The Eyes of Willie McGee: A Tragedy of Race, Sex, and Secrets in the Jim Crow South
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Randall, Terree. “Democracy’s Passion Play: The Lincoln Memorial, Politics, and History as Myth.” Ph.D. diss., City University of New York, 2002.
Skates, John Ray, Jr. “A Southern Editor Views the National Scene: Frederick Sullens and the Jackson, Mississippi, Daily News.” Ph.D. diss., Mississippi State University, 1965.
Notes
ABBREVIATIONS
CL: Jackson Clarion-Ledger
Compass: The New York Compass
CRC: Civil Rights Congress
DW: The Daily Worker
JDN: Jackson Daily News
LLC: Laurel Leader-Call
LOC: Library of Congress
MDAH: Mississippi Department of Archives and History
NAACP: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
Rogers: Lauren Rogers Museum of Art Library
SRC: Southern Regional Council
NYT: The New York Times
WaPo: The Washington Post
EPIGRAPH
sorrow night: Hansberry, Masses and Mainstream, July 1951, 19–20.
ONE: THE HOT SEAT
F. Aegerter: “Mrs. Roosevelt Calls McGee ‘Bad Character,’” CRC press release, June 1, 1951. CRC papers.
from obscurity to fame: See Rowan, South of Freedom, “Run! The Red Vampire!,” 174–92; Zaim, “Trial by Ordeal: The Willie McGee Case,” Journal of Mississippi History, Fall 2003, 215–47.
The story began: State of Mississippi v. Willie McGee, December 1945 Special
Term, Jones County Courthouse, Laurel, Mississippi; CL, JDN, LLC, December 6–7, 1945.
Hinds County jail: CL, December 14, 1930.
thousands of individuals: see “15,000 ‘Free McGee’ Pleas Swamp Wright,” Compass, July 29, 1950.
“Dear Mr. President”: Willie McGee letters, April 30, 1951, CRC papers.
Faulkner: Meriwether, Essays, Speeches & Public Letters by William Faulkner, 211–12; Blotner, Faulkner, 539.
Einstein: “A Letter from Albert Einstein,” NYT display ad, May 4, 1951.
State Department: JDN, April 25, 1951.
Combat: Rowan, South of Freedom, 191.
Mayella Ewell, Tom Robinson: Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, 172–77, 190–242, 269–70.
love affair: Willie McGee’s initial account of his alleged relationship with Willette Hawkins appeared in an autobiographical statement he wrote for his first appeals lawyer, Forrest Jackson, which he and others expanded on later. See Dixon Pyles’s interview with a Daily Worker investigator, CRC papers, 1952; Willie McGee’s affidavit, February 3, 1951, Hinds County Courthouse, Jackson, Mississippi, CRC papers; and Rosalee McGee’s affidavit, July 25, 1950, MDAH.
“depraved, enslaved, adulterous woman”: References to Mrs. Hawkins were cut from “A Black Woman Speaks” when Beah Richards published a collection of her poetry in 1974. The original version, which she read at a civil rights meeting in 1951, is widely available on the Web. See www.thumperscorer.com/discus/messages/11222/8608.html.
Carol Cutrere: Williams, Orpheus Descending, 27–28.
Roosevelt was no coward: Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt: Volume Two, 1933–1938, 153–54, 177–81; Janken, White, 209–11.
China, Soviet Union: NYT, July 27, 1950; see “Execution of M’Gee Blasted by Moscow,” Toler Papers, Mississippi State University.
Julius Rosenberg: Meeropol, The Rosenberg Letters, 98.
CRC origins: “Congress on Civil Rights” invitation; Walter White memo, May 1, 1946; Marian Wynn Perry memo, May 7, 1946, NAACP papers.
“the Communists persuaded”: Eleanor Roosevelt to Roy Wilkins, July 18, 1950; Walter White to Eleanor Roosevelt, July 24, 1950, NAACP papers.
“added suspicions”: Eleanor Roosevelt to Aubrey Grossman, March 14, 1951, CRC papers.
radio broadcast: “Willie McGee Execution,” Jim Leeson audio recording, May 7–8, 1950, University of Southern Mississippi oral history collections.
execution scene: CL, JDN, LLC, NYT, May 8, 1951.
Dray seemed convinced: Dray, At the Hands of Persons Unknown, 397–405.
as did Mitford: Mitford, A Fine Old Conflict, 160–94.
not proven fact: Brownmiller, Against Our Will, 239–45.
Carl Rowan in Laurel: Rowan, South of Freedom, 174–92; Rowan, “McGee was Going to Die,” Stag, March 1953.
Adolphus and Marjorie McGee: In Tales of Wo-Chi-Ca: Blacks, Whites and Reds at Camp, authors June Levine and Gene Gordon recall these as the names of two McGee children who attended a leftist summer camp in the late 1940s.
Mary Mostert: author interview, September 2004; Mostert, “Death for Association,” The Nation, May 5, 1951; Mostert, “Internet Journalism—the Guerilla Warfare Wing in the Media and Propaganda War,” July 26, 2003, http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/mostert/030726.
“Willie McGee…raped my mother”: Sandra Hawkins e-mail to Mary Mostert, July 17, 2004.
Richard Barrett: author e-mail to Mary Mostert, September 13, 2004; see Nationalist Web site: http://www.nationalist.org/index.html.
McGee family: author interview with Tracey McGee, December 2004.
Bridgette and Della: author interviews, February 2005.
brave CRC spokesperson: Willie McGee series, Compass, June 14–19, 1950.
Life story: “The End of Willie McGee,” May 21, 1951, 44–45.
McGee obituary: Mississippi Enterprise, May 19, 1951.
Cleaven Jordan: author interview, May 2005.
Hawkins obit: LLC, March 27, 1967.
Evelyn Smith McDowell: author interview, May 2005.
Hawkins sisters: author interviews, May 2005.
TWO: A MAN WASN’T BORN TO LIVE FOREVER
McGee photograph: Time published this picture on May 14, 1951.
lynching figures, 1890 to 1930: see Thompson, Lynchings in Mississippi, for decade-by-decade comparative figures of state and national totals, 35, 98.
Lang and Green lynching: Chicago Defender, November 7, 1942, March 6, 1943; Journal and Guide, October 17, 1942; Clarke County Tribune, October 16, 1942; NYT, October 13, 1942; Atlanta Daily World, October 16, 1942; DW, October 27, 1942.
Madison Jones report: Payne, I’ve Got the Light of Freedom, 14.
Governor Bailey: Thomas Bailey subject files, MDAH.
Hernando executions: NYT, February 12–13, March 17, 1934; LLC, March 16, 1934.
initial arrest: LLC, November 2–3, 1945.
“Willie Magee” arrest: LLC, November 5, 1945.
“Magee” confesses: LLC, November 10, 1945.
trial fast-tracked: Ibid.
Laurel population: Laurel City Directory, 1945–46.
Laurel history: LLC, “Chemurgic Trek Edition,” March 1939; Hodge, “The Lumber Industry in Laurel, Mississippi, at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of Mississippi History; Key, “Laurel, Mississippi: A Historical Perspective” Busbee, Mississippi: A History, Bynum, The Free State of Jones; Payne, The Oak Park Story and Laurel: A History of the Black Community, 1882–1962; Mississippi: The WPA Guide to the Magnolia State, 222–26; Rogers, subject files.
Davis Knight: WaPo, December 19, 1948; Bynum, The Free State of Jones, 1–7.
Pachuta: see McGee’s autobiographical statement in Dixon Pyles’s interview with Daily Worker investigator, 1952, CRC papers.
Jasper McGee: Laurel City Directory, 1922–1923, 1936.
the red line: Payne, Laurel: A History of the Black Community, 67.
“Chemurgic City”: LLC, “Chemurgic Trek Edition,” March 1939.
Masonite: subject file, Rogers.
“‘New South’ in the heart of the Piney Woods”: Key, “Laurel, Mississippi: A Historical Perspective,” 25.
Oak Park Vocational High School: Payne, The Oak Park Story, 7–13.
“‘liberal Laurel’”: author interview with Ralph Boston, August 2008.
Sam Bowers: Debra Spencer interview with Sam H. Bowers Jr., October 24, 1983, MDAH.
McGee’s arraignment: LLC, December 3, 1945.
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br /> Boyd and Koch: Ibid.; Louis Burnham to George Marshall and Milton Kemnitz, December 26, 1945, CRC papers.
Burkitt Collins: subject file, Rogers.
“strongest charge”: LLC, December 3, 1945.
Ouida Keeton: Lampton, “The Rest of Your Mother,” Journal of the Mississippi State Medical Association, January 2003; Valentine, “Unraveling the Ouida Keeton ‘Legs’ Murder;” trial proceedings, and verdict, Keeton subject file, Rogers.
Eudora Welty: Journal of the Mississippi State Medical Association, January 2003.
Howard Wash arrest and trial: State of Mississippi v. Howard Wash; Memphis Commercial Appeal, June 29, 1942; LLC, October 17, 1942.
Wash lynching: FBI report, Jackson field office, “Lynching of Howard Wash: Laurel, Mississippi,” November 4, 1942; NYT, October 18, 1942; LLC, October 17, 1942; Memphis Commercial Appeal, October 25, 1942.
Enoc P. Waters: Waters, “Two Lynched Boys Were Ace Scrap Iron Collectors in Mississippi Town,” Chicago Defender, March 6, 1943.
Emergency Committee: DW, October 27, 1942.
Paul Johnson Sr.: Atlanta Daily World, October 16, 1942; LLC, October 17, 22, 1942; JDN, October 20–21, 1942.
Wash investigation and lynching details: FBI report, Jackson field office, “Lynching of Howard Wash: Laurel, Mississippi,” November 4, 1942; LLC, October 17, 19–20, 1942.
federal lynching trial: Memphis Commercial Appeal, October 18, 1942; January 13, April 15, 22, 25, 1943.
first trial: CL, JDN, LLC, December 6–7, 1945.
“It becomes our painful duty”: State of Mississippi v. Willie McGee, December 1945 Special Term, sanity hearing, 3.
“horse play” and sanity hearing: Ibid., 5–27.
Willette Hawkins: State of Mississippi v. Willie McGee, December 1945 Special Term, direct testimony, 3–11.
first trial, direct testimony: Ibid., 12–84.
first trial verdict: LLC, December 7, 1945.
THREE: TAKE YOUR CHOICE
Forrest Jackson background: subject file, MDAH; author interview with Lucile J. Ross, May 2009.
ran for Senate: Jackson subject file; “Bilbo’s Successor,” Newsweek, November 3, 1947.
Hall on Jackson: Carsie A. Hall to Prentice Thomas, October 15, 1942, NAACP papers.
Willie Carter: Tushnet, Making Civil Rights Law, 59.
folded into the mix: CRC press release, May 22, 1950, Kaufman papers, Smith College; Horne, Communist Front?, 13.
Jackson hired: Louis Burnham to George Marshall and Milton Kemnitz, December 26, 1945, CRC papers.
McGee wanted Wingo: State of Mississippi v. Willie McGee, December 1945 Special Term, 28.
Burnham investigation: George Marshall to Louis Burnham, December 13, 1945; Burnham to Marshall and Milton Kemnitz, December 26, 1945, CRC papers; author interviews with Margaret A. Burnham.
The Neck, K.C. Bottom: author interview with Cleveland Payne, November 2007.
Jackson’s appeal: Forrest Jackson to Jones County Circuit Clerk, December 28, 1945; Jackson telegram, January 3, 1946; LLC, December 28, 1945.
“Bilboism”: see “Demonology,” NYT, September 2, 1935, 16.
Robert Taft: Fleegler, “Theodore G. Bilbo and the Decline of Public Racism, 1938–1947,” Journal of Mississippi History, Spring 2006; CL, April 27, 1946.
“Oust Bilbo” campaign: Horne, Communist Front?, 56; “Unseat Bilbo Campaign Begun by Mississippi Voters,” CRC “action bulletin,” September 16, 1946, NAACP papers.
fat target: Bob and Adrienne Claiborne, “Listen, Mr. Bilbo,” People’s Songs, March 1947; NYT, November 12, 1947; DW, November 11, 1946.
“merchant of hatred”: Lehman, Saturday Evening Post, June 29, 1946.
bright spot: Morgan, Redneck Liberal, 16.
Bilbo as orator: Green, The Man Bilbo, 39.
cola bill: Ibid., 28.
pistol-whipping: Rutledge, Journal of Mississippi History, November 1972, 357–72; NYT, July 7, 1911.
Bilbo background: Green, The Man Bilbo, 9–10; Morgan, Redneck Liberal, 26; author correspondence with Chester M. Morgan.
Mississippi Democrats: Morgan, Redneck Liberal, 5–14.
Bilbo’s rise in Mississippi: Ibid., 37.
2nd term, college consolidation: Ibid., 44–45; Green, The Man Bilbo, 72–77.
New Deal loyalist: Morgan, Redneck Liberal, 70–77.
meaning of “redneck liberal”: Ibid., 47–48.
Bilbo-Hoover feud: NYT, October 20, 25, 1928; JDN, October 20, 1928.
Charley Shepherd: JDN, December 29–31, 1928, January 1, 1929; CL, December 29, 1928, January 1, 1929; Delta Democrat-Times, December 31, 1928.
“investigate 2,000 people”: CL, NYT, January 2, 1929.
McGee jailbreak: JDN, February 21, 1946; CL, February 22, 1946.
“Jackson doctors”: CL, January 18, 1946.
Hinds County Courthouse and jail: CL, December 14, 1930.
1944 jailbreak: WaPo, February 28–29, 1944; JDN, February 27–28, 1944.
Gallego and Sorber: CL, September 11, 1954; NYT, September 11, 1954; WaPo, September 15, 1954.
Sherman Street: People’s Voice, January 12, 1946; “Two Minute Justice,” undated press release on McGee and Street, CRC papers; Milton Kemnitz to Abraham Isserman, February 14, 1946, CRC papers; Southern Reporter, Street v. State, 36138, Volume 26, 2nd series, 678–80.
Charlie Holloway: Southern Reporter, Holloway v. State, 36075, Volume 24, 2nd series, 857–59.
Street, Holloway executions: Hillegas, “Preliminary List of Mississippi Legal Executions,” 2001; Tuskegee news clippings file, reel 233, frame 0479.
lynching statistics: Thompson, Lynchings in Mississippi; Tuskegee news clippings file, reels 231–34.
lynching motives: Thompson, Lynchings in Mississippi, 34.
Southerners take credit: Black Dispatch, January 26, 1952.
lynching total, 1945: NYT, January 1, 1946.
CRC on Tuskegee: see “Tuskegee Lynch Report Challenged by the Civil Rights Congress,” Tuskegee news clippings file, reel 234, frame 0799.
Alonzo Rush: see Tuskegee news clippings file, reel 233, frame 0594, 1946 totals, ibid., frame 0568.
Attala County massacre: Tuskegee news clippings file, reel 234; CL, December 3, 2006; Mississippi v. Whitt, Attala County Circuit Court, 6293, March 1950; Southern Reporter, Whitt v. State, 37791, Volume 50, 2nd series, 385–87. DW, January 2, 1950; author correspondence with Stokes McMillan.
“‘saved’ from extralegal executioners”: DW, August 4, 1947.
executions for rape: see “Rape Executions in USA, 1800–1964,” Critical Criminology Journal.