WEBVTT - Mr. Hollowell Didn’t Like That 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:15.796 Pushkin. 0:00:18.956 --> 0:00:23.036 This episode contains material that may be upsetting to some listeners. 0:00:24.396 --> 0:00:28.756 I finished law school on the first Friday in June 0:00:28.796 --> 0:00:34.996 of nineteen sixty. On the following Monday, I went to 0:00:35.036 --> 0:00:39.236 work for Donald L. Halliwell, who was the ultimate civil 0:00:39.316 --> 0:00:42.396 rights lawyer in Atlanta, Georgia at the time. 0:00:43.436 --> 0:00:46.316 Vernon Jordan, one of the great figures in the American 0:00:46.356 --> 0:00:49.236 civil rights movement talking about his mentor. 0:00:49.436 --> 0:00:52.156 And I went to work for him right out of 0:00:52.236 --> 0:00:56.436 law school for thirty five dollars a week, and there 0:00:56.436 --> 0:01:03.356 were no other jobs at the local government level, county, state, 0:01:03.636 --> 0:01:09.476 or federal. We couldn't even take the bar review course 0:01:09.516 --> 0:01:14.156 at John Marshall University because Georgia law quiet education be 0:01:14.756 --> 0:01:18.476 separate and segregated. So I went to work for Don Hollowe. 0:01:18.596 --> 0:01:21.356 My first day at work, I was in the Atlanta 0:01:21.476 --> 0:01:27.116 Municipal Court helping him get demonstrators from the Atlanta University's 0:01:27.156 --> 0:01:28.916 system out of jail. 0:01:32.316 --> 0:01:36.236 My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to Revisionist History, 0:01:36.476 --> 0:01:43.676 my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. This episode picks 0:01:43.756 --> 0:01:46.316 up with a previous one left off with the story 0:01:46.316 --> 0:01:54.916 of an extraordinary man named Donald L. Hallowell. Hallowell died 0:01:54.956 --> 0:01:57.636 in two thousand and four, but I wish he were 0:01:57.676 --> 0:02:00.916 still alive, because he has so much to teach us, 0:02:01.356 --> 0:02:04.196 like how do you keep going when all seems lost? 0:02:04.676 --> 0:02:07.916 How do you behave how do you conduct yourself if 0:02:07.956 --> 0:02:10.116 you're one of the leaders of a lose cause? And 0:02:10.196 --> 0:02:13.036 for most of his life Hollowell fought uphill. How do 0:02:13.076 --> 0:02:15.516 you prepare those behind you for the day when you 0:02:15.636 --> 0:02:16.316 might succeed? 0:02:20.636 --> 0:02:21.436 What did he look like? 0:02:21.876 --> 0:02:26.436 Hallowell big heavy guy, played quarterback at Lane College. 0:02:27.116 --> 0:02:31.796 Vernon Jordan is a big guy as well, imposing charismatic. 0:02:32.476 --> 0:02:35.756 I mention not only because it's not a trivial fact. 0:02:36.196 --> 0:02:39.436 The two of them, Jordan and Hallowell, would drive around 0:02:39.516 --> 0:02:41.596 Georgia from one end of the state to the next, 0:02:42.116 --> 0:02:45.156 to towns and courtrooms where a black lawyer was not 0:02:45.276 --> 0:02:50.156 just an anomaly but a provocation. If you were five 0:02:50.196 --> 0:02:53.156 foot two with a little squeaky voice, it didn't work. 0:02:54.036 --> 0:02:56.636 I would just like to think that the people at 0:02:56.676 --> 0:03:01.876 the university and around the university are sufficiently fair minded 0:03:02.556 --> 0:03:03.556 that you want to see. 0:03:03.836 --> 0:03:07.436 I watched all these old, grainy videotapes of Hallowell in 0:03:07.476 --> 0:03:11.116 the Auburn Avenue Library in Atlanta, and I became fixated 0:03:11.156 --> 0:03:14.836 on his hands, which would rise and fall as he talked. 0:03:15.636 --> 0:03:20.676 They were enormous. In Atlanta's segregated buses, there'd be a 0:03:20.676 --> 0:03:22.676 little sign on the back of the seat where the 0:03:22.716 --> 0:03:26.996 white section ended. It would say colored, directing black people 0:03:27.036 --> 0:03:31.116 to their place. Sometimes, when no one was looking, Hollowell 0:03:31.156 --> 0:03:33.676 would unclip it and stick it in his coat pocket, 0:03:34.516 --> 0:03:37.036 mess things up a bit until the bus driver noticed, 0:03:37.556 --> 0:03:40.956 or some white lady got hysterical because she inadvertently sat 0:03:40.996 --> 0:03:42.996 in a seat still warm from the presence of a 0:03:43.036 --> 0:03:48.436 black person. Hallowell was subversive in his own way, but 0:03:48.556 --> 0:03:52.396 also formal proper. They used to say, he talked like 0:03:52.436 --> 0:03:56.236 the Black Shakespeare. Hallowell once paused in the middle of 0:03:56.276 --> 0:03:59.716 a trial to instruct the court on the correct pronunciation 0:04:00.036 --> 0:04:06.116 of negro, not nigra, your honor negro. Another time, he 0:04:06.196 --> 0:04:08.996 was up against two district attorneys in court, and the 0:04:09.276 --> 0:04:12.156 moment he got up to speak, the white judge swiveled 0:04:12.196 --> 0:04:15.076 in his chair with his back to Hallowell so he 0:04:15.116 --> 0:04:18.036 would not have to suffer the indignity of gazing upon 0:04:18.076 --> 0:04:23.116 a black man. What did Hallowell do, just kept talking 0:04:23.316 --> 0:04:27.716 and talking in those slow, formal tones until it was 0:04:27.756 --> 0:04:29.156 a judge who looked like a fool. 0:04:31.116 --> 0:04:36.196 I did all the driving, and we get to a 0:04:36.276 --> 0:04:42.756 town and so a principal or school teacher or the 0:04:42.836 --> 0:04:49.156 local doctor. Somebody's got some independence. That's where you spent 0:04:49.276 --> 0:04:53.636 the night. I slept the many night with holloween. You 0:04:53.676 --> 0:04:56.316 know we're piling the same bed. 0:04:57.876 --> 0:04:59.476 It better be a big bed if the two of 0:04:59.476 --> 0:04:59.916 you were. 0:05:01.196 --> 0:05:06.836 Yeah, but there were no big beds in those there 0:05:06.836 --> 0:05:11.356 were no kings eye bed. But no, No, it was 0:05:12.196 --> 0:05:14.756 Holliwell was a real hero. 0:05:19.476 --> 0:05:23.036 In the early morning of November fifth, nineteen fifty three, 0:05:23.076 --> 0:05:26.076 a woman named Betty Joe Bishop calls the Atlanta Police 0:05:26.076 --> 0:05:30.596 Department in hysterics. In her car is the badly beaten 0:05:30.676 --> 0:05:34.516 corpse of her boyfriend, Marvin Lindsay. She tells the police 0:05:34.836 --> 0:05:36.836 that two of them had been attacked when they were 0:05:36.876 --> 0:05:40.676 parked on a secluded road on Atlanta's South Side. It's 0:05:40.716 --> 0:05:43.956 a sensational case. In fact, it was written up in 0:05:43.956 --> 0:05:46.396 one of those pulp crime magazines that were so popular 0:05:46.436 --> 0:05:50.836 back then, Official Detective Stories, March nineteen fifty four issue 0:05:51.156 --> 0:05:57.356 Wanted the Man in the Pyramid Hat I can't do 0:05:57.556 --> 0:06:00.076 justice to the spirit of pulp journalism. So we're going 0:06:00.116 --> 0:06:03.276 to reenact some scenes from the article, starting with this 0:06:03.436 --> 0:06:06.836 description of the moment. Betty Joe Bishop meets Atlanta's Chief 0:06:06.836 --> 0:06:11.036 of Detectives, Glynn Cowan, on in November morning. 0:06:12.156 --> 0:06:14.316 Suppose that you begin by telling. 0:06:14.116 --> 0:06:19.476 Us your name, Bishop, missus, Betty Joe Bishop, I'm a widow. 0:06:20.036 --> 0:06:24.756 You were with Marvin Lindsey tonight. Yes, tell me what happened? 0:06:26.236 --> 0:06:29.796 Bishop tells the detective about driving to Jonesboro Road. 0:06:31.636 --> 0:06:34.556 We were only there a few minutes when this man 0:06:34.756 --> 0:06:39.476 came out of the woods. It was terrible. He struck 0:06:39.556 --> 0:06:43.196 me with his fist and Marvin had to fight him off. 0:06:44.156 --> 0:06:46.556 Then he walked around the car and hit Marvin with 0:06:46.676 --> 0:06:52.236 something heavy. Marvin pleaded for him to stop, but he wouldn't. 0:06:54.316 --> 0:06:57.476 She covered her face with her hands and broke into long, 0:06:57.716 --> 0:07:03.116 racking sobs. Cowen waited patiently until she recovered her composure. 0:07:03.676 --> 0:07:04.236 What happened? 0:07:04.236 --> 0:07:05.796 Then he asked what happened? 0:07:05.836 --> 0:07:12.236 Then? Well, after he got tired of hitting Marvin, he 0:07:12.356 --> 0:07:16.076 ran into the woods. Marvin was lying half in and 0:07:16.116 --> 0:07:18.196 half out of the car, so I walked around at 0:07:18.236 --> 0:07:21.436 the driver's side and made him lie across the seat. 0:07:21.756 --> 0:07:25.436 He was bleeding something awful, so I knew he was 0:07:25.516 --> 0:07:28.836 hurt bad. I drove to his home in Blair Village 0:07:29.036 --> 0:07:31.196 and told his brother John what had happened, and John 0:07:31.236 --> 0:07:33.236 got in the car. We drove to Grady Hospital, but 0:07:33.316 --> 0:07:37.036 it was too late. Marvin was already dead. 0:07:40.436 --> 0:07:43.996 They're in the police station. She can barely hold it together. 0:07:44.596 --> 0:07:48.076 She's all beaten up. Her lover is dead. She tells 0:07:48.116 --> 0:07:51.356 the officer that the assailant had come back after killing 0:07:51.396 --> 0:07:55.636 Marvin and raped her. Maybe Detective Cowan takes her hand 0:07:55.676 --> 0:07:58.796 in sympathy. Maybe He waits a few moments to let 0:07:58.836 --> 0:08:05.036 her collect her thoughts. Then, as the article describes it, 0:08:05.716 --> 0:08:07.836 he asks her to describe the assailant. 0:08:08.636 --> 0:08:11.356 I'm not sure sure. It was very dark, and I 0:08:11.436 --> 0:08:16.556 was scared. He was tall, and then I remember that much. Also, 0:08:16.636 --> 0:08:19.196 when I grabbed one of his hands, I'll remember it 0:08:19.196 --> 0:08:20.196 felt kind of bony. 0:08:21.436 --> 0:08:26.356 Slowly, gently Cowan draws a description out of her. The 0:08:26.356 --> 0:08:29.596 man was in his late thirties or early forties, about 0:08:29.636 --> 0:08:35.356 five foot eleven then, wearing a leather jacket, dungarees, a 0:08:35.396 --> 0:08:38.476 funny cuint of hat, pyramid shaped. 0:08:38.876 --> 0:08:42.756 And he was swarthy and had dark, oily hair. 0:08:44.636 --> 0:08:48.036 The article never comes out and says so explicitly, But 0:08:48.116 --> 0:08:50.796 if you're a reader of the pulp magazine Official Detective 0:08:50.836 --> 0:08:55.236 Stories in March nineteen fifty four, you know what swarthy means. 0:08:55.996 --> 0:08:59.716 The killer's black. That's why this is such a sensational case. 0:09:00.516 --> 0:09:04.156 Betty Joe Bishop is an innocent white widow and she 0:09:04.436 --> 0:09:07.716 and her boyfriend have been attacked by a mysterious black man. 0:09:09.116 --> 0:09:17.796 Atlanta's finest immediately got to work. They scour the crime scene. 0:09:18.356 --> 0:09:21.276 The killer had a rolled up newspaper which he'd apparently 0:09:21.356 --> 0:09:24.556 left at the scene, and he'd circled two wantads, one 0:09:24.676 --> 0:09:27.996 for a dishwasher at a local restaurant. The police go 0:09:28.076 --> 0:09:31.956 to the restaurant. Did a thin, swarthy man with oily 0:09:32.036 --> 0:09:36.076 hair answer and ad yesterday for a dishwasher? The only 0:09:36.156 --> 0:09:40.516 the restaurant says yes, doesn't remember his name, but remembers 0:09:40.516 --> 0:09:42.516 the man said he used to work at Elite Bowling 0:09:42.556 --> 0:09:46.316 Alleys on Hunter Street. The coat check girl at Elite 0:09:46.396 --> 0:09:51.356 Bowling Alley says, oh, that's Willie. An eyewitness comes forward 0:09:51.516 --> 0:09:54.756 says he saw a man near the crime scene, swarthy 0:09:55.276 --> 0:09:59.436 wearing a pyramid shaped hat. They scour the area around 0:09:59.436 --> 0:10:03.796 the crime scene, stumble on a little cottage inside his 0:10:03.836 --> 0:10:09.756 thirty nine year old Willie Nash, unemployed handyman, swarthy, dark hair. 0:10:10.396 --> 0:10:15.636 They arrest him. He confesses, So who do you call? 0:10:15.676 --> 0:10:19.476 If you're Willie Nash, things are pretty bleak. What you 0:10:19.556 --> 0:10:23.356 really want is a white lawyer. Because it's nineteen fifty four. 0:10:24.036 --> 0:10:26.716 The jury's going to be all white, the police department 0:10:26.756 --> 0:10:29.036 is all white, the judge is going to be white. 0:10:29.596 --> 0:10:32.476 Willie Nash knows where the power lives in Atlanta, Georgia. 0:10:32.996 --> 0:10:35.996 But Willia Nash is poor, so he's forced to settle 0:10:36.156 --> 0:10:38.356 for one of the very few black lawyers in town, 0:10:38.836 --> 0:10:41.876 a man two years out of law school, still wet 0:10:41.916 --> 0:10:47.276 behind the ears, Donald L. Hollowell. When Nash realizes he 0:10:47.316 --> 0:10:51.556 has no other choice, he breaks down into tears. I'd 0:10:51.596 --> 0:10:54.636 have cried too, Hollowell says years later, if I'd have 0:10:54.636 --> 0:10:58.836 been Willy Nash under those circumstances. This was years before 0:10:58.956 --> 0:11:02.236 Vernon Jordan joined Hollowell's firm, but he knew all about 0:11:02.276 --> 0:11:05.756 the Willy Nash case. Everybody in black Atlanta did. 0:11:06.076 --> 0:11:09.876 That's the case where he held up. The latest pan 0:11:10.076 --> 0:11:13.916 is before the jury and that was the case set 0:11:15.636 --> 0:11:17.396 set Hallowell up. 0:11:21.476 --> 0:11:24.476 A few years ago, the Smithsonian interviewed a man named 0:11:24.556 --> 0:11:29.516 Robert Carter, another legendary black attorney. Carter talks about trying 0:11:29.556 --> 0:11:32.396 school segregation cases in the Deep South in the nineteen 0:11:32.436 --> 0:11:37.236 fifties with Constance Baker Motley and Thurgood Marshall, two other 0:11:37.356 --> 0:11:40.676 pioneering black lawyers of that era. They would be in 0:11:40.756 --> 0:11:44.916 court up against the local white schools superintendent, and black 0:11:44.956 --> 0:11:48.796 people from the community would show up, cram into the balcony, 0:11:49.316 --> 0:11:53.276 hang on every word. It wasn't that they expected to win, 0:11:53.356 --> 0:11:55.836 because they often didn't. They just wanted to see a 0:11:55.876 --> 0:11:59.076 black person in a position of formal authority over a 0:11:59.116 --> 0:12:02.996 white person in Mississippi or Georgia or Alabama. At the 0:12:03.036 --> 0:12:07.116 height of Jim Crow, that was history being made. Every hearing, 0:12:07.236 --> 0:12:10.836 every trial with a black lawyer was public theater. During 0:12:10.876 --> 0:12:14.196 cross examination, a white witness might forget his role in 0:12:14.236 --> 0:12:18.236 the trial and start asking questions of the attorney of Motley, say, 0:12:18.436 --> 0:12:22.956 and Connie Motley, a black woman in nineteen fifty something, 0:12:23.356 --> 0:12:26.876 would reprimand the white male witness say, my job is 0:12:26.916 --> 0:12:30.196 to ask the question, Your job is to respond, And 0:12:30.276 --> 0:12:38.316 everybody would gasp. In the evening. Carter says he would 0:12:38.356 --> 0:12:41.156 walk through the black neighborhoods and hear people re enacting 0:12:41.196 --> 0:12:44.956 the trial in barbershops and beauty parlors. In other words, 0:12:45.156 --> 0:12:48.316 there were two conversations going on at any given time. 0:12:48.836 --> 0:12:53.916 There was the legal conversation witness, judge, lawyers accused. If 0:12:53.956 --> 0:12:56.076 you were a white lawyer dealing with the white world, 0:12:56.276 --> 0:12:59.316 that was the conversation you worried about. But there was 0:12:59.396 --> 0:13:02.596 a second conversation, which was between the black lawyers and 0:13:02.636 --> 0:13:04.956 the people in the balcony. And if you were an 0:13:05.076 --> 0:13:08.436 underdog with a limited chance to win at the first conversation, 0:13:08.836 --> 0:13:13.956 then and that second conversation was really important. Donald Halliwell 0:13:14.556 --> 0:13:17.356 was very good at the first conversation, the legal one. 0:13:17.716 --> 0:13:19.516 He was a master of the second. 0:13:24.836 --> 0:13:29.036 At home the defense of liberty and democracy for African Americans. 0:13:29.436 --> 0:13:32.156 There's a great documentary about Hallowell made by the Georgia 0:13:32.236 --> 0:13:34.076 civil rights scholar Maurice Daniels. 0:13:34.516 --> 0:13:39.076 This fight will require foot soldiers for equal justice. 0:13:39.236 --> 0:13:42.756 Daniels does a long interview with an attorney named Howard Moore, 0:13:43.116 --> 0:13:46.396 who worked with Hallowell in the nineteen sixties, and Moore 0:13:46.436 --> 0:13:49.236 talks about arriving early at ahering into the police shooting 0:13:49.236 --> 0:13:53.036 of a black teenager to handle things before Hallowell got there. 0:13:53.436 --> 0:13:56.596 When I got down to Bibb County and went to 0:13:56.636 --> 0:14:01.516 the courthouse, that were about three thousand negroes on the steps. 0:14:02.916 --> 0:14:05.716 And I went into the courthouse and there were about 0:14:05.756 --> 0:14:07.956 three thousand or as many as they could get in 0:14:08.036 --> 0:14:11.596 the balcony of staff. And when I walked in the courtroom, 0:14:11.636 --> 0:14:15.276 the people upstairs, the black people, said that ain't Hollowell. 0:14:16.916 --> 0:14:17.796 Where's Hollowell? 0:14:17.876 --> 0:14:21.716 That ain't Hallowell. I don't know what to do. 0:14:21.956 --> 0:14:22.516 I don't know. 0:14:22.876 --> 0:14:25.276 I have no idea what I'm supposed to do, you know. 0:14:25.916 --> 0:14:28.316 So I said, well, I act like Hallowell. I'll just 0:14:28.476 --> 0:14:31.956 object in the loudest voice I can. And then people 0:14:32.076 --> 0:14:36.076 upstairs in the in the balcony said, well, it ain't Hallowell, 0:14:36.196 --> 0:14:37.516 but he sounded like Hallowell. 0:14:38.956 --> 0:14:41.556 When Hallowell showed up at the court inquest, he put 0:14:41.596 --> 0:14:44.596 the police officer on the stand he'd shot a seventeen 0:14:44.676 --> 0:14:47.796 year old boy named A. C. Hall. Hallowell took the 0:14:47.836 --> 0:14:53.156 officer through his testimony, bit by meticulous bit, slowly exposing 0:14:53.196 --> 0:14:56.916 the officer's lies. The cop was in tears by the end. 0:14:57.676 --> 0:15:00.876 I've never seen that before since, when a lawyer just 0:15:00.916 --> 0:15:04.476 take completely control of a witness and buying that witness 0:15:04.516 --> 0:15:08.916 to his will, not with shouting and screaming, but with systematic, 0:15:09.316 --> 0:15:12.396 well structured, well placed questions. 0:15:12.796 --> 0:15:15.556 Now, did Hallowell win a victory for the bereaved family 0:15:15.596 --> 0:15:19.196 of ac Hall. Was the officer prosecuted, of course not. 0:15:19.996 --> 0:15:22.356 It's hard enough to win a conviction against a white 0:15:22.356 --> 0:15:24.996 cop who shoots a black kid today, let alone. In 0:15:25.076 --> 0:15:29.276 nineteen sixty two in Bibb County, Georgia, this was about 0:15:29.356 --> 0:15:33.276 the second conversation between Hallowell and the thousands of people 0:15:33.316 --> 0:15:37.596 on the steps. We are not entirely powerless. I can 0:15:37.676 --> 0:15:45.596 bind a witness to my will one more case, because 0:15:45.716 --> 0:15:48.796 there are dozens of them. Hollowell never stopped moving in 0:15:48.836 --> 0:15:52.316 those years. This one was in nineteen sixty one, and 0:15:52.356 --> 0:15:55.156 this time Hallowell was with the young Vernon Jordan. 0:15:55.716 --> 0:16:00.876 Our client, James Phayir, a black kid from New Jersey, 0:16:02.556 --> 0:16:10.036 had been arrested, arraigned, indicted, tried, convicted, and sentenced to 0:16:10.156 --> 0:16:14.956 die in the electric chair in twenty four hours. 0:16:15.716 --> 0:16:19.196 Hallowell and his team go down to the town of Reedsville, Georgia, 0:16:19.316 --> 0:16:20.716 to argue for a new trial. 0:16:21.476 --> 0:16:28.836 The judge in the case was Judge WI don't want 0:16:28.836 --> 0:16:33.916 any niggas in my court gear. He had that reputation. 0:16:36.476 --> 0:16:39.636 On Monday, we went and we tried the case. 0:16:40.716 --> 0:16:43.476 At lunchtime, the judge and the white lawyers and the 0:16:43.516 --> 0:16:46.676 white court officials went across the town square to the 0:16:46.716 --> 0:16:49.076 white only restaurant and had their lunch. 0:16:49.876 --> 0:16:53.756 Hallowell, C. B. King and I went to the own 0:16:53.796 --> 0:16:59.996 the grocery store on the courthouse square or the Pound 0:17:00.036 --> 0:17:05.876 and bolognay loaf of bread, mustard, Coca cola and the 0:17:05.916 --> 0:17:11.116 baby Ruth and sat in mister Hallowell's car in the 0:17:11.196 --> 0:17:14.876 parking surrounding the courthouse and ate our lunch. We did 0:17:14.876 --> 0:17:22.036 it on Monday. We did it on Tuesday Wednesday with 0:17:22.316 --> 0:17:26.156 Ryan Mcase and a black lady who waved in me 0:17:28.796 --> 0:17:31.396 and I met her in the vestibula at the courthouse. 0:17:32.556 --> 0:17:37.996 Never forget it, and she said, Lawyer, we've been watching 0:17:38.076 --> 0:17:42.756 y'all eat that bologna for two days now. She says, 0:17:43.756 --> 0:17:47.276 just have a Coca cola and don't eat that bolloona 0:17:47.316 --> 0:17:51.076 today and when the court ends, which is three thirty four, 0:17:52.156 --> 0:17:54.756 you'll drive to my house for lunch. 0:17:56.356 --> 0:17:59.236 So they go to her house. That's the moment Jordan 0:17:59.316 --> 0:18:03.356 remembers fifty years later, that moment of grace and quiet 0:18:03.356 --> 0:18:05.356 rebellion outside the courtroom. 0:18:06.076 --> 0:18:09.836 And we walked in, and the table but was set 0:18:09.916 --> 0:18:14.916 for royalty, her best linen, her best china, her best crystal. 0:18:16.876 --> 0:18:21.556 The aroma of the southern food was almost crippling. It 0:18:21.636 --> 0:18:27.636 was as it circled our noses. And her neighbors had 0:18:27.716 --> 0:18:31.236 come and put on nice sundresses, and their husbands had 0:18:31.236 --> 0:18:35.996 cleaned up, and they welcomed us. And then we joined hands, 0:18:36.116 --> 0:18:43.756 and her husband gave the grace and he said this 0:18:44.116 --> 0:18:51.996 unforgettable sentence, which was Lord way down here in Tattnall County. 0:18:52.396 --> 0:19:00.436 We can't join the NAACP, but thanks to your bountiful blessings, 0:19:01.236 --> 0:19:05.236 we can feed the NAACP lawyers. 0:19:09.516 --> 0:19:15.516 So Willie Nash, Betty Joe Bishop's swoarthy assailant. The case 0:19:15.596 --> 0:19:20.356 we began with Donald Hollowell's Trial by Fire. If you 0:19:20.396 --> 0:19:23.516 look back on Hollowell's career, it's all there, every theme. 0:19:23.556 --> 0:19:26.876 In that first case. Nash has been indicted for murder, 0:19:27.236 --> 0:19:31.276 rape and robbery. The prosecutor has a murder weapon, a 0:19:31.276 --> 0:19:35.196 bloody piece of pipe. He has Nash's confession, and he 0:19:35.236 --> 0:19:38.396 has a witness, a black man named Julius Harris, who 0:19:38.476 --> 0:19:42.476 places Nash at the murder scene. The moonlight was shining 0:19:42.556 --> 0:19:45.916 directly on his face when I glimpsed him. Harris testifies 0:19:47.116 --> 0:19:50.596 for Hollowell and Nash. It looks pretty bleak. But then 0:19:51.116 --> 0:19:53.956 one of the prosecutors is trying to remember Julius Harris's 0:19:54.076 --> 0:19:57.116 name and can't, and he says, in an open court room, 0:19:57.716 --> 0:20:02.036 the eye witness, you know that fat nigger. Hollowell jumps 0:20:02.036 --> 0:20:04.556 out of his seat and almost shouts a negro is 0:20:04.636 --> 0:20:08.996 as entitled to respect as any other person. The judge agrees, 0:20:09.596 --> 0:20:16.036 declares a mistrial. The second trial is two months later. 0:20:16.436 --> 0:20:19.396 This time Hollowell has time to prepare. He puts the 0:20:19.436 --> 0:20:21.636 head of the Georgia State Crime Lab on the stand 0:20:22.076 --> 0:20:24.996 and asks, did you find any blood on the alleged 0:20:25.036 --> 0:20:29.876 murder weapon. The man says, actually he didn't. Hallowell moves 0:20:29.876 --> 0:20:33.036 on to the police. Turns out they have multiple conflicting 0:20:33.116 --> 0:20:37.276 stories about what happened that night. Willie Nash testifies, says 0:20:37.316 --> 0:20:40.236 his confession was beaten out of him. As for the 0:20:40.276 --> 0:20:42.476 witness who said he saw Nash's face by the light 0:20:42.476 --> 0:20:45.596 of the moon, Hallowell points out there was no moon 0:20:45.636 --> 0:20:50.276 over Atlanta that night. Finally, Hollowell turns to the alleged victim, 0:20:50.596 --> 0:20:54.236 Betty Joe Bishop. Turns out she had a second boyfriend 0:20:54.556 --> 0:20:57.516 who left town right after the murder of her first boyfriend, 0:20:58.276 --> 0:21:00.716 and when she pulled up to Marvin Lindsey's brother's house 0:21:01.076 --> 0:21:03.956 with Marvin's dead body in her car, the first thing 0:21:03.996 --> 0:21:06.356 out of her mouth was, I know you think I 0:21:06.396 --> 0:21:13.676 did it, but a nigger did it. Finally, Hallowell calls 0:21:13.716 --> 0:21:16.836 the doctor who examined Bishop right after the alleged rape occurred, 0:21:17.476 --> 0:21:20.276 and the doctor concedes that he could find no evidence, 0:21:20.596 --> 0:21:24.516 not bruises or sperm, to indicate that a rape actually occurred. 0:21:25.396 --> 0:21:28.516 That's when Hollowell holds up an item from police evidence, 0:21:29.196 --> 0:21:33.876 Betty Joe Bishop's underwear. Hallowell waves them in front of 0:21:33.916 --> 0:21:38.236 the jury. Nineteen fifty four, Atlanta, Georgia. A black man 0:21:38.476 --> 0:21:40.916 waves a white woman's underwear in the air in front 0:21:40.916 --> 0:21:44.356 of an all white jury. Now who's that for? Is 0:21:44.396 --> 0:21:46.996 it for? The jury? Of course, he's saying, Betty Joe 0:21:46.996 --> 0:21:50.316 Bishop is lying through her teeth, but it's really for 0:21:50.396 --> 0:21:54.756 the audience. He's saying enough. You can imagine that up 0:21:54.796 --> 0:21:57.556 in the balcony, there was a collective intake of breath 0:21:57.596 --> 0:22:01.556 at that moment, something that could be heard clear across Atlanta, 0:22:01.676 --> 0:22:04.476 and that night, in a thousand homes, somebody stood up 0:22:04.516 --> 0:22:07.636 and played out that scene, just like Hallowell to a 0:22:07.716 --> 0:22:19.076 chorus of disbelief. Willie Nash goes free. But it's still 0:22:19.236 --> 0:22:22.556 not a real victory, because what's the real lesson of 0:22:22.596 --> 0:22:26.396 the false indictment of Willie Nash? That every white person 0:22:26.596 --> 0:22:32.996 in that courtroom lied freely and blatantly. The police LIEDE, 0:22:33.196 --> 0:22:36.356 the witness liede, the victim lied, the press slide. The 0:22:36.476 --> 0:22:39.516 murder weapon wasn't a murder weapon, the rape wasn't a rape. 0:22:41.436 --> 0:22:43.956 And the only reason all the liars got caught was 0:22:43.996 --> 0:22:46.716 they couldn't even be bothered to keep their story straight. 0:22:48.036 --> 0:22:50.876 It didn't seem worth the effort. I know you think 0:22:50.916 --> 0:22:53.916 I did it, but a nigger did it. It's not 0:22:53.996 --> 0:22:56.236 as if the whole group of them, the victim, the 0:22:56.236 --> 0:22:59.516 police officer, the witness, the doctor, the press got in 0:22:59.556 --> 0:23:01.756 a room and worked out an elaborate story to tell 0:23:01.796 --> 0:23:04.916 the court that would be a conspiracy. But you only 0:23:04.956 --> 0:23:08.636 need a conspiracy where there is a system to conspire against. 0:23:09.516 --> 0:23:15.796 There was no system to conspire against. They were the system. 0:23:16.676 --> 0:23:19.956 The Nash case wasn't a victory, but it was a warning. 0:23:23.156 --> 0:23:25.836 Things got worse for the civil rights movement before they 0:23:25.876 --> 0:23:29.276 got better. The William Nash Caase was in nineteen fifty four, 0:23:29.676 --> 0:23:31.836 the same year that the Supreme Court ruled in the 0:23:31.836 --> 0:23:36.756 Brownvie Board of Education decision that racial segregation was unconstitutional. 0:23:38.796 --> 0:23:41.276 After Brown came what is known in civil rights history 0:23:41.436 --> 0:23:45.916 as massive resistance. The white political power structure of the 0:23:45.956 --> 0:23:50.556 South rose up, and the backlash began. One by one, 0:23:50.996 --> 0:23:53.796 white governors and mayors and senators who had been at 0:23:53.876 --> 0:23:58.116 least moderate racial issues were replaced by hard line racists. 0:23:59.076 --> 0:24:02.276 Alabama had a governor in the nineteen fifties, Big Jim Fulsom, 0:24:02.436 --> 0:24:05.476 who used to say, all men are just alike. I 0:24:05.516 --> 0:24:07.796 don't think he really meant it, but at least he 0:24:07.876 --> 0:24:10.956 was willing to say it. By the early nineteen sixties, 0:24:11.356 --> 0:24:15.516 Alabama had taken a big step backwards. Their new governor 0:24:15.836 --> 0:24:18.916 was George Wallace, who famously declared. 0:24:18.596 --> 0:24:24.756 Segregation now, segregation, Tomarra, and segregation forever. 0:24:28.636 --> 0:24:31.236 The decade leading up to the nineteen sixty four Civil 0:24:31.316 --> 0:24:34.676 Rights Act was a dark time in American racial history. 0:24:35.356 --> 0:24:38.916 We forget this now. Martin Luther King led the Montgomery 0:24:38.916 --> 0:24:42.716 bus boycott in nineteen fifty six, but after that he 0:24:42.836 --> 0:24:45.716 had years in the wilderness when even members of his 0:24:45.756 --> 0:24:49.236 own community had turned against him. And in October of 0:24:49.316 --> 0:24:54.076 nineteen sixty at the lowest EBB King gets arrested. He 0:24:54.196 --> 0:24:57.676 was already on probation for a traffic violation. He'd move 0:24:57.756 --> 0:25:00.636 from Alabama to Georgia and didn't get a Georgia driver's 0:25:00.636 --> 0:25:03.676 license within the requisite ninety days, for which he had 0:25:03.716 --> 0:25:07.756 been sentenced to twelve months in public works camp, which 0:25:07.836 --> 0:25:11.836 was the Georgia euphemism for a chain gang. King got 0:25:11.876 --> 0:25:14.716 that sentence suspended, but then he got picked up for 0:25:14.756 --> 0:25:17.476 taking part in a sit in, and the prosecutor said 0:25:17.636 --> 0:25:21.116 that meant he'd violated his probation and now he needed 0:25:21.116 --> 0:25:24.116 to do his twelve months on the chain gang. By 0:25:24.116 --> 0:25:26.916 the way, if you think that this has anything to 0:25:26.996 --> 0:25:31.116 do with driving in Georgia with an Alabama license, you're crazy. 0:25:31.196 --> 0:25:34.436 This is what things had come to in nineteen sixty. 0:25:36.076 --> 0:25:38.756 You have asked me what other plans do we have 0:25:38.956 --> 0:25:42.436 in connection with Reverend Martin Luther King's release? 0:25:43.036 --> 0:25:46.516 So who does King call for help? Donald L. Hollowell? 0:25:46.556 --> 0:25:50.396 Of course. In the morning after King's arrest, Hollowell stands 0:25:50.396 --> 0:25:54.996 on the Dukalb County Courthouse steps addressing a group of reporters. 0:25:55.236 --> 0:25:57.556 Of course, this would depend upon whether or not the 0:25:57.756 --> 0:26:02.916 court granted our motion to vacate the order of yesterday. 0:26:03.716 --> 0:26:06.316 If the court fails to release him, of course we 0:26:06.356 --> 0:26:10.516 would take other steps to appeal or to affect. 0:26:10.756 --> 0:26:13.796 Hallowell is trying to get King's case thrown out, but 0:26:13.916 --> 0:26:16.596 the problem is that King is no longer in Atlanta. 0:26:17.636 --> 0:26:23.756 He's banished. In Maurice Daniels documentary, Hallowell's wife Louise talks 0:26:23.796 --> 0:26:26.596 about what happened when her husband went to retrieve King 0:26:26.676 --> 0:26:30.796 from the county jail, only to be confronted by the warden. 0:26:30.676 --> 0:26:33.396 When he got there. He said, I came to get 0:26:34.156 --> 0:26:36.596 a king out this morning, or something like that to 0:26:36.636 --> 0:26:41.556 that effect. And he said, well, he ain't here. And 0:26:41.596 --> 0:26:44.156 he said, well, what do you mean he ain't here? 0:26:45.036 --> 0:26:48.796 He said, well, they took him away this morning. Sometime 0:26:49.476 --> 0:26:52.796 and they carried him down to the state prison, and 0:26:52.836 --> 0:26:55.396 he said, that's what he is. He ain't here, so 0:26:55.556 --> 0:26:58.796 you can't get him. Well, mister Hallowell didn't like that. 0:26:59.916 --> 0:27:04.196 I love that line. Mister Hallowell didn't like that. Daniels 0:27:04.196 --> 0:27:07.396 picks up the story with Andrew Young, another of King's 0:27:07.396 --> 0:27:08.076 inner circle. 0:27:08.476 --> 0:27:11.716 That was a word night of Martin Luther King's life. 0:27:11.956 --> 0:27:14.436 They took him from the Decalb County, put him in 0:27:14.516 --> 0:27:18.676