Judge Lynch Overruled

Over the little town of Eastman, Ga. lay the dead pall of fear and hatred that comes over Southern towns when everybody knows what is going to happen. In the town square, hard-eyed, determined men came together, waiting for darkness. There was going to be a lynching.

The heat lay heavily on the paved sidewalks, the trim houses beside the highway. In a cell in the county jail a young Negro waited too. Eddie Lee Spivey, 28, a sharecropper with a good reputation, married, with two children, had been arrested for rape the night before. Up in his farming community of Mt. Airy, a 65-year-old white woman had been attacked as she crossed a field to her son's house. Bloodhounds had followed tracks from the scene of the crime to a spot near Spivey's house.

The Negro prayed. The other prisoners looked through the barred window at the growing mob, and told him to come look. Spivey talked with his Lord and asked Him to save him. He told the Lord that he was going to tell the truth; suddenly he was no longer scared or worried, and lay back on his bunk and slept. About dark the boys woke him. He looked through the bars at the scene swimming in the hot Southern twilight, a string of 100 cars drawn up before the jail, 700 white men circulating under the trees. Strong in his faith, he lay down again and slept. It was 10:15 when the mob's leaders, with keys taken from the sheriff, unlocked the cell door. Spivey knew they had come to kill him. He held up his hands and waited.

Half a dozen men held him by the arms and legs and dragged him out to their car. It streaked over the eight miles of road to the scene of the crime, other cars following. Out in the woods beside the field, somebody built a bonfire. Somebody asked Spivey if he had raped Mrs. Peacock. He said he had not seen her in five years. Somebody asked Spivey if he knew where his potato patch was, near there. When Spivey said he did not, the man said, "You're a God-damned liar" and hit him on the head with the butt of his pistol. The man swung again, missed, hit a white man beside him.

Spivey sat oa the ground. A double plowline was fastened around his neck. The blow had deafened him; he could not hear the questions. Somebody kicked him in the back and on the head. He was rolled over on his face, and his legs twisted. Blood was running into his nose and mouth from the cut on his head. He heard something about gasoline and knew they were going to burn him. He said he did not do it. He said it again. Somebody yelled: how many want to kill him? How many want to take him back to jail? He heard the roar for his death. He said, "Go ahead and kill me but then keep looking for the man who done it."

The mob hesitated. The men who were likkered up wanted to get it over with. An hour passed while the fire burned down. Some piney-woods lawgiver thought of an answer. Two of the raped woman's sons were there, Elzie and Early. So the crowd said for Elzie and Early to decide.

This focusing of responsibility troubled Elzie and Early. They crossed the fields to ask their mother what to do. She told them to take the Negro back to jail and let the law take its course. At midnight, bruised but still unafraid, Spivey was back in his cell. The boys in his cell said they had figured there was a better chance of seeing their mothers come back from the grave than of ever seeing him alive again.

For the first time, as far as anybody could recollect, Judge Lynch had been overruled.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.