WEBVTT - 040624 Way Black History Fact - The Lynching of Willie James Howard

0:00:02.640 --> 0:00:04.520
<v Speaker 1>Right now, it's time for the Way Black History Fact.

0:00:04.519 --> 0:00:07.240
<v Speaker 1>In today's Way Black History Fact is sponsored by Underground

0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:08.760
<v Speaker 1>Beach Club from the streets to the beach for the

0:00:08.760 --> 0:00:12.640
<v Speaker 1>best in beachwear, visit Underground Bleach Beachclub dot com not

0:00:12.720 --> 0:00:16.720
<v Speaker 1>Bleach Club anyway. I'm gonna share a little bit of

0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:20.960
<v Speaker 1>a story. This is a story about a gentleman named

0:00:21.200 --> 0:00:24.840
<v Speaker 1>Willie James Howard. This is something that happened before Emmitt Till.

0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:27.560
<v Speaker 1>We talked about Ammettill on the show. We shared our

0:00:28.760 --> 0:00:31.159
<v Speaker 1>visit to the National Museum of African American History and

0:00:31.160 --> 0:00:34.280
<v Speaker 1>Culture and how emotional and eye opening it was to

0:00:34.280 --> 0:00:38.960
<v Speaker 1>see Emmett Till's coffin, this original coffin. You know that

0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:42.400
<v Speaker 1>little tiny body. It was that part a lot. It

0:00:42.440 --> 0:00:44.720
<v Speaker 1>was a lot. And if you don't know about Immet Hill,

0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:48.360
<v Speaker 1>please take a moment do this for us. We're we're

0:00:48.360 --> 0:00:51.320
<v Speaker 1>your brothers. We're asking us, if a favor, please research

0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:53.920
<v Speaker 1>that to know we do this Way Black History Fact,

0:00:53.920 --> 0:00:56.120
<v Speaker 1>to give you context. Okay, why we are here, why

0:00:56.160 --> 0:00:58.760
<v Speaker 1>we feel the way we feel, et cetera. So this

0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:02.880
<v Speaker 1>came before Emmett Till. Willie James Howard was born July thirteen,

0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:05.839
<v Speaker 1>nineteen twenty eight, in Live Oak, Florida, at fifteen years old.

0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:07.959
<v Speaker 1>He was in the tenth grade and worked in the

0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:11.119
<v Speaker 1>Van Priest five and dime store downtown. According to the story,

0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:13.480
<v Speaker 1>he Willi sent Christmas cards to employees of the store

0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:17.319
<v Speaker 1>the Christmas holiday. One of the employees, a popular white

0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:20.800
<v Speaker 1>girl named Cynthia, was offended by the gesture. According to

0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:24.560
<v Speaker 1>the account, which has just as many variations as Emmett's story,

0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:27.440
<v Speaker 1>at the bottom of the cart for Cynthia, Willy indicated

0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:31.400
<v Speaker 1>an L for love. Later, Willie wrote Cynthia a letter,

0:01:31.480 --> 0:01:34.119
<v Speaker 1>this time apologizing. He signed this one with a little

0:01:34.120 --> 0:01:37.280
<v Speaker 1>poem I love your name, I love your voice for

0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:42.120
<v Speaker 1>an sh which is sweetheart. It's abbreviation you are my

0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:46.959
<v Speaker 1>choice okay. On January Tewod nineteen forty four, Cynthia's father,

0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:50.640
<v Speaker 1>Phil Goff, who saw the letter, most likely by Cynthia

0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:53.880
<v Speaker 1>showing it to him, as some accounts suggest, and two

0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:57.160
<v Speaker 1>of his friends, arrived at Willy's home, and the three

0:01:57.200 --> 0:01:59.160
<v Speaker 1>men dragged the boy from his mother's arms. They also

0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:04.160
<v Speaker 1>kidnapped his father. They drove to the Suwanee River and

0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:06.320
<v Speaker 1>bound Willy James by his feet and hands and made

0:02:06.360 --> 0:02:08.720
<v Speaker 1>him stand at the edge of the river, where, according

0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:10.760
<v Speaker 1>to his father's testimony, he was told he could either

0:02:10.840 --> 0:02:13.320
<v Speaker 1>jump in the river or be shot. The boy jumped

0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:18.000
<v Speaker 1>in and drowned. By the way, this is leaving this

0:02:18.080 --> 0:02:20.240
<v Speaker 1>part out. They brought his father there and made him watch,

0:02:20.880 --> 0:02:26.400
<v Speaker 1>So his father watched his son son's last moments. All right,

0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:30.240
<v Speaker 1>The Swanee County sheriff ordered Ansel Brown, the local black undertaker,

0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:32.799
<v Speaker 1>to retrieved the boy's body from the river and buried immediately.

0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:35.240
<v Speaker 1>To cover up the incident, Fill and his friends forced

0:02:35.280 --> 0:02:37.960
<v Speaker 1>Willy's father to sign a document alleging that Willy jumped

0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:39.840
<v Speaker 1>into the river on his own. Court According to their

0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:42.680
<v Speaker 1>written statement, which was included in the Lanyear report, the

0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:44.840
<v Speaker 1>three men admitted taking the boy from his home and

0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:46.680
<v Speaker 1>tying him up on the way to the river, but

0:02:46.800 --> 0:02:49.200
<v Speaker 1>they said he fell in accidentally. This conflicts with the

0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:51.679
<v Speaker 1>first story that the boy jumped into the river. Either

0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:53.480
<v Speaker 1>the boy jumped into the river on his own or

0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:56.240
<v Speaker 1>he slipped accidentally. It was obvious the men were not

0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:58.760
<v Speaker 1>telling the truth, but there was never an arrest. After

0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:01.120
<v Speaker 1>signing the document, Willy's father, also named James, picked up

0:03:01.120 --> 0:03:03.520
<v Speaker 1>his family and moved to Orlando. No death certificate was

0:03:03.639 --> 0:03:06.840
<v Speaker 1>ordered for his only son, and the grave was unmarked

0:03:06.880 --> 0:03:09.760
<v Speaker 1>for sixty years. It is marked now. THIRDD. Marshall demanded

0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:12.640
<v Speaker 1>a full investigation after hearing about Willie's case. It was

0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:14.760
<v Speaker 1>picked up by Harry T. Moore of the NAACP, who

0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:17.720
<v Speaker 1>had gone to school with Lula Howard, Willie's mother. More

0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:22.320
<v Speaker 1>received documented proof from Willie's parents explaining what really happened.

0:03:22.320 --> 0:03:24.440
<v Speaker 1>They stated that Willy's father had been threatened and forced

0:03:24.480 --> 0:03:26.680
<v Speaker 1>to sign the document. However, grand jury did not indict

0:03:26.720 --> 0:03:31.240
<v Speaker 1>Golf and his friends and the prosecution was never achieved.

0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:34.000
<v Speaker 1>More continued fighting through the case and in nineteen forty

0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:35.960
<v Speaker 1>seven wanted to reopen it, but the Third Good Marshall

0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:43.400
<v Speaker 1>was unwilling to dedicate any more. NAAC funded. Now. I

0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:46.000
<v Speaker 1>say this because I don't want people to think that

0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:48.960
<v Speaker 1>Emmett Till's story was just an isolated incident happened in

0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:50.960
<v Speaker 1>the vacuum. There were stories like this that happened all

0:03:51.000 --> 0:03:53.560
<v Speaker 1>the time, but this one came across our desk and

0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:56.120
<v Speaker 1>we're like, Wow, this is something that we didn't know.

0:03:56.480 --> 0:03:58.320
<v Speaker 1>I certainly didn't know, and I felt like we should

0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:00.440
<v Speaker 1>share it. With you, so thank you for listening to

0:04:00.480 --> 0:04:01.600
<v Speaker 1>our way Black history fact