| Prior
to 1906, the U.S. Supreme Court had never tried a criminal case--and the
high court had yet to assert its power over state criminal courts. That
was all to change after the events of a cold January night earlier that
year in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Blond, beautiful, 21-year-old Nevada Taylor
had hopped on one of Chattanooga's new electric trolleys after work. Before
she could reach home, the young woman was waylaid and raped by an unknown
assailant. At first Taylor couldn't describe her attacker to town sheriff
Joseph Shipp, as she hadn't seen the man clearly, but she soon became convinced
he was "a Negro with a soft, kind voice." In just 17 days, a drifter dubbed
a "Negro fiend" by the Chattanooga News had been hastily arrested,
tried, convicted, and sentenced to hang.
Two idealistic black
lawyers intervened, filing appeals to the state and ultimately the U.S.
Supreme Court, citing the numerous rights denied the most-likely innocent
Ed Johnson. (One of the attorneys said of the suspect, "But for the will
of God, that is me.") The high court agreed to hear the appeal, staying
the Tennessee execution. But back in Chattanooga, the politically minded
Sheriff Shipp looked the other way as a bloodthirsty crowd of hundreds
broke Johnson out of jail, beat him brutally, and lynched him on the county
bridge.
Mark Curriden, a
legal writer for the Dallas Morning News, and Leroy Phillips, a
Chattanooga trial attorney, have painstakingly researched and vividly recounted
the events of this oft-overlooked but significant episode in America's
legal history, from the details of the original crime to the eventual federal
conviction of Shipp and members of the lynch mob for contempt. A superb
combination of journalistic storytelling and academic rigor. --Paul
Hughes |
