Justice for Justice Malcom
July 28, 2008 at 11:07 am by Michelle Ye Hee Lee in Scene & Herd
RE-ENACTMENT: A pregnant Dorothy Malcom is taken to her death.
The last public lynching in America took place 62 years ago near Atlanta, but the quest for justice continues.
Dorothy Malcom was seven months pregnant on July 25, 1946 when she, her husband Roger, and another couple, George and Mae Murray Dorsey, were lynched at Moore’s Ford Bridge near Monroe. Sixty-two years later, the unborn baby received a name – Justice Malcom.
The surviving members of the Malcom family adopted the name at the rally preceding the fourth annual re-enactment of the lynching Friday. The name reflects the need for justice in the last public lynching case in America, says Georgia Rep. Tyrone Brooks, D. Atlanta. The case remains unsolved.
Brooks is president of the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials, which hosts the re-enactment as a call for the prosecution of the culprits and the passage of the Emmett Till Bill, which would provide federal funding for all unsolved civil rights crimes.
The FBI and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation have been working on the case since it was reopened in 2000. Three weeks ago, the FBI and GBI found items in the backyard of an old farmhouse in Walton County, which Brooks believes could be weapons used in the lynching.
More than 100 people gathered at the First African Baptist Church in Monroe on Friday to follow Roger Malcom’s footsteps on the day of the lynching. The police-escorted motorcade stopped at the property where Malcom allegedly stabbed a farmer, and proceeded to the old Walton County jail, where he was kept.
From there, the re-enactment proceeded to the bridge. The actors portraying Dorothy, Roger, Roger’s sister Mae Murray Dorsey, and her husband George, were pulled from their car as they approached the bridge by a dozen people depicting Ku Klux Klan members.
Dressed in white shirts and jeans rather than white robes, the Klansmen simulated beating the couples before and tying them together with rope.
Using a snare drum and firecrackers to simulate gunshots, the mob repeatedly shot at the couples. The Klansmen then exited and the re-enactment was over. The actors returned shortly, however, with tears on their faces to hug and shake hands with the Malcoms and the Dorseys before posing for a group picture.
David Slavin, who played a Klansman, says it was an emotional experience portraying a “horror.” He decided to participate this year after watching a YouTube video of last year’s re-enactment
“It’s the responsibility of whites to take the lead in this truth-seeking,” Slavin says.
Brooks says the re-enactment will continue until all suspects are arrested and properly prosecuted. Five possible suspects have been identified in Walton County so far, he says. They’re all in their 80s.
“If old Nazis can be rounded up and prosecuted for their hideous crimes, then obviously we have to pursue justice for a hideous crime that happened when we know the suspects are still living,” Brooks says.
For more photos check out Sideshow.
(Photo by Joeff Davis)
July 28th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
Aw, no link to the video? :(