idioms
What one means, from one's point of view, based on one's background or prior experience. For example, I don't believe in capital punishment, but as a pacifist you know where I'm coming from. [Second half of 1900s]
http://www.yourdictionary.com/idioms/where-one-is-coming-from
posted by anansi at 9:41 PM on May 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

I came across this story last year while researching something else for a class on the civil rights era. I looked for more information on it but was never able to determine whether I thought McGee was guilty or not. What was clear though was that he would not have been convicted if he was white much less executed. If I remember correctly, the alleged victim never entered the courtroom. McGee never had the chance to face his accuser. At that time and place McGee was screwed the moment he was accused. BTW I am a southerner though I don't see why that matters.
posted by Tashtego at 9:46 PM on May 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

Looking backward through time and judging that a woman couldn't possibly be a victim because she was/is white and her alleged attacker black doesn't do her and her family a disservice? I can't fathom how you would justify that statement.

I don't think that's what is happening here. It's not that people think it was impossible for a black man to rape a white woman. Rather, it's that the trial was unfair for a number of reasons. An all white male jury that took 2 minutes to reach a verdict. No defense at all was presented because of the plausible fear of lynching. And most significantly, the fact that there was an established pattern of black men being killed for consensual sexual contact with white women. If a person doesn't receive a fair trial, then they have never been proven guilty and are in fact innocent.

And on the other side, all we have is this:

"In my lifetime I was never aware of a white woman that had a consensual relationship with a black man. I don't find it plausible at all."
posted by Danila at 9:46 PM on May 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

Sorry. Yep, I read it literally, then I had a look at his previous posts and the first thing I noticed was his comments about being from the South, so I figured that's what you were talking about. Apologies for the misinterpretation.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 9:48 PM on May 7, 2010

Around 9:00 in, Raymond Horn, who was a reporter at the time of the execution, says that Willie's defense was that it was consensual. He then says "that is one of the craziest arguments that can be made." So here I am with my modern sensibilities, assuming we're about to hear about some obvious evidence that renders the consensual defense "crazy". But why does this man say it was "crazy" (and he says this in 2009 or whenever the interview was recorded)?

"In my lifetime I was never aware of a white woman that had a consensual relationship with a black man. I don't find it plausible at all."

I'm sorry, this is ridiculous.
posted by Danila at 9:49 PM on May 7, 2010

Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese: "Sorry. Yep, I read it literally, then I had a look at his previous posts and the first thing I noticed was his comments about being from the South, so I figured that's what you were talking about. Apologies for the misinterpretation."

Right then. Sorry for coming down so hard then over a misunderstanding. This just has my hackles raised. I truly despise the "What me, racist?" stuff that comes out of some peoples mouths. I mean, at least have the courage of your convictions. All of the beating around the bush, euphemistic, coy racism that masquerades as "just the facts!" is maddeningly annoying.
posted by anansi at 9:52 PM on May 7, 2010

Nearly 1 am here. I'm way too old to be up this late... my day started at 5 am taking the little husky out, then going to work with 45 at-risk kids (most of them black)..... One kid left the program today because he was wanting to sell drugs at school... a good kid, with no resources and little hope... now he has less.

I heard the NPR show about Willie on the way home... it was so clear to me that it communicated what was so wrong with this country back then, as I listened, there was some joy in the thought that we had moved so far down that road.

It felt important to post it here, where people that have insight, intelligence, and look to the future could consider it, discuss it and make meaning of it.

Things did not go as I anticipated... although this thread did reinforce my thought that MetaFilter members are good people...

I want to leave with this... James Taylor's song about Martin Luther King..

I don't know that this discussion can move in a positive direction, so, as the person that initiated it, I'm asking that we let it go...

If anyone wants to discuss this further with me, feel free to contact me...

otherwise... please... let this close this out...

Peace
posted by HuronBob at 10:01 PM on May 7, 2010

What was clear though was that he would not have been convicted if he was white much less executed.

Tashtego, this is a good point. This is a travesty of justice and a perversion of the judicial system in this country, and we can know that even if everyone involved is dead and "we'll never know the truth truth."

And more to the point, because racism is not a thing of the past, the pattern of blacks being more likely to be convicted than whites and to receive harsher sentences for the same crime continues in full force to this day.

An exhaustive ten-year study by the Capital Jury Project on juror racial attitudes in which more than 1,000 jurors were interviewed in 14 states found that white jurors were far more willing to believe the testimony of police and prosecution witnesses than the testimony of black defendants and witnesses. Legions of other studies have also shown that white jurors are more prone to convict black than white defendants. If the defendant is black, and the victim is white, the likelihood is greater still of a conviction.

and

The investigators also found unsurprisingly that black teens were hit with far stiffer sentences than white teens for the same crimes. It made no difference whether the whites had a prior history of criminal or bad behavior and the black teens were altar boys and had a squeaky clean record. The blacks still got harsher sentences. Countless studies show that a black teen is six times more likely to be tried and sentenced to prison than a young white, even when the crimes are similar, or even less severe than those committed by white teens.

everything you think you know about drug crime is wrong

According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, among youths aged 12 to 17, the rate of current illicit drug use was 11.1 % among whites, and 9.3% among African Americans. [5] In a previous year, the same survey found that white youth aged 12 to17 are more than a third more likely to have sold drugs than African American youth. [6] The Monitoring the Future Survey of high school seniors shows that white students annually use cocaine at 4.6 times the rate of African Americans students, use crack cocaine at 1.5 times the rate of African Americans students, and use heroin at the same rate of African Americans students, and that white youth report annual use of marijuana at a rate 46% higher than African American youth. [7] However African American youth are arrested for drug offenses at about twice the rate (African American 314 per 100,000, white 175 per 100,000) times that of whites, [8] and African American youth represent nearly half (48%) of all the youth incarcerated for a drug offense in the juvenile justice system.

across the Atlantic

The CRE's report confirmed studies by penal reformers and probation officers that black people tend to be more harshly treated than whites, leading for calls for greater recruitment of ethnic minorities among judges, magistrates, police and lawyers.

They conclude black people are more likely to be charged, more likely to be convicted and more likely to receive longer sentences than whites with similar histories and for similar crimes.

I could go on and on.
posted by Danila at 10:03 PM on May 7, 2010 [4 favorites]

"I haven't delved into his posting history, but from what I've read above that others have posted, he may very well be. Or, maybe what he posts is just the truth in his neighborhood. (His personal sexual preferences aside, and I'm not even going to go into the fact that you can't, and shouldn't, force everyone to be sexually attracted to every race.)"

I was reared in Montgomery, AL. Contrary to what many here may think, outside of redneck circles, most children in the area are deeply inculcated in the history of the civil rights movement and, in the case of whites, engendered with shame regarding it and the civil war. A generalized feeling of "white man bad, black man good" can get transmitted. That and the way I saw the area politicians yield the "Racist!" club in their quest for more power, influence, and wealth created a certain bitterness that comes out at times. I become especially interested in cases where I believe such accusations are bogus. Of particular delight was the eventual outcome of the Duke lacrosse case, another where the bandwagon came hungry to bask in the reification of a standard myth. The Harper's takedown of the SPLC is another favorite.

As for my comments about my neighborhood, I stand by my assertion because I see it. Crime statistics confirm it. As for not liking going down on black girls, your later point was mine also. Enforcing acceptable codes of sexual attraction is not a progressive stance.
posted by ferdinand.bardamu at 10:05 PM on May 7, 2010

"In my lifetime I was never aware of a white woman that had a consensual relationship with a black man. I don't find it plausible at all."

I'm sorry, this is ridiculous.

My interpretation was that meant his lifetime up to the time of the case, which is more plausible.
posted by ferdinand.bardamu at 10:06 PM on May 7, 2010

A generalized feeling of "white man bad, black man good" can get transmitted. That and the way I saw the area politicians yield the "Racist!" club in their quest for more power, influence, and wealth created a certain bitterness that comes out at times.

Your emotional baggage doesn't justify the staggering amount of bad-faith arguments you've made in this thread. At some point, you have to be a grown-ass man and deal with your own shit on your own time, not trot out a bunch of tired straw men and then, very late in the day, hint that mistakes may have been made.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:25 PM on May 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

ferdinand...this has been contentious, I know that... but the disconnect between your posting history and your comments here is huge.... parsing this in public will never work...

I will make an attempt to communicate with you tomorrow on this.....

my hope for this thread is that it slides peacefully away...
posted by HuronBob at 10:30 PM on May 7, 2010

Your emotional baggage doesn't justify the staggering amount of bad-faith arguments you've made in this thread. At some point, you have to be a grown-ass man and deal with your own shit on your own time, not trot out a bunch of tired straw men and then, very late in the day, hint that mistakes may have been made.

My statement was made to address perceptions. I have made no bad-faith arguments and am not offering a mea culpa. There was and remains no reason to be convinced that McGhee was innocent. The automatic assumption that he was is just as much a result of the perceiver's prejudices as my supposition to the contrary.
posted by ferdinand.bardamu at 10:37 PM on May 7, 2010

Tashtego: " I looked for more information on it but was never able to determine whether I thought McGee was guilty or not."
Malice: "Completely throwing yourself in one direction of 'not-guilty' or 'guilty' when it happened so long ago, without the forensic evidence to prove one way or another is silly."

Legally speaking, he is innocent until proven guilty. So if he didn't receive a fair trial then he is innocent. As to whether he committed the rape or not, that's lost to history but if we agree he didn't receive a fair trial then he is innocent. If you want to argue that he got a fair trial, that's fine. From listening to the NPR link and reading the transcripts, I'm pretty convinced he did not.
posted by yaymukund at 10:40 PM on May 7, 2010

Legally speaking, he is innocent until proven guilty. So if he didn't receive a fair trial then he is innocent. As to whether he committed the rape or not, that's lost to history but if we agree he didn't receive a fair trial then he is innocent. If you want to argue that he got a fair trial, that's fine. From listening to the NPR link and reading the transcripts, I'm pretty convinced he did not.

No, lack of a fair trial does not mean an accused is "innocent," it means he has not satisfactorily been proven guilty, a mistrial should be declared, and a new trial should be ordered. Likewise, acquittal does not establish innocence, only lack of evidence of guilt sufficient to satisfy the criminal charges, else civil trials relating to the same alleged events would not be allowed.

The controversy here, however, revolves more around the actual facts rather than the procedure. If McGhee is to be convincingly seen as a sympathetic victim of racist persecution, whether he actually did it carries greater weight than does a merely procedural injustice.
posted by ferdinand.bardamu at 10:58 PM on May 7, 2010

whether he actually did it carries greater weight than does a merely procedural injustice.

In your opinion. When the justice system under which this man was tried is predicated on "mere" procedural grounds like fairness and due process, then whether or not he was actually guilty is irrelevant if the process was poisoned from the start. Which it was.
posted by rtha at 11:07 PM on May 7, 2010

Yaymunkund. I merely meant I couldn't decide whether he raped this woman or not. Guilty in that sense.

Danila. I think everything you wrote about contemporary justice for African Americans is likely to be true though I have to admit it's too late right now for me to read all those links. But I think part of the problem with this thread is that people are thinking in terms of contemporary justice in the modern South which, while not great, is enormously different from the situation when Willie McGee was convicted. The past truly is like a foreign country. The degree of overt, violent, institutionalized racism in the South and to some degree, in America generally, prior to the late 60's is something I believe most white people are ignorant of. Sure, they are aware of segregation, MLK, and Rosa Parks in a general sort of way but not how much Jim Crow relied on a public/private partnership of terrorism and how this system robbed African Americans of the use of their share of their tax money for decades. Again, my memory is fuzzy, but I believe one book stated that in the 40's or 50's there were something like 3 or 4 High Schools for Blacks in the whole South (I don't think they counted trade schools). What would happen is that School districts would decide there was no point in building a High School for Black students (what would they need an education for?) and use the portion of tax revenues for education of Black students to build better schools for the white kids. You may see how decades of this could lead to a gap in test scores and education levels. Back to the point - you can't look at this as you might a contemporary rape case. We will never know whether McGee was guilty or not. His death was necessary to terrorize the Black community there into accepting Jim Crow.
posted by Tashtego at 11:48 PM on May 7, 2010

Wow. Usenet.
posted by five fresh fish at 12:05 AM on May 8, 2010

Again, my memory is fuzzy, but I believe one book stated that in the 40's or 50's there were something like 3 or 4 High Schools for Blacks in the whole South (I don't think they counted trade schools). What would happen is that School districts would decide there was no point in building a High School for Black students (what would they need an education for?) and use the portion of tax revenues for education of Black students to build better schools for the white kids.

Citation needed.

According to the Southern Education Foundation, by 1930 the black literacy rate had reached 80%, black high schools were "common" in the south, and "nearly 90%" of black children were in school. By 1931, the number of black high schools in the south had grown to 390.
posted by ferdinand.bardamu at 12:19 AM on May 8, 2010

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