"Show the Negro ..."

In Wetumpka, Ala. (pop. 3,300) last week, a jury of white men weighed the facts in the trial of a white man charged with raping a Negro woman. The prosecutor, Winston Huddleston, urged the jurors to decide the case "just like you would if a Negro was charged with raping a white woman . . . [and] show the Negro that he can get justice in court." The jurors did. They found 30-year-old John C. Howard guilty and fixed his penalty (an Alabama jury's prerogative) at 45 years in prison. Next day Howard's cousin, 21-year-old Jack Oliver, also charged with rape of a Negro woman, pleaded guilty, got the same stiff sentence. (Almost all Negroes convicted of raping Alabama white women have been sentenced to death.)

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