Reflecting on the murder of Troy Davis

After Troy Anthony Davis was murdered last week by the State of Georgia, a close friend who has been active in both the labor movement and the struggle for civil & human rights for many decades shared her observations. Her heartfelt examination, her humanity, these are the elements of any capital murder case that are missing in in what some folks insist on calling the "justice system." I invite both long-time and new readers of Fire on the Mountain, to ponder this and share their thoughts…

The Troy Davis Execution

On the Wednesday night of the Troy Davis execution I was glued to the television with my 30 year old son, at his home.  We were both holding our breath waiting for the Supreme Court decision, and could not hold back tears when they refused to give him a stay of execution.

We have not lived together for 7 years, so we rarely watch TV together.  So on this night we reverted to a much younger version of ourselves with him asking me for assurance that would I come save him if he was on death row; like any mother wouldn’t want to be able to say “yes” to that question.

I thought the NAACP was at its best.  Executive Director, Ben Jealous was totally sympathetic and respectful of the family of the police officer who had been killed.  At the same time he was a staunch advocate for Davis saying that justice had to be “precise”; that executing Davis when there were so many doubts was not justice for either Davis or the victim.

As remarkable, were the scores of people who agreed with the NAACP---Desmond Tutu, and Jimmy Carter included. There was even a letter from past and present executioners talking about the horrible psychological toll executing a person takes on a “person of conscience”, only made worse when that person maintains their innocence and their guilt is in doubt. Davis’ last words were to the officers’ family declaring that he did not have a gun the night their son or brother was killed.

The officer’s mother could not bear to watch the execution but she was interviewed by TV reporters.  She insisted she needed Davis killed so she could get closure. Though I truly felt sorry for her that she had lost her son, and the indignity of him being killed while trying to protect a homeless person, I found her statement incomprehensible.  If my son, were to die before me, I do not think I would ever get closure. Its so against nature for a child to die before their parents. And clearly this poor mother had not gotten closure in the 22 years since his death. For her to think she would get closure by the execution of Davis is against all reason. Studies show that victims families do not get relief from these executions; and certainly the doubt raised about Davis being the killer had to undermine any satisfaction.

In Texas, that same night, another execution was going on. It was the execution of a  young white man who had purposely killed a Black man-James Byrd- by chaining him to the back of a truck until his body was totally mutilated to the point that the highway police originally thought he was a dead animal run over by many vehicles. That family put out a statement that said: They were not advocating that this killer be executed. He could not harm their family from the prison; that violence in response to violence only perpetuates it; and finally that executions historically in this country had been of Black men, and this execution of a white men did not take away that history, or make it fairer by evening the score.

To me, the difference in consciousness between the 2 families was stunning. From the ugliness of the centuries of discrimination and lynchings, the Black family had emerged with a generous spirit and a historical perspective.  The white family had not gotten past the Barbaric “an eye for an eye”. Its this difference in consciousness; that regressive consciousness that has defined this country since its inception, this ongoing legacy of  slavery and Jim Crow that keeps this country socially backward, despite all our riches.

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May '70: 12. The Forgotten Dead Of Augusta [Updated]

There were six of them, gunned down by the armed force of the state.

I could be talking about the four students murdered at Kent State just seven days before plus the two who would would die later in the week at Jackson State.

But I’m not. I’m talking about six Black men killed in Augusta, Georgia, 41 years ago this week. Each was shot in the back by police shotguns, and their deaths were woven into the fabric of struggle and repression that was growing day by day in May, 1970.

Like many an urban rebellion in the ‘60s, it started with the cops. On May 9, Charles Oatman died in the Augusta city jail. He was 16 and mentally disabled. The police announced that he had died in a fall from his bunk. At the funeral home, his body was discovered to have fresh cigarette burns and bruises all over it. Open wounds from a whipping marred the corpse’s back. His skull was caved in. Changing their tune, the cops moved to charge his cellmates with murder.

On May 11, community activists who had been dealing with police brutality issues for a long time met with officials and left the meeting to find 500 furious community residents outside demanding action. A march was called on the spot and soon erupted into rock throwing and looting which went on into the evening.

The governor of Georgia, a foam-flecked racist named Lester Maddox, swung into action. He ordered out the state police to deal with the citizens he called “communists” and Black Panthers. He gave the cops orders to shoot to kill and even to raze “any building they’re in to its very foundation if necessary to get them out.” Maddox followed up by mobilizing 1,200 troops of the Georgia National Guard, who reached Augusta about 1:00 in the morning on the 12th.

By dawn on the 12th, the “Augusta riot” was over and over 80 people were wounded. Six Black men were dead. Most were young. None had been armed. All were hit in the back by shotgun blasts consistent with police riot guns.

Why do these ugly police murders belong in a series of articles about the campus uprising of 1970? To us at the time, it was obvious. These kids were murdered just like the kids at Kent State. Augusta was, in fact, one of the last of the great urban rebellions against racism that shook the US to its foundations in the ‘60s. Those rebellions had helped form our understanding that of the oppression of African Americans was far broader and deeper than a question of Jim Crow segregation in the south. Around the country, leaflets and posters about the Augusta murders started to appear within hours.

Sure, the riot wasn’t on campus, but the folks in Augusta’s segregated inner city knew that colleges around the country were erupting in protests and had in one case been met with bullets. And how was the Guard able to mobilize so quickly, if they were not already on alert to deal with campus unrest?

But even our steps in solidarity with the Augusta rebellion wound up butting up against the ugly realities of life in a society built on, and shot through with, white supremacy and white privilege. If you went through the month of May in 1970, you will probably always have a visceral response to the names of Sandy Scheuer, Bill Schroeder, Alison Krause and Jeffrey Miller. You may even recall that Philip Gibbs and James Earl Green were the two slaughtered at Jackson State. I hope this piece has jogged your memory about Augusta.

When this was first written in 2010, I was unable to find the names of the six whose lives were snatched from them by the cops forty years before. Now, thanks to filmmaker Banks Pappas, who is working on a documentary on the Augusta Six (video trailer here), I offer for your respect and remembrance:

Mack Wilson, Jr.
John (Johnnie) Stokes
William Wright, Jr.
Charlie Mack Murphy
Sammie Larry McCullough
John Bennings

They deserve to be recalled with the others as young people whose lives were taken in May ‘70 at one of the historic peaks of the long struggle to bring into being a better world...



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