COLUMBIA, Tenn. – A historic marker recognizing one of many most pivotal moments in Columbia’s history was put in in 2016 on a damaged sidewalk in entrance of an deserted constructing, coated in mud, nearly forgotten.
Before then, a visible reminder of the incident, dubbed by many because the Columbia race riot of 1946, might solely be discovered in historical past books propped on library cabinets.
On Feb. 25, 1946, a dispute over a damaged radio involving James Stephenson, 19, a U.S. Navy veteran, his mom Gladys and a white retailer clerk — led to a seminal court docket case some contemplate “the first step” in the U.S. civil rights movement.
As James Stephenson, a boxer, stood between the offended white retailer clerk and his mom, the clerk struck James in the pinnacle, prompting him to retaliate by pushing the clerk via the shop window — each males and damaged glass mendacity on the bottom.
The altercation led to the arrest of the mom and son, an elevated cost of tried homicide towards James Stephenson, the formation of an impending white mob and a court docket case that introduced nationwide consideration to the Tennessee metropolis.
After rumors swirled concerning the doable conflict — and even worse a lynching — between Columbia’s white and Black residents, the Tennessee Highway Patrol ended up storming a Black neighborhood referred to as the Bottom.
In the decades following, the incident was largely “ignored,” only discussed in hushed tones around the community, according to some longtime city residents, a dark part of history rather forgotten.
This year marks the 75th anniversary of that defining moment in Columbia’s history that calls once again for attention.
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A ‘turning point,’ not a riot
Maury County historian Jo Ann McClellan doesn’t call what happened in 1946 a riot.
She and other historians struggle to find an appropriate word to describe it. During a recent interview, she said the word “uprising” was more fitting. McClellan said the day’s events were a “turning point” in American history.
“People lose sight of the big picture,” McClellan said.
“It was not a riot. What they were doing was standing up for the right to be treated as a human being,” she said. “It is about respect and treatment as a citizen of the U.S.”
The clashes between the white store clerk and the Stephensons, and Black residents and police, represented a cruel juxtaposition, reflecting the reality many young Black veterans faced after returning from fighting overseas in World War II.
The return home was a battleground for social change — a second war fought by Black veterans who had only recently returned from overseas, as Gail Williams O’Brien details in the groundbreaking book “The Color of the Law: Race, Violence, and Justice in the Post-World War II South.”
This time, the conflict took place on their own soil, defending racial equality amid the lingering effects of slavery, ensuing aggression and the painful history of several lynchings in Columbia.
“They were defending themselves,” O’Brien said on “History’s Hook,” a podcast hosted by Maury County Archives Director Tom Price.
Many media outlets at the time failed to highlight state law enforcement’s role in storming a Black neighborhood, where stores and property in the Bottom were destroyed.
On the evening of Feb. 25, men from the Bottom shot out the lights of lampposts to deter visibility of intruders, while also shooting four approaching Columbia police officers with buck shots, causing minor injures. The next morning, state authorities, in position, descended into the neighborhood.
State authorities beat some residents and seized weapons, cash, jewelry and other property without a warrant. As the violent raid came to an end, over 100 Black residents were arrested. Two died in jail at the hand of law enforcement. Another died during a health emergency.
The ransacking of the neighborhood left a lasting economic, social and emotional scar on the community.
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‘First step’ in civil rights movement
Price, an area historian with 30 years of experience in the field, said the event served as a kickstart for civil rights on the national scale.
“It took national significance as a trial,” Price said. “This is the impetus that starts civil rights in America from a legal standpoint.
“It was emblematic of a nationwide shift from mob violence against African Americans to increased confrontations between Blacks and the police in the courts. Legal precedent was set that marked a first step in Civil Rights in America using the law and legislation.”
Price said the event caught the attention of the “great influencers of the period.” Among them were then President Harry Truman, prior First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Thurgood Marshall, legal counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who eventually became the first black U.S. Supreme Court Justice.
Despite references in history books and newspaper headlines, historians today say the incident wasn’t a “riot” at all, but an “uprising” that drew the eyes of America.
Following the events in Columbia, Truman established The President’s Committee on Civil Rights with an executive order in December 1946.
“It marks a significant change in race relations not only in rural Tennessee but nationally. Historians count the event as the very first step in the civil rights movement,” Price said.
The committee produced a 178-page report titled “To Secure These Rights: The Report of the President’s Committee on Civil Rights.” The report proposed the establishment of a permanent Civil Rights Commission, Joint Congressional Committee on Civil Rights, and a Civil Rights Division in the Department of Justice that would develop federal protections from lynching, fair employment and the abolishment of poll taxes.
The document also raised the possibility that a 1946 United Nations Charter could be used as a source of law to oppose ongoing racial discrimination in the U.S.
Attorneys Maurice Weaver, Z. Alexander Looby and Walter White led the courtroom defense of the 25 people charged.
How the case unfolded
Legal proceedings continued throughout the spring and summer of 1946, and 23 of the 25 Black defendants facing charges were acquitted by an all-white jury, according to the Tennessee Historical Commission.
The case concluded in a second trial at Columbia in November 1946, when Lloyd Kennedy was convicted for shooting at a white highway patrolman.
No race riot nor a lynching ever materialized that day.
But the damage was done.
A federal grand jury convened to investigate the charges of misconduct by the white authorities, but a local all-white jury absolved the officers of any wrongdoing.
Violence quelled as James Stephenson was put on a bus out of town to Chicago where his father lived, never to return.
After the verdict, historians like McClellan said Black people slowly began to see respect restored toward them.
McClellan, along with the African American Heritage Society of Maury County, led the charge in installing a historic marker in the city in 2016, acknowledging the uprising in 1946.
Morton Funeral Home was chosen as the site because that’s where prominent business owner, James E. Morton along with other business owners and the Maury County Sheriff “strategized” about thwarting violence in Columbia and defending the Bottom against the rumored lynching. The men were also instrumental in devising the plan to get James Stephenson out of town and harm’s way.
Time to deal with the past, pastor says
Trent Ogilvie, a local pastor who has spent the past 16 years as the executive director of the Columbia Housing and Redevelopment Corporation, said the city and its inhabitants have largely “ignored” the incident.
A generation later, that is slowly changing.
“In order to move from the past we have to recognize it,” Ogilvie stated.
“Ignoring it does not solve it. It continues to manifest itself in very different ways. That one event really brought to light the tension that existed in Maury County” he said. “A lot of those effects linger when you don’t properly deal with it.”
The Bottom group has skilled financial decline over the many years, whereas different components of the town’s downtown have skilled a latest Renaissance with booming new companies, eating places and boutiques.
“It did not recover,” Ogilvie stated. “Sometimes you win the battle, but you lose the war. Those businesses should be a part of the downtown business community. For it to have existed as such for so long, it is disturbing and troubling.”
Leaders in the group search to maneuver ahead whereas recognizing its historical past with the aim of enhancing the group for generations to return.
How does that occur? Education and a imaginative and prescient are key, stated Ogilvie, who can be part of the Stand Together Fellowship, a bunch of spiritual and civic leaders dedicated to bridging cultural and racial divides inside Columbia.
“We can take a look at our historical past and our previous, however at this level, we want to verify we form our future.” Ogilvie said. “We must be having applications that train individuals our total historical past. We uplift the voices in the group and encourage our younger individuals to be lively and current in the group. We be certain they’ve entry to the positions as academics, CEOs and dealing in the banking trade.
“That is something that we can build on and try to move forward together,” he stated.
Contributing: Kerri Bartlett, The Columbia Daily Herald
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