Indictment In Landmark Civil Rights Slay

Alabama Grand Jury Indicts Retired Trooper In 1965 Killing Of Black Man At Civil Rights Rally

(AP)  A 73-year-old retired state trooper was indicted Wednesday in the 1965 shooting death of a black man, a killing that set in motion the historic civil rights protests in Selma and led to passage of the Voting Rights Act.

District Attorney Michael Jackson said a grand jury returned an indictment in the case. He would not identify the person charged or specify the offense until the indictment is served, which could take a few days. But a lawyer for former Trooper James Bonard Fowler said he had been informed that the retired lawman had been charged.

It took the grand jury only two hours to return the indictment in the slaying of 26-year-old Jimmie Lee Jackson, who was shot by Fowler during a civil rights protest that turned into a club-swinging melee.

The case was little-known as a civil rights-era cold case, but it has had major historical consequences.

Fowler contended he fired in self-defense after Jackson grabbed his gun from its holster. Calls to his home were not immediately returned Wednesday.

"I think somebody is trying to rewrite history, and I don't think it's fair to this trooper," said Fowler's attorney, George Beck. Beck said he was not told what Fowler had been charged with, but he said the district attorney had been talking about a murder charge, "so I assume that's what he got."

The indictment is the latest in a series of civil rights-era cases across the South that have been resurrected for prosecution after lying dormant for decades. In recent years, prosecutors have won convictions in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing that killed four black girls and in the 1964 killings of three civil rights volunteers near Philadelphia, Miss.

In light of those cases, people in Alabama began to call for a new examination of Jackson's death. Michael Jackson, who was elected in 2004 as the first black district attorney in the Selma and Marion district and is no relation to Jimmie Lee Jackson, said he acted on these calls.

Jimmie Lee Jackson's daughter, Cordelia Heard Billingsley of Marion, who was 4 at the time of the killing, said: "We'll finally know what happened. My grandchildren have asked me questions, and I couldn't give them answers."

She said if not for the district attorney's election, "it would still have been swept under the rug."

Some of those who were in Marion on the night of the shooting are dead, as are two FBI agents who originally investigated Jackson's death. News reporters were also beaten and cameras destroyed during the melee, with no pictures left of what happened. The district attorney, however, said he had "strong witnesses."

Willie Martin, 74, who was at the 1965 rally that ended in violence and appeared before the grand jury, said he was glad to see action taken after 42 years. "They kept it smothered down. We didn't have nobody to represent us back then," he said.

Fowler was among a contingent of law officers sent to Marion on the night of Feb. 18, 1965. According to witnesses, about 500 people were marching from a church toward the city jail to protest the jailing of a civil rights worker when the street lights went out. Troopers contended the crowd refused orders to disperse. Soon law officers began swinging billy clubs, with marchers fleeing.

A group of protesters ran into Mack's Cafe, pursued by troopers. The cafe operator said 82-year-old Cager Lee was clubbed to the floor along with his daughter, Viola Jackson, whose son, Jimmie Lee Jackson, was shot trying to help them. He died two days later.

The shooting galvanized civil rights activists who had not been getting any national media attention in their efforts to register blacks to vote in Selma, said Taylor Branch, the Pulitzer-Prize winning author of "Parting the Waters" and other books about the civil rights movement.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. arrived to preach Jackson's funeral, and in reaction to the killing, black civil rights demonstrators set out on March 7, 1965, on a march from Selma to Montgomery. They were routed by club-swinging officers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge at Selma, an attack known as "Bloody Sunday."

National news coverage of the attack, including images of terrified marchers being beaten amid clouds of tear gas, made Selma the center of the civil rights movement. King, who was not present on Bloody Sunday, arrived to lead a weeklong Selma-to-Montgomery march later in the month.

Those events prompted Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which transformed the political makeup of the South by ending various segregationist practices that prevented blacks from voting.

The retired trooper was not asked to testify before the grand jury. All of the witnesses who appeared before the panel Wednesday are black, and none witnessed the shooting. But Vera Jenkins Booker, the night supervising nurse at the Selma hospital where Jackson died, said the patient told her what happened.

"He said, 'I was trying to help my grandfather and my mother and the state trooper shot me.' He didn't give any name," Booker told reporters after her grand jury appearance.

[kailumego1]

What's a real shame the constant rationalization of this obviously disturbed human something, because during this period in the South, it was not uncommon for law enforcement to intimidate, viciously beat and lynch blacks, without suffering legal consequences.

The judicial system allowed whites to viciously rape, lynch, and murder blacks within the letter of the law.

And it is a shame this young man was drafted to serve in the Vietnam War, to only come back home and become victim of a savage and brutal murderer.

What's really interesting here, whites can rationalize and assume it was automatically this gentleman's fault, however, when it comes to a black murdering a white, i.e. O.J. Simpson, there is no rationalization only that he is a vicious animal who attacked this poor defenseless white woman.

You people are really a piece of work!!!!!

[whatithink-2009]

Phoenix1218,

I don't see why it is hard for you to believe that a white person could stand up and tell the truth even during this time. Nontheless, plenty of black men were jailed/lynched in the South SIMPLY based on the opinions of white witnesses. We can start questioning every verdict where the witness is not the same color as the accused based on your statements.

Frankly, what we know is this trooper shot and killed another detainee a year after shooting this man. He also assaulted his supervisor. I'm no psychologist, but it sounds to me like this guy never should have been given a badge at the very least. By the way, he was fired in 1968.

[whatithink-2009]

Kailumego1,

This guy was a Vietnam War veteran. I find it sad that members of our society were sent to "liberate" others at the same time that they were being denied the same liberty at home. The catalyst of the civil rights movement was WWII. Black soldiers who fought for the liberation of Europe came back with a new demand to get that same liberty in America.

[phoenix1218]

What we know is the guy was shot by the police officer.Posted by whatithink

Yes, we KNOW for certain that this cop shot the alleged victim. We do NOY know what the victim was doing exactly at the time he was shot. Was he honestly just trying to protect his Grandfatehr and Mother, probably. But the truth is we will never know. In the south, from what I have heard and read in history books, blacks stood up for blacks and whites stood up for whites so if the cafe owner was white the he/she never would have said "82-year-old Cager Lee was clubbed to the floor along with his daughter, Viola Jackson, whose son, Jimmie Lee Jackson, was shot trying to help them. He died two days later. " because that would give the impression that the trooper killed him because he was black, it doesn't make sense for a white person (back then) to say that. If it was a black person then it would make sense HOWEVER like I said back then blacks covered blacks backs and vice versa with whites so the cafe owner (if black) could have said that to protect the alleged victim and get the trooper in trouble, or at least try to.

[kailumego1]

The operator's name is Normareen Shaw, a white woman, who gave a sworn affidavit of an eyewitness account to the vicious beating and murder, unfortunately, this occurred 40 years ago, in which there are few witnesses to cooperate these events.

Now, I know most of you in denial want to rationalize this tragic event by forging blame on Jimmy Jackson, because of your own cognitive dissonance, so go right ahead, if it helps you to sleep better at night.

[whatithink-2009]

Kailumego1,

Well said.

I have always said that people hold on to race when they are insecure of their place in the world as an individual.

People prove this time and time again.

I'm just tired of people tell others to get over things at the same time that they can't get over the OJ Simpson case.

[whatithink-2009]

I said PROBABLY white. Alabama was not known to be a black entrepreneur mecca during this time. Blacks could not even sit in a cafe around this time, so I'm not sure how many actually owned one.

From another article:

"A special grand jury convenes Wednesday in Marion to review the fatal shooting of a Black Vietnam War veteran by a state trooper during the height of civil rights tension in Alabama in 1965.

Sworn statements given by various people present in Marion that fatal night are still available to investigators and can help recreate the scene since no pictures are available.

Normareen Shaw, who was running Mack%u2019s Cafe, said in her statement, %u201CTroopers ran inside and started beating people.%u201D She said a trooper knocked out a light and the beating heightened. She said that as she ran back to the kitchen, she saw Cager Lee getting beat and Jackson%u2019s sister trying to restrain him.


District Attorney Michael Jackson, who is not related to the victim, said Thursday that in probing the four-decade-old case, he learned that Fowler also shot a detainee to death in 1966 at the city jail in Alabaster and struck his superior officer in 1968.

Alabama Department of Public Safety records show that Fowler was fired on Sept. 30, 1968, but do not indicate the reason."

[kailumego1]

Whatithink you are absolutely, positively correct, it was a class issue to separate poor whites from poor blacks, or blacks in general, at last, someone who recognizes and envisions the truth.

This was a well thought of conspiracy to separate poorer whites and blacks, in order for the wealthier class to consolidate and maintain its status.
unfortunately, most whites and blacks don't see it, because true again, their is no real unity when it comes to money, wealth, and power.

As demonstrated with black Africans towards other Africans then and now, i.e. Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, Rwanda, etc., corruption, degradation, and dehumanization extends globally.

It's a pity most individuals can't see the truth as you, the seeds of capitalism/mercantilism has destroyed the moral foundation of this society, just as self-aggrandizement greed and pseudo-machismo in other societies.

However, although, the foundation of racism resided in economics/class, it has now shifted to psychological-self-preservation, in order to avoid cognitive dissonance and self-humiliation.

Whites abreast in Darwinian ideology commit themselves to this racist propaganda in order to circumvent their own feelings of inadequacy.

Using black degradation as scapegoat to mask their own social denial of adequacies.

[phoenix1218]

"A group of protesters ran into Mack's Cafe, pursued by troopers. The cafe operator said 82-year-old Cager Lee was clubbed to the floor along with his daughter, Viola Jackson, whose son, Jimmie Lee Jackson, was shot trying to help them. He died two days later."

whatithink,
And WHERE did it say what race the cafe owner was?

[whatithink-2009]

Kailumego1,

The foundation of racism in America was purely an economic and class generated one. There is no color unity in the world. There is only greed. Rich whites promoted especially to poor white the concept of black inferiority and white superiority in order to pacify poor whites. It promoted the concept of "I don't have anything, but at least I'm white." It also prevented an alignment between poor whites and poor blacks based on class. This thought was of special concern to the financial elites. People are not so easy to manipulate when they find common bonds.

In fact, we have all been brainwashed into accepting a notion of who is in or out of our circle. At the time of slavery, there was a promotion of black slavery being justified because of some curse during the time of Noah. However, if one is to believe the concept of Christianity, even if this belief were true, all of these curses that were common during the Old Testament should have all been absolved through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.