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The Eyes of Willie McGee: A Tragedy of Race, Sex, and Secrets in the Jim Crow South
A gripping saga of race and retribution in the Deep South and a story whose haunting details echo the themes of To Kill a Mockingbird
In 1945, Willie McGee, a young African-American man from Laurel, Mississippi, was sentenced to death for allegedly raping Willette Hawkins, a white housewife. At first, McGee's case was barely noticed, covered only in hostile Mississippi newspapers and far-left publications such as the Daily Worker. Then Bella Abzug, a young New York labor lawyer, was hired by the Civil Rights Congress—an aggressive civil rights organization with ties to the Communist Party of the United States—to oversee McGee's defense. Together with William Patterson, the son of a slave and a devout believer in the need for revolutionary change, Abzug and a group of white Mississippi lawyers risked their lives to plead McGee's case. After years of court battles, McGee's supporters flooded President Harry S. Truman and the U.S. Supreme Court with clemency pleas, and famous Americans—including William Faulkner, Albert Einstein, Jessica Mitford, Paul Robeson, Norman Mailer, and Josephine Baker—spoke out on McGee's behalf.
By the time the case ended in 1951 with McGee's public execution in Mississippi's infamous traveling electric chair, "Free Willie McGee" had become a rallying cry among civil rights activists, progressives, leftists, and Communist Party members. Their movement had succeeded in convincing millions of people worldwide that McGee had been framed and that the real story involved a consensual love affair between him and Mrs. Hawkins—one that she had instigated and controlled. As Heard discovered, this controversial theory is a doorway to a tangle of secrets that spawned a legacy of confusion, misinformation, and pain that still resonates today. The mysteries surrounding McGee's case live on in this provocative tale of justice in the Deep South.
Based on exhaustive documentary research—court transcripts, newspaper reports, archived papers, letters, FBI documents, and the recollections of family members on both sides—Mississippi native Alex Heard tells a moving and unforgettable story that evokes the bitter conflicts between black and white, North and South, in America.
In 1945, Willie McGee, a young African-American man from Laurel, Mississippi, was sentenced to death for allegedly raping Willette Hawkins, a white housewife. At first, McGee's case was barely noticed, covered only in hostile Mississippi newspapers and far-left publications such as the Daily Worker. Then Bella Abzug, a young New York labor lawyer, was hired by the Civil Rights Congress—an aggressive civil rights organization with ties to the Communist Party of the United States—to oversee McGee's defense. Together with William Patterson, the son of a slave and a devout believer in the need for revolutionary change, Abzug and a group of white Mississippi lawyers risked their lives to plead McGee's case. After years of court battles, McGee's supporters flooded President Harry S. Truman and the U.S. Supreme Court with clemency pleas, and famous Americans—including William Faulkner, Albert Einstein, Jessica Mitford, Paul Robeson, Norman Mailer, and Josephine Baker—spoke out on McGee's behalf.
By the time the case ended in 1951 with McGee's public execution in Mississippi's infamous traveling electric chair, "Free Willie McGee" had become a rallying cry among civil rights activists, progressives, leftists, and Communist Party members. Their movement had succeeded in convincing millions of people worldwide that McGee had been framed and that the real story involved a consensual love affair between him and Mrs. Hawkins—one that she had instigated and controlled. As Heard discovered, this controversial theory is a doorway to a tangle of secrets that spawned a legacy of confusion, misinformation, and pain that still resonates today. The mysteries surrounding McGee's case live on in this provocative tale of justice in the Deep South.
Based on exhaustive documentary research—court transcripts, newspaper reports, archived papers, letters, FBI documents, and the recollections of family members on both sides—Mississippi native Alex Heard tells a moving and unforgettable story that evokes the bitter conflicts between black and white, North and South, in America.
436 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2010
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April 27, 2016
In general, I think, Americans are pretty pumped about being Americans. We’re proud, and rightfully so, of many of our national accomplishments.
[Cue Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA]
Our Revolution was extraordinary (especially when compared to the French, who screw everything up yet manage to remain condescending). Our mid-20th century foreign interventions, both forced (World War II) and voluntary (Korea) undoubtedly helped save many innocent lives. And we went to the freaking moon! Three cheers for the red, white, and blue!
Unfortunately, we aren’t nearly as blemish-free as we’d like to imagine.
[Cue the wah-wahhh sound effect]
There’s that whole bit about the Indians, and how we diseased, decimated, and displaced some 500 indigenous tribes in order to make room for all that liberty. We tended to kill a lot of people, and not just Indians, in our imperialist adventures (Mexicans and Filipinos, for instance). We also have a mean streak when it comes to outsiders, and have encouraged a long history of antipathy towards immigrant groups as disparate as Asians and the Irish. And of course there’s that whole slavery thing.
I don’t say this to make any kind of political statement. These are just facts. Of course, that won’t stop my brother from telling me to go to Canada, and ruining yet another Thanksgiving.
Alex Heard’s The Eyes of Willie McGee is about a particularly ugly period in American history: the Jim Crow Era.
The Jim Crow Era began around 1876, with the end of the Reconstruction Period that followed the American Civil War. It comprised the systematic, legislatively-enacted segregation of public facilities in the South (on top of all the segregation in private facilities). Jim Crow laws kept schools and restaurants and water fountains separate, and it made it hard (if not impossible) for blacks to vote or serve on juries. The laws themselves were bad, but the society it created was worse. It was the kind of society where Emmett Till’s proud murderers could be acquitted in just over an hour. (To be sure, it only took that long because, as one juror noted, they “stopped to drink a pop”).
The Jim Crow South makes me shudder. It makes me punching mad. It’s hard to imagine the kind of poisonous hate that it takes to duplicate every public facility, simply because you’re a racist jackass. Slavery, at least, was founded on cruel logic, the optimization of labor for profit. It was an economic modality that relied upon a patina of benign paternalism. Jim Crow was just meanness.
In this pus-filled environment, a black man named Willie McGee (not to be confused with the estimable St. Louis Cardinal batman, with the .295 lifetime average) found himself in the unfortunate position of being accused of raping a white woman, Willette Hawkins. Eventually, in a twist out of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (which was actually published 9 years after McGee’s death), McGee claimed he’d had a consensual affair with Hawkins, who ratted him out to avoid censure.
None of this served to help him at all. I hope it’s not too much of a spoiler to reveal that Willie McGee was executed. More to the point, he was strapped to a traveling electric chair and zapped to death in the same courtroom in which he was convicted (the mobile execution squad was a quaint artifact of 20th century southern justice).
Journalist Heard takes a hybrid approach to this story. Partially, it is a straightforward narrative of the case: three trials, appeals to the Mississippi and U.S. Supreme Courts, various stays of execution, and finally McGee’s trip on the lightning. Partially, there is a meta-narrative, in which Heard describes the process of writing the book, including getting relatives from both sides – McGee’s family and Hawkins’ family – to come together and discuss the event.
Mixed in with these two strands is a loose, digressionary discourse on myriad topics, chief among them lynching (including legal lynchings). At times it feels like a whirlwind tour of Southern injustice, with stops at the Till case and the Scottsboro Boys.
I like Heard's hybrid, half-memoir, half-old fashioned history style. This structure is especially potent when - as here - you are dealing with events within human memory. By detailing his research trail, Heard is able to connect the past with the present, and it makes the story crackle with immediacy.
For instance, it is fascinating to see how Laurel, Mississippi, is still rent along racial lines over this case. Blacks feel that McGee was set-up by Hawkins and killed to cover her shame. Whites feel that McGee committed the rape and paid for it according the laws at the time. (In 1977, in Coker v. Georgia, the Supreme Court banned the execution of defendants convicted solely of rape).
Frankly, I’d never heard the ballad of Willie McGee. In his time, though, he became something of a cause célèbre, a Mumia Abu-Jamal of his time. Certainly, Heard has a lot to work with. The Civil Rights attorney Bella Abzug oversaw his appeals. Luminaries such as William Faulkner, Albert Einstein, and Norman Mailer spoke out on his behalf. He was defended by the Civil Rights Congress, an organization with strong ties to the Communist Party, a fact that became a double-edged sword (the NAACP didn’t want anything to do with the CRC or McGee).
The Eyes of Willie McGee is a good book. It has no glaring flaws. It is scrupulously fair, with all parties given an opportunity to speak. Though obviously coming at the issue from a progressive point of view, Heard – to his credit – doesn’t try to sugarcoat the McGee case, or make him into a plaster martyr. Indeed, Heard comes to conclusion that McGee probably was guilty of Hawkins’ rape, though his punishment was excessive and disproportionately skewed towards blacks. (I share Heard’s judgment on this point. McGee’s consent defense places him in the victim’s home on the night of the alleged assault. This, combined with a lack of corroborating evidence of an affair, is a bit damning).
Still, I wasn’t blown away. And I don’t blame Heard for this. He is saddled with history, and the history here does not follow the time-worn arc of famous legal dramas. To begin, as noted above, there’s a good chance that McGee was guilty. Furthermore, there were no legal pyrotechnics, no point in the trial when an Atticus Finch-like attorney proves with incise logic that McGee couldn’t have done it. The appeals process itself is described ploddingly, because appeals are a plodding process. Bella Abzug didn't have a lot to work with, and constantly dangled the promise of new evidence without ever delivering. Heck, Heard isn’t even able to really condemn the system, since McGee’s conviction and execution weren’t a systemic failure. If there is a legal critique at all, it is that the jury system – the bedrock of our notions of law – is fallible. A jury is comprised of our peers; unfortunately for Willie, his peers were bigots. But then again, it can’t be proven they were wrong.
Quality aside, The Eyes of Willie McGee is a downer. It meticulously peels back the layers of a dispiriting era. In terms of American history, Jim Crow is like the anti-Omaha Beach.
It would be nice to think that those days are all in the past. Certainly, the laws have changed, through a grudging process of trial and appeal (I still can’t believe that when I was born, there were states where it was illegal for blacks to marry whites). But then again, many civil rights laws (especially those focused on voting rights) are on the verge of rollback, and I sometimes get the discomfiting feeling that even though the Jim Crow laws have disappeared, some of that sentiment remains.
[Cue Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA]
Our Revolution was extraordinary (especially when compared to the French, who screw everything up yet manage to remain condescending). Our mid-20th century foreign interventions, both forced (World War II) and voluntary (Korea) undoubtedly helped save many innocent lives. And we went to the freaking moon! Three cheers for the red, white, and blue!
Unfortunately, we aren’t nearly as blemish-free as we’d like to imagine.
[Cue the wah-wahhh sound effect]
There’s that whole bit about the Indians, and how we diseased, decimated, and displaced some 500 indigenous tribes in order to make room for all that liberty. We tended to kill a lot of people, and not just Indians, in our imperialist adventures (Mexicans and Filipinos, for instance). We also have a mean streak when it comes to outsiders, and have encouraged a long history of antipathy towards immigrant groups as disparate as Asians and the Irish. And of course there’s that whole slavery thing.
I don’t say this to make any kind of political statement. These are just facts. Of course, that won’t stop my brother from telling me to go to Canada, and ruining yet another Thanksgiving.
Alex Heard’s The Eyes of Willie McGee is about a particularly ugly period in American history: the Jim Crow Era.
The Jim Crow Era began around 1876, with the end of the Reconstruction Period that followed the American Civil War. It comprised the systematic, legislatively-enacted segregation of public facilities in the South (on top of all the segregation in private facilities). Jim Crow laws kept schools and restaurants and water fountains separate, and it made it hard (if not impossible) for blacks to vote or serve on juries. The laws themselves were bad, but the society it created was worse. It was the kind of society where Emmett Till’s proud murderers could be acquitted in just over an hour. (To be sure, it only took that long because, as one juror noted, they “stopped to drink a pop”).
The Jim Crow South makes me shudder. It makes me punching mad. It’s hard to imagine the kind of poisonous hate that it takes to duplicate every public facility, simply because you’re a racist jackass. Slavery, at least, was founded on cruel logic, the optimization of labor for profit. It was an economic modality that relied upon a patina of benign paternalism. Jim Crow was just meanness.
In this pus-filled environment, a black man named Willie McGee (not to be confused with the estimable St. Louis Cardinal batman, with the .295 lifetime average) found himself in the unfortunate position of being accused of raping a white woman, Willette Hawkins. Eventually, in a twist out of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (which was actually published 9 years after McGee’s death), McGee claimed he’d had a consensual affair with Hawkins, who ratted him out to avoid censure.
None of this served to help him at all. I hope it’s not too much of a spoiler to reveal that Willie McGee was executed. More to the point, he was strapped to a traveling electric chair and zapped to death in the same courtroom in which he was convicted (the mobile execution squad was a quaint artifact of 20th century southern justice).
Journalist Heard takes a hybrid approach to this story. Partially, it is a straightforward narrative of the case: three trials, appeals to the Mississippi and U.S. Supreme Courts, various stays of execution, and finally McGee’s trip on the lightning. Partially, there is a meta-narrative, in which Heard describes the process of writing the book, including getting relatives from both sides – McGee’s family and Hawkins’ family – to come together and discuss the event.
Mixed in with these two strands is a loose, digressionary discourse on myriad topics, chief among them lynching (including legal lynchings). At times it feels like a whirlwind tour of Southern injustice, with stops at the Till case and the Scottsboro Boys.
I like Heard's hybrid, half-memoir, half-old fashioned history style. This structure is especially potent when - as here - you are dealing with events within human memory. By detailing his research trail, Heard is able to connect the past with the present, and it makes the story crackle with immediacy.
For instance, it is fascinating to see how Laurel, Mississippi, is still rent along racial lines over this case. Blacks feel that McGee was set-up by Hawkins and killed to cover her shame. Whites feel that McGee committed the rape and paid for it according the laws at the time. (In 1977, in Coker v. Georgia, the Supreme Court banned the execution of defendants convicted solely of rape).
Frankly, I’d never heard the ballad of Willie McGee. In his time, though, he became something of a cause célèbre, a Mumia Abu-Jamal of his time. Certainly, Heard has a lot to work with. The Civil Rights attorney Bella Abzug oversaw his appeals. Luminaries such as William Faulkner, Albert Einstein, and Norman Mailer spoke out on his behalf. He was defended by the Civil Rights Congress, an organization with strong ties to the Communist Party, a fact that became a double-edged sword (the NAACP didn’t want anything to do with the CRC or McGee).
The Eyes of Willie McGee is a good book. It has no glaring flaws. It is scrupulously fair, with all parties given an opportunity to speak. Though obviously coming at the issue from a progressive point of view, Heard – to his credit – doesn’t try to sugarcoat the McGee case, or make him into a plaster martyr. Indeed, Heard comes to conclusion that McGee probably was guilty of Hawkins’ rape, though his punishment was excessive and disproportionately skewed towards blacks. (I share Heard’s judgment on this point. McGee’s consent defense places him in the victim’s home on the night of the alleged assault. This, combined with a lack of corroborating evidence of an affair, is a bit damning).
Still, I wasn’t blown away. And I don’t blame Heard for this. He is saddled with history, and the history here does not follow the time-worn arc of famous legal dramas. To begin, as noted above, there’s a good chance that McGee was guilty. Furthermore, there were no legal pyrotechnics, no point in the trial when an Atticus Finch-like attorney proves with incise logic that McGee couldn’t have done it. The appeals process itself is described ploddingly, because appeals are a plodding process. Bella Abzug didn't have a lot to work with, and constantly dangled the promise of new evidence without ever delivering. Heck, Heard isn’t even able to really condemn the system, since McGee’s conviction and execution weren’t a systemic failure. If there is a legal critique at all, it is that the jury system – the bedrock of our notions of law – is fallible. A jury is comprised of our peers; unfortunately for Willie, his peers were bigots. But then again, it can’t be proven they were wrong.
Quality aside, The Eyes of Willie McGee is a downer. It meticulously peels back the layers of a dispiriting era. In terms of American history, Jim Crow is like the anti-Omaha Beach.
It would be nice to think that those days are all in the past. Certainly, the laws have changed, through a grudging process of trial and appeal (I still can’t believe that when I was born, there were states where it was illegal for blacks to marry whites). But then again, many civil rights laws (especially those focused on voting rights) are on the verge of rollback, and I sometimes get the discomfiting feeling that even though the Jim Crow laws have disappeared, some of that sentiment remains.
November 6, 2018
This book was hard to finish. The case was notorious and interesting in itself, but there were so many long detours into other subjects -- like the entire history of the Scottsboro case and the political entanglements of every single attorney and elected official who had anything to do with Willie McGee -- that I kept losing track of the case this book is supposed to be about. Ultimately, Willie, the defendant in the case; Willette, the victim; and merits of the case all got lost in the sauce.
February 17, 2022
So in the ‘40s there was a senator…his name was Bilbo. Not that Bilbo with a hole in the ground so unfortunate
March 18, 2012
Convicted of the rape of a white woman in Mississippi, Willie McGee was executed in 1951, and the mysteries surrounding his case live on in this provocative tale about justice in the deep South.
The first time I heard the name Willie McGee was in a song by the Flobots about Anne Braden. Anne Braden is mentioned twice in this book, but the book is mainly about Willie McGee and then next Willette Hawkins, the woman he is accused of raping and then the politics of the day, in Mississippi in the late 1940s. It starts in November 2, 1945 with the assault on Willette and ends on May 8, 1951, with the execution of Willie McGee. Of course that is not really the end, since there was great controversy raised about this case that continues today. His execution is referred to as 'legalized lynching' by some, and justice by others.
This case raises several questions, among them: Was Mrs. Hawkins really raped? Did Mr. McGee do it? Did he get a fair trial? Did the politics of the people trying to save his life actually hurt his case?
Alex Heard considers these questions and more, he researched the case extensively, including interviews with any survivors he could find, including the children of Willie McGee and Willette Hawkins. Besides considering this one specific case, we are also treated to a lesson in the politics of the day, the injustices suffered by black people in the south at that time. He ties in other lynchings from the time period and statistics and the prevailing 'opinions' of the time period.
In total this is a very informative, interesting, well researched, and I believe factual telling of this event. I recommend this book.
July 21, 2010
First of all it is clear the author put in a significant amount of time doing research with primary and secondary sources. An annoyance is an overabundance of information that is not relevant. Such as one person he contacts who never does research he asks for but the author details the medical procedure that she went under. Also his analysis of the dynamics of current family members from both sides is not as strong as the historical analysis.
Very good job detailing how McGee receiving assistance from the CRC hurt his cause as they were viewed as Communist and the NCAAP distanced temselves from the case as a result.
Very good job detailing how McGee receiving assistance from the CRC hurt his cause as they were viewed as Communist and the NCAAP distanced temselves from the case as a result.
April 21, 2015
Title: "The Eyes of Willie McGee"
Author: Alex Heard
Publisher: Harper
ISBN, PUB Date: 978-0-06-128415-1, May 2010
Reviewed By: Irene Yeates for Author Exposure (07/10)
THE EYES OF WILLIE McGEE: A TRAGEDY OF RACE, SEX, AND SECRETS IN THE JIM CROW SOUTH by Alex Heard presents more questions than answers. Yet, in so doing, it is an outrageously honest and well-documented vehicle to enlighten those unaware of how one extraordinary judicial argument unknowingly provided the ballast for the Civil Rights movement in our country.
Willie McGee endured the charade of three blatantly biased “trials,” for a questionable crime he allegedly committed—the impulsive rape of a white Southern woman by the name of Willette Hawkins in Laurel, Mississippi one early morning in November 1945. He consequently became a pivotal icon for the Civil Rights Congress in their initial impetus to challenge the “Jim Crow” laws, which measured justice solely on the color of one’s skin, rather than any heinous crime itself.
Alex Heard provides a complex, yet systematically presented view of pre-Civil Rights history. It is a challenging narrative, chronicling the controversial and scandalous actions of respectable politicians and government agencies during this volatile period of America’s history. The battle between an unyielding “Jim Crow” South, at odds over federal intrusion into their rights to adjudicate laws in accordance to instilled Southern values and cultural traditions, and the federal government, forms the historical backdrop of the book. Ultimately, according to Craig Zaim (in a legal analysis of the case), “…Willie McGee died a casualty of the battle Mississippi waged to maintain its autonomy against federal power” (340-41).
This mesmerizing chronological narration includes a staggering forty pages of bibliography and notes, numerous and exacting interviews, time-consuming trips to locales, family members, and research venues. Despite this evidence, Alex Heard readily acknowledges that the Willie McGee case remains a question mark in the troublesome archives of this one black man sentenced to die for a crime he personally alleged never occurred. Alex Heard’s attempts to unravel what actually happened on that fateful pre-dawn morning, and the contradictory assertions he uncovered, reveal that only two people can bear witness to the truth: young, black, married father and provider Willie McGee and young, white, married mother and housewife Willette Hawkins. Whether a consensual and long-standing sexual alliance between the two ever existed still remains a mystery because both individuals are deceased.
The aforementioned scrupulous attention to the minutest details might suggest tedious, textbook-style writing. On the contrary, I found this book to be both absorbing and shocking. I was amazed by the number of well-known celebrities, authors, politicians, etc., who willingly joined in the battle to prevent an execution. White Southern citizens’ crimes of the same caliber and worse, rarely, if ever, ended with the death penalty. Willie McGee’s fate was sealed before he entered any courtroom. All avenues and any attempts to save his life were futile.
Most startling was the revelation of the Civil Rights Congress’ role. The CRC was allegedly committed to the wide-ranging issues of civil liberties, but actually dedicated itself to defend individual Communists and the Communist Party. Tainted by this ostracized and feared association, the CRC and the NAACP often clashed on viable tactics to preeminently attain civil liberties for the Negro citizens of the United States. The Civil Rights Congress was supremely instrumental in sustaining worldwide visibility for Willie McGee. Conversely, the NAACP sought to distance itself from the CRC and chose to abandon one man in order to focus on the ultimate struggle to gain civil liberties for all Negroes.
Fortunately, as Heard writes, “By the mid-1950’s, the civil rights movement was moving rapidly, spurred by dramatic events that set the tone for the historic changes of the late 1950’s and 1960’s...the eventual triumph of the NAACP’s core strategy of forcing change by waging constitutional battles in federal courts—made it easy to forget that the Civil Rights Congress had ever existed, which it ceased to do in early 1956” (341-42).
I would find it difficult to forget what I read, and rightfully so. Without hesitation, we fought a world war to secure freedom and justice for all. Yet, we failed to carry that message home. Rather than yield, we shamefully engaged in a tumultuous period of unwarranted conflict until irrefutable laws granted equality to all our citizens.
Author: Alex Heard
Publisher: Harper
ISBN, PUB Date: 978-0-06-128415-1, May 2010
Reviewed By: Irene Yeates for Author Exposure (07/10)
THE EYES OF WILLIE McGEE: A TRAGEDY OF RACE, SEX, AND SECRETS IN THE JIM CROW SOUTH by Alex Heard presents more questions than answers. Yet, in so doing, it is an outrageously honest and well-documented vehicle to enlighten those unaware of how one extraordinary judicial argument unknowingly provided the ballast for the Civil Rights movement in our country.
Willie McGee endured the charade of three blatantly biased “trials,” for a questionable crime he allegedly committed—the impulsive rape of a white Southern woman by the name of Willette Hawkins in Laurel, Mississippi one early morning in November 1945. He consequently became a pivotal icon for the Civil Rights Congress in their initial impetus to challenge the “Jim Crow” laws, which measured justice solely on the color of one’s skin, rather than any heinous crime itself.
Alex Heard provides a complex, yet systematically presented view of pre-Civil Rights history. It is a challenging narrative, chronicling the controversial and scandalous actions of respectable politicians and government agencies during this volatile period of America’s history. The battle between an unyielding “Jim Crow” South, at odds over federal intrusion into their rights to adjudicate laws in accordance to instilled Southern values and cultural traditions, and the federal government, forms the historical backdrop of the book. Ultimately, according to Craig Zaim (in a legal analysis of the case), “…Willie McGee died a casualty of the battle Mississippi waged to maintain its autonomy against federal power” (340-41).
This mesmerizing chronological narration includes a staggering forty pages of bibliography and notes, numerous and exacting interviews, time-consuming trips to locales, family members, and research venues. Despite this evidence, Alex Heard readily acknowledges that the Willie McGee case remains a question mark in the troublesome archives of this one black man sentenced to die for a crime he personally alleged never occurred. Alex Heard’s attempts to unravel what actually happened on that fateful pre-dawn morning, and the contradictory assertions he uncovered, reveal that only two people can bear witness to the truth: young, black, married father and provider Willie McGee and young, white, married mother and housewife Willette Hawkins. Whether a consensual and long-standing sexual alliance between the two ever existed still remains a mystery because both individuals are deceased.
The aforementioned scrupulous attention to the minutest details might suggest tedious, textbook-style writing. On the contrary, I found this book to be both absorbing and shocking. I was amazed by the number of well-known celebrities, authors, politicians, etc., who willingly joined in the battle to prevent an execution. White Southern citizens’ crimes of the same caliber and worse, rarely, if ever, ended with the death penalty. Willie McGee’s fate was sealed before he entered any courtroom. All avenues and any attempts to save his life were futile.
Most startling was the revelation of the Civil Rights Congress’ role. The CRC was allegedly committed to the wide-ranging issues of civil liberties, but actually dedicated itself to defend individual Communists and the Communist Party. Tainted by this ostracized and feared association, the CRC and the NAACP often clashed on viable tactics to preeminently attain civil liberties for the Negro citizens of the United States. The Civil Rights Congress was supremely instrumental in sustaining worldwide visibility for Willie McGee. Conversely, the NAACP sought to distance itself from the CRC and chose to abandon one man in order to focus on the ultimate struggle to gain civil liberties for all Negroes.
Fortunately, as Heard writes, “By the mid-1950’s, the civil rights movement was moving rapidly, spurred by dramatic events that set the tone for the historic changes of the late 1950’s and 1960’s...the eventual triumph of the NAACP’s core strategy of forcing change by waging constitutional battles in federal courts—made it easy to forget that the Civil Rights Congress had ever existed, which it ceased to do in early 1956” (341-42).
I would find it difficult to forget what I read, and rightfully so. Without hesitation, we fought a world war to secure freedom and justice for all. Yet, we failed to carry that message home. Rather than yield, we shamefully engaged in a tumultuous period of unwarranted conflict until irrefutable laws granted equality to all our citizens.
May 28, 2018
Great overview of a forgotten case, one neglected for many reasons: the lingering ambiguity as to Willie's guilt or innocence, its overshadowing by the Scottsboro Boys preceding it, and Emmett Till and the civil rights movement following. And, of course, because Willie McGee's defense lay in the hands of the Communist Party and its "front," the Civil Rights Congress. The CRC's hyperbolic tactics were often as extreme as their Dixiecrat, segregationist opponents, although never descending to violent attacks. Ultimately, Willie's case went down because Communism, not racism, was the target of 1950s Federal enforcement. Only later did it dawn on the courts that Jim Crow might be as great a national security threat as Joe Stalin. This rather belies the author's claim of "the eventual triumph of the NAACP's core strategy of forcing change by waging constitutional battles in federal courts" (pp. 341-42).
Because the courts did not initiate either the legal defense of railroaded men like Willie McGee, or the civil rights movement, nor the cool political decision of Lyndon Johnson to enact civil rights bills. It came from activists pounding pavements, demonstrating, circulating inflammatory literature, and penning tons of letters to politicians. Conveniently, this "Communist activity" - real or ascribed - is expunged from the civil rights record. According to established historiography/mythology this just suddenly emerged from a vacuum at the behest of Dr. King, the SCLC, and the Montgomery bus boycott. But when Southern reactionaries accused Dr. King and company of being Reds and fellow-travelers, they were not as lunatic as modern readers might suppose.
For the CPUSA was once the strongest grass-roots organization willing to publicly fight for racial equality, at a time when this was indeed a radical, outlaw stance. Its struggle has been airbrushed out of the neat and tidy construct preferred in mainstream channels; just as the leading role of white Jewish-Yankee liberals has been also erased from black consciousness.
Because the courts did not initiate either the legal defense of railroaded men like Willie McGee, or the civil rights movement, nor the cool political decision of Lyndon Johnson to enact civil rights bills. It came from activists pounding pavements, demonstrating, circulating inflammatory literature, and penning tons of letters to politicians. Conveniently, this "Communist activity" - real or ascribed - is expunged from the civil rights record. According to established historiography/mythology this just suddenly emerged from a vacuum at the behest of Dr. King, the SCLC, and the Montgomery bus boycott. But when Southern reactionaries accused Dr. King and company of being Reds and fellow-travelers, they were not as lunatic as modern readers might suppose.
For the CPUSA was once the strongest grass-roots organization willing to publicly fight for racial equality, at a time when this was indeed a radical, outlaw stance. Its struggle has been airbrushed out of the neat and tidy construct preferred in mainstream channels; just as the leading role of white Jewish-Yankee liberals has been also erased from black consciousness.
August 10, 2011
Didn't read it cover to cover, but after the first 200 pages, you get the point. Overall interesting topic, though I wish Heard's approach had been less about telling his own story of his research and more just relating his discoveries. I guess since so much of his information is based on interviews, those experiences with "witnesses" telling their stories.
January 24, 2022
An intense and shameful account of the injustice given to Willie McGee, a black man in the deep South.
#JimCrow
#Communism
#Segregation
#JimCrow
#Communism
#Segregation
August 27, 2019
Willie McGee was a black man in Laurel, MS accused and eventually electrocuted for raping a white woman. At the time (late 1940's to early 50's) the case garnered national and international attention. McGee was found guilty in two-and-a-half minutes by an all white jury. There were numerous appeals and retrials and stays and motions before the Supreme Court. In 1946 the Civil Rights Congress, an off-shoot of the Communist Party, hired Bella Abzug to handle the appeal of the case. Interestingly the NAACP did not get involved to not be tainted with the Communist involvement. Alex Heard exhaustively researched the archives, news reports, trial trail transcripts and all remaining participants and their relatives and descendants he could find. The case involved no hard evidence of crime, a disappearing, untested blood stain, a probable forced confession (McGee was held for a month in jail without any contact with family or attorneys, threats of lynching (at one trial the defense attorneys slipped out a back door before their closing arguments for fear of mob violence), rigged juries, and multiple and changing defense stories, (McGee wasn't there, he was but the sex was consensual, etc.) I found the book a fascinating story of the horrible world a black person lived in the Jim Crow south. By Mississippi law a black man, but not a white man, convicted of raping a white woman could be executed. I suppose it should no longer amaze me the injustices of that era but it still does.
All whites in Laurel interviewed by Heard were certain McGee was guilty and had received multiple fair trials while all black people knew he was innocent and had been carrying on an affair with the victim for years. Both stories were not clearly credible. After all his research Heard himself is not certain of the guilt or innocence of McGee.
All whites in Laurel interviewed by Heard were certain McGee was guilty and had received multiple fair trials while all black people knew he was innocent and had been carrying on an affair with the victim for years. Both stories were not clearly credible. After all his research Heard himself is not certain of the guilt or innocence of McGee.
June 14, 2018
I enjoyed the story that this writing covers but found the reading to be so full of information about different characters and side stories it was difficult to keep it all straight.
January 4, 2023
This book about Willie McGee & the case against him that led to his execution spells out exactly how the legal processes of the Jim Crow era in the South were impossibly stacked against African-Americans. It was honestly hard to read because the overt racism was SO disgusting & appalling & despicable & every other negative adverb one can come up with. There was no due process for black people then that can compare to what we have in the modern era, and ours is far from perfect now. So much was wrong with all three of his convictions that it’s impossible for me to disagree with those who say that Wille suffered a legal lynching. Gah… It makes me incredibly angry to think of all the ways black people suffered because our government quit on reconstruction and failed to force the South to get their collective @#$& together after the Civil War. All because white people needed to feel “better than”? Makes me want to stick a fork in the eye of a racist, should one happen to appear in front of me right now. Jesus take the wheel.
But I digress. Despite being hard to read because of all the overt injustice, I appreciate the lengths Alex Heard went to uncover what he could of the truth. Talking to members of the McGee & Hawkins families, traveling rural back roads, searching archives & talking to people who remembered things both true & untrue must have been a challenge. Yet even with all of the author’s research, this book isn’t tied up with a bow at the end & so many questions remain. Some of the simple ones I have include: did communists REALLY think getting involved in Willie’s case was a good idea??? And who the heck was Willie’s second “wife” really? And what happened to the “blood” that DISAPPEARED from Willie’s boxer shorts that were used as an exhibit in his trial? So. Many. Questions. And so much shame.
But I digress. Despite being hard to read because of all the overt injustice, I appreciate the lengths Alex Heard went to uncover what he could of the truth. Talking to members of the McGee & Hawkins families, traveling rural back roads, searching archives & talking to people who remembered things both true & untrue must have been a challenge. Yet even with all of the author’s research, this book isn’t tied up with a bow at the end & so many questions remain. Some of the simple ones I have include: did communists REALLY think getting involved in Willie’s case was a good idea??? And who the heck was Willie’s second “wife” really? And what happened to the “blood” that DISAPPEARED from Willie’s boxer shorts that were used as an exhibit in his trial? So. Many. Questions. And so much shame.
October 19, 2022
I have to preface this review with, I definitely faced burnout on the topic of legal system corruption, media coverage and what not in the south. It may feel like a weird statement, but this is possibly the 15th book in like 2 years i've read surrounding this topic.
This book stands out to me. Most books take a very definitive approach to what happened. Alex really spends time showcasing how complex the truth is. Seeing his journey and the different variables uncovered on his quest to know who actually did/say what is fascinating.
The way people perceive the past we often just take these snapshots of nothing more than a perspective and morph it into canonical fact.
This book may be one of the most direct i've seen in dispelling that concept via a recent case. History kinda wild. We dun understand the specifics a lot.
This book stands out to me. Most books take a very definitive approach to what happened. Alex really spends time showcasing how complex the truth is. Seeing his journey and the different variables uncovered on his quest to know who actually did/say what is fascinating.
The way people perceive the past we often just take these snapshots of nothing more than a perspective and morph it into canonical fact.
This book may be one of the most direct i've seen in dispelling that concept via a recent case. History kinda wild. We dun understand the specifics a lot.
July 20, 2017
4 stars for research, 3 stars for writing.
This is a very dense book. It reminded me of some other historical accounts that are more reference than read. If you want facts, this is a great place to start. If you want a Devil in the White City-style page-turner, this is not it.
That said, if you want an accurate, researched account of the story, come here. It's another non-fiction book detailing the quite literal institutional racism in courtrooms, law enforcement, and government in general in mid-20th Century South. Unfortunately, most readers will have no problem accepting the extreme behavior of the aforementioned entities as fact.
This is a very dense book. It reminded me of some other historical accounts that are more reference than read. If you want facts, this is a great place to start. If you want a Devil in the White City-style page-turner, this is not it.
That said, if you want an accurate, researched account of the story, come here. It's another non-fiction book detailing the quite literal institutional racism in courtrooms, law enforcement, and government in general in mid-20th Century South. Unfortunately, most readers will have no problem accepting the extreme behavior of the aforementioned entities as fact.
October 20, 2018
This was a very well-researched text. Almost too well-researched. The author didn't know what to leave out. But the core of the information was interesting, even though it was upsetting. Heard did an excellent job of trying to remain unbiased as his research into the McGee tragedy continued. What kept this from being a five-star book for me was simply my personal preference for non-fiction to be told in a linear fashion. Heard jumped around too much in his storytelling (he followed his research path) for my personal taste.
September 14, 2019
There are some things that we will never know this side of heaven. I would pose that justice for Willie McGee is one of them. Heard has made a valiant stab at exposing such justice in this very listenable volume about the events surrounding this world-famous case. I think Heard does well to put one in the position of knowing full well that McGee was denied justice without ever explicitly claiming that he was innocent of the crime for which he was eventually executed. The reader will have to judge how much of this is truth and how much is supposition.
January 24, 2020
I honestly didn't want to finish this book. It's supposed to be about the course case of Willie McGee but as another reader mentioned the book goes off on large tangents explaining the court cases and history of several other individuals. While its packed with tons of information that I wasn't aware of I wasn't prepared for it when I decided to read the book. I'll take a break for now and maybe one day I will finish.
Read
October 28, 2019I got bogged down in all the details and only read a little more than the first chapter.
February 14, 2022
Good book
This book was very interesting but it had quite a bit of unnecessary information which started to make the story boring until you got back to the basic storyline.
This book was very interesting but it had quite a bit of unnecessary information which started to make the story boring until you got back to the basic storyline.
December 3, 2024
Good story but as someone else reviewed, he goes into too much information on other people and organizations. Very hard to keep everyone straight.
August 15, 2022
this author takes us through the trial and retrials of Willie McGee, a black man who was accused, convicted and put to death for raping a white woman. Heard starts researching and writing this book in order to uncover the truth about what really happened. But, it turns out that we will never know what really happened because all those who knew, took the truth to their graves. The rest of us are left with rumours, untruths, good intentions and lessons. Even those who were trying to help couldn't agree and put their differences aside for the better good.
Ultimately we learn that the US justice system was (is?) seriously flawed. A black man could be put to death for rape while a white man would never face this same penalty. A black man at the time could never face a jury of his peers as only white men were allowed to be on a jury. And gettting a trial moved in order to increase the chances of it being fair and unbiased was all but impossible. So this was never going to be about truth and justice. It was only ever going to be about racism and hate.
Heard does a fantastic job explaining what was going on politically and socially at the time of the many trials of Willie McGee. All of which guaranteed a fair trial wouldn't take place. He explains specifically how the media was used by those who had influence over it (on both sides) to further their agenda with relevant information, whether true or not! He gives many, many examples of similar cases showing just how biased and racist the justice system is.
Did he do it? Who knows? It doesn't look like we'll ever know for sure. Did he get a fair trail? Absolutely not. Should he have been put to death for the crime he was convicted of? No, not if that wasn't the agreed upon, across the board punshiment for rape.
Ultimately we learn that the US justice system was (is?) seriously flawed. A black man could be put to death for rape while a white man would never face this same penalty. A black man at the time could never face a jury of his peers as only white men were allowed to be on a jury. And gettting a trial moved in order to increase the chances of it being fair and unbiased was all but impossible. So this was never going to be about truth and justice. It was only ever going to be about racism and hate.
Heard does a fantastic job explaining what was going on politically and socially at the time of the many trials of Willie McGee. All of which guaranteed a fair trial wouldn't take place. He explains specifically how the media was used by those who had influence over it (on both sides) to further their agenda with relevant information, whether true or not! He gives many, many examples of similar cases showing just how biased and racist the justice system is.
Did he do it? Who knows? It doesn't look like we'll ever know for sure. Did he get a fair trail? Absolutely not. Should he have been put to death for the crime he was convicted of? No, not if that wasn't the agreed upon, across the board punshiment for rape.
July 21, 2010
Willie McGee was a young African American man who was accused of raping a White woman named Willette Hawkins in 1945. He was quickly tried and convicted for the crime despite the evidence being largely circumstantial. The Civil Rights Congress got wind of his conviction and the circumstances surrounding it and decided to take action. A group of attorneys funded through the CRC appealed McGee's conviction not once, but twice in an attempt to free him. Their appeals ultimately failed and McGee was executed in 1951 in Mississippi's travelling electric chair.
While reading this book, both Willie McGee's and Willette Hawkins' stories fascinated me because they were in similar situations in society. At the time it was almost unthinkable for an African American to get a fair trial in the South, and I was surprised to read at how low women were viewed according to the law as well. The evidence presented against McGee at trial would not have been enough for him to be convicted in a court of law in the United States today, and I definitely felt a sense of injustice while reading McGee's struggle to avoid execution for the crime he was accused and convicted of. However, I was surprised to find myself equally appalled for Willette Hawkins who was treated quite unfair by today's standards as well--one of the requirements for rape at the time was that a woman had to fight back as hard as she possibly could--and her testimony was called into question as to whether or not she was actually raped based on this. To me, they were both victims of a society that viewed them as inferior and therefore didn't deserve justice.
What I found very interesting in the book is how the Communists in the U.S. were so involved in civil rights. I had heard some about it while in school, but I didn't realize to what extent they were involved. They were such a polarizing figure at the time (remember McCarthyism was just around the corner) that even the NAACP wanted to avoid being associated with the Communist funded Civil Rights Congress. After reading this book, I applaud the CRC's efforts to save Mr. McGee (even though I felt uncertain about his innocence or guilt even after finishing the book). He and so many others like him deserved to be treated as full citizens without discrimination, and I am so glad that people were willing to stand up and fight for those that were not allowed to fight for themselves. I believe that the stories of these African Americans' suffering was not in vain because through their suffering and the work of those who sought to bring real justice to the American system, our society has changed for the better. It is so unfortunate that all these terrible things had to happen for people to realize that skin color is not a factor in being a human being and all should be treated with dignity.
Alex Heard does a fine job of explaining the racial climate during the 1940s and the extent to which the CRC and Communists were involved in fighting for civil rights. Toward the end of the book, Heard writes about a demonstration in Washington D.C. in which a young soldier asked, "...why all this fuss over one life," to which another visitor answered, "Sometimes, one life becomes a symbol of a million lives." (p.316) Reading Willie McGee's personal story gave me a greater understanding of the African American struggle to gain equal rights in America.
I recommend this book to people who are both wanting a to read a detailed account of one man's struggle and understand the greater influence of the Communist involvement in the Civil Rights Movement (which I found fascinating).
While reading this book, both Willie McGee's and Willette Hawkins' stories fascinated me because they were in similar situations in society. At the time it was almost unthinkable for an African American to get a fair trial in the South, and I was surprised to read at how low women were viewed according to the law as well. The evidence presented against McGee at trial would not have been enough for him to be convicted in a court of law in the United States today, and I definitely felt a sense of injustice while reading McGee's struggle to avoid execution for the crime he was accused and convicted of. However, I was surprised to find myself equally appalled for Willette Hawkins who was treated quite unfair by today's standards as well--one of the requirements for rape at the time was that a woman had to fight back as hard as she possibly could--and her testimony was called into question as to whether or not she was actually raped based on this. To me, they were both victims of a society that viewed them as inferior and therefore didn't deserve justice.
What I found very interesting in the book is how the Communists in the U.S. were so involved in civil rights. I had heard some about it while in school, but I didn't realize to what extent they were involved. They were such a polarizing figure at the time (remember McCarthyism was just around the corner) that even the NAACP wanted to avoid being associated with the Communist funded Civil Rights Congress. After reading this book, I applaud the CRC's efforts to save Mr. McGee (even though I felt uncertain about his innocence or guilt even after finishing the book). He and so many others like him deserved to be treated as full citizens without discrimination, and I am so glad that people were willing to stand up and fight for those that were not allowed to fight for themselves. I believe that the stories of these African Americans' suffering was not in vain because through their suffering and the work of those who sought to bring real justice to the American system, our society has changed for the better. It is so unfortunate that all these terrible things had to happen for people to realize that skin color is not a factor in being a human being and all should be treated with dignity.
Alex Heard does a fine job of explaining the racial climate during the 1940s and the extent to which the CRC and Communists were involved in fighting for civil rights. Toward the end of the book, Heard writes about a demonstration in Washington D.C. in which a young soldier asked, "...why all this fuss over one life," to which another visitor answered, "Sometimes, one life becomes a symbol of a million lives." (p.316) Reading Willie McGee's personal story gave me a greater understanding of the African American struggle to gain equal rights in America.
I recommend this book to people who are both wanting a to read a detailed account of one man's struggle and understand the greater influence of the Communist involvement in the Civil Rights Movement (which I found fascinating).
June 23, 2014
Journalist Alex Heard spent decades contemplating and years researching the baleful but gripping story of Willie McGee, a black man accused of raping a white woman in 1940s Mississippi and sentenced to death. The book presents a full panoply of evidence about McGee's possible guilt or innocence, but it is most fascinating to me as a case study in political justice.
The white local establishment that rejects McGee's (credible) claim that he was in a consensual relationship with the alleged victim, and the whites whose bloodcurdling whoops of joy can be heard in an audio tape of crowd reaction to McGee's electrocution in a small-town courthouse, of course come off as repugnant in Heard's narration.
But some of McGee's defenders in the marquee case -- which attracted global attention among leftists and attracted interest from the likes of Paul Robeson and Bella Abzug -- fare little better in the light of history. In the case of McGee, as a little later in the case of the Rosenbergs, there are reasons to suspect that some communists and others on the left viewed the condemned as more valuable dead than alive, a martyr useful to a political narrative rather than a man confronting state violence.
The Eyes of Willie McGee Publisher: Harper is a thoroughly documented, clearly presented account of an episode in American judicial history that deserves to be preserved in memory.
Merged review:
Journalist Alex Heard spent decades contemplating and years researching the baleful but gripping story of Willie McGee, a black man accused of raping a white woman in 1940s Mississippi and sentenced to death. The book presents a full panoply of evidence about McGee's possible guilt or innocence, but it is most fascinating to me as a case study in political justice.
The white local establishment that rejects McGee's (credible) claim that he was in a consensual relationship with the alleged victim, and the whites whose bloodcurdling whoops of joy can be heard in an audio tape of crowd reaction to McGee's electrocution in a small-town courthouse, of course come off as repugnant in Heard's narration.
But some of McGee's defenders in the marquee case -- which attracted global attention among leftists and attracted interest from the likes of Paul Robeson and Bella Abzug -- fare little better in the light of history. In the case of McGee, as a little later in the case of the Rosenbergs, there are reasons to suspect that some communists and others on the left viewed the condemned as more valuable dead than alive, a martyr useful to a political narrative rather than a man confronting state violence.
The Eyes of Willie McGee: A Tragedy of Race, Sex, and Secrets in the Jim Crow South is a thoroughly documented, clearly presented account of an episode in American judicial history that deserves to be preserved in memory.
The white local establishment that rejects McGee's (credible) claim that he was in a consensual relationship with the alleged victim, and the whites whose bloodcurdling whoops of joy can be heard in an audio tape of crowd reaction to McGee's electrocution in a small-town courthouse, of course come off as repugnant in Heard's narration.
But some of McGee's defenders in the marquee case -- which attracted global attention among leftists and attracted interest from the likes of Paul Robeson and Bella Abzug -- fare little better in the light of history. In the case of McGee, as a little later in the case of the Rosenbergs, there are reasons to suspect that some communists and others on the left viewed the condemned as more valuable dead than alive, a martyr useful to a political narrative rather than a man confronting state violence.
The Eyes of Willie McGee Publisher: Harper is a thoroughly documented, clearly presented account of an episode in American judicial history that deserves to be preserved in memory.
Merged review:
Journalist Alex Heard spent decades contemplating and years researching the baleful but gripping story of Willie McGee, a black man accused of raping a white woman in 1940s Mississippi and sentenced to death. The book presents a full panoply of evidence about McGee's possible guilt or innocence, but it is most fascinating to me as a case study in political justice.
The white local establishment that rejects McGee's (credible) claim that he was in a consensual relationship with the alleged victim, and the whites whose bloodcurdling whoops of joy can be heard in an audio tape of crowd reaction to McGee's electrocution in a small-town courthouse, of course come off as repugnant in Heard's narration.
But some of McGee's defenders in the marquee case -- which attracted global attention among leftists and attracted interest from the likes of Paul Robeson and Bella Abzug -- fare little better in the light of history. In the case of McGee, as a little later in the case of the Rosenbergs, there are reasons to suspect that some communists and others on the left viewed the condemned as more valuable dead than alive, a martyr useful to a political narrative rather than a man confronting state violence.
The Eyes of Willie McGee: A Tragedy of Race, Sex, and Secrets in the Jim Crow South is a thoroughly documented, clearly presented account of an episode in American judicial history that deserves to be preserved in memory.
April 24, 2010
Here's a real-life version of the trial in To Kill a Mockingbird, though it's far murkier and complicated. Willie McGee was an African-American man who, in 1945, was sentenced to death for raping a white housewife, Willette Hawkins. His trial was unfair- he was tried by an all-white jury who debated for only about two minutes before convicting him in a hostile courthouse where he couldn't even put together two words coherently, he was so terrified of being lynched by the mob outside.
Willie McGee caught the interest of many civil rights organizations in America (mainly the Communists, which may have been troublesome for him), and even more people around the world. William Faulkner spoke out about him. Norman Mailer. Letters poured in from China, Germany, the UK and countless other places, pleading his innocence.
But did those supporters really have the facts straight? As Alex Heard investigates the case, he finds multiple, serious discrepancies about the "facts" presented. Did Willie and Willette have a forbidden affair? Who was Willie's wife at the time, and did she really take care of his children? Was Willie innocent? Was Willette as horrible and manipulative as some people believe?
In 1940s and 1950s Mississippi, only black men could be sentenced to death for rape. White men would, at most, get life in prison (and often got out early). As if that wasn't unfair enough, many black men didn't even make it to trial. They would often be attacked by mobs and lynched. Or sometimes they'd go to trial and be sentenced to death so quickly, it was basically a "legal lynching."
Alex Heard discusses Communism and the way Communists were treated by the government (and everyone else) in the 1950s. He touches on newspaper titans, white supremacist senators, Harry Truman, Eleanor Roosevelt, Jessica Mitford and the way people can manipulate facts to make a rape victim seem like a malicious and cruel adulterer.
But that's the sad (and fascinating) thing. What were the facts? Whites who remember Willette Hawkins strongly believe that she was raped. Blacks who remember Willie McGee believe he was innocent and was the victim of a corrupt justice system. Both sides are so strong in their beliefs that they are unwilling to budge, looking at the same trial transcripts, the same information- and are unable to meet in the middle.
Honestly, I don't read much non-fiction and I found this book absolutely riveting. It was a disturbing portrait of America after World War II, but it was also a very successful attempt to view the country through the lens of one case and the way it affected everyone. It was amazing to see how far news of Willie McGee spread- we like to think that we live in a global environment now, but even in the 1950s, people as far away as the USSR and China knew and had strong opinions about one African-American man sentenced to death. It was amazing to read about someone who so captured the public imagination and who helped, in some small part, in starting a full-scale Civil Rights movement.
Willie McGee caught the interest of many civil rights organizations in America (mainly the Communists, which may have been troublesome for him), and even more people around the world. William Faulkner spoke out about him. Norman Mailer. Letters poured in from China, Germany, the UK and countless other places, pleading his innocence.
But did those supporters really have the facts straight? As Alex Heard investigates the case, he finds multiple, serious discrepancies about the "facts" presented. Did Willie and Willette have a forbidden affair? Who was Willie's wife at the time, and did she really take care of his children? Was Willie innocent? Was Willette as horrible and manipulative as some people believe?
In 1940s and 1950s Mississippi, only black men could be sentenced to death for rape. White men would, at most, get life in prison (and often got out early). As if that wasn't unfair enough, many black men didn't even make it to trial. They would often be attacked by mobs and lynched. Or sometimes they'd go to trial and be sentenced to death so quickly, it was basically a "legal lynching."
Alex Heard discusses Communism and the way Communists were treated by the government (and everyone else) in the 1950s. He touches on newspaper titans, white supremacist senators, Harry Truman, Eleanor Roosevelt, Jessica Mitford and the way people can manipulate facts to make a rape victim seem like a malicious and cruel adulterer.
But that's the sad (and fascinating) thing. What were the facts? Whites who remember Willette Hawkins strongly believe that she was raped. Blacks who remember Willie McGee believe he was innocent and was the victim of a corrupt justice system. Both sides are so strong in their beliefs that they are unwilling to budge, looking at the same trial transcripts, the same information- and are unable to meet in the middle.
Honestly, I don't read much non-fiction and I found this book absolutely riveting. It was a disturbing portrait of America after World War II, but it was also a very successful attempt to view the country through the lens of one case and the way it affected everyone. It was amazing to see how far news of Willie McGee spread- we like to think that we live in a global environment now, but even in the 1950s, people as far away as the USSR and China knew and had strong opinions about one African-American man sentenced to death. It was amazing to read about someone who so captured the public imagination and who helped, in some small part, in starting a full-scale Civil Rights movement.
February 3, 2016
In 1945 an African-American labourer named Willie McGee was arrested for the rape of a white housewife in Laurel, Mississippi. Despite the purely circumstantial evidence against him, he was sentenced to death after an all-white jury deliberated for just three minutes. In the courtroom McGee was so terrified by the mob baying for his blood outside and the brutal treatment he had received in jail that he could not utter a single word in his own defence or even communicate with his own lawyers. The outcome of his trial was practically a foregone conclusion in 1940s Mississippi, and the sentence of death for rape was one reserved solely for black men.
This book is an investigation of the McGee case, from its start in 1945 to McGee's eventual execution in 1951 after three trials and innumerable appeals and stays of execution. Alex Heard also follows the case beyond McGee's death, following up leads and tracing the family members and friends of those involved in the case. McGee maintained to his death the sex was consensual; his alleged victim, Willette Hawkins, insisted that it was not. It was a 1940s case of 'he said, she said', except there was never any doubt who would be believed.
Whether McGee was innocent or guilty is a central theme of the book, although it is also not the point. Innocent or guilty, McGee was a victim of a blatant miscarriage of justice, one all too common in the South in those days: a 'legal-lynching'. Juries were rigged, evidence mishandled or misplaced, leads never followed up, witnesses intimidated, lawyers threatened, judges exhibited blatant prejudice. Despite public demonstrations, high-profile celebrities, mass petitions and letter-writing campaigns, the odds were always stacked against McGee, and he was eventually executed by electric chair.
The book is a quite horrifying look at the state of 'justice' in 1940s Mississippi for black men and women, in the days when the NAACP and its early, Communist-backed, rival the CRC (Civil Rights Congress) were just finding their footing, in the days before Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Willie McGee's may have been just one among many (many many) but it serves as an eye-opening and disturbing example into the state of race relations and justice in the 1940 South and the way it electrified and polarized a nation.
This book is an investigation of the McGee case, from its start in 1945 to McGee's eventual execution in 1951 after three trials and innumerable appeals and stays of execution. Alex Heard also follows the case beyond McGee's death, following up leads and tracing the family members and friends of those involved in the case. McGee maintained to his death the sex was consensual; his alleged victim, Willette Hawkins, insisted that it was not. It was a 1940s case of 'he said, she said', except there was never any doubt who would be believed.
Whether McGee was innocent or guilty is a central theme of the book, although it is also not the point. Innocent or guilty, McGee was a victim of a blatant miscarriage of justice, one all too common in the South in those days: a 'legal-lynching'. Juries were rigged, evidence mishandled or misplaced, leads never followed up, witnesses intimidated, lawyers threatened, judges exhibited blatant prejudice. Despite public demonstrations, high-profile celebrities, mass petitions and letter-writing campaigns, the odds were always stacked against McGee, and he was eventually executed by electric chair.
The book is a quite horrifying look at the state of 'justice' in 1940s Mississippi for black men and women, in the days when the NAACP and its early, Communist-backed, rival the CRC (Civil Rights Congress) were just finding their footing, in the days before Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Willie McGee's may have been just one among many (many many) but it serves as an eye-opening and disturbing example into the state of race relations and justice in the 1940 South and the way it electrified and polarized a nation.
October 27, 2010
This review first appeared on my blog: http://jewelknits.blogspot.com/2010/1...
I am always interested in reading about events that really happened, especially if they have historical significance.
This book centers around Willie McGee, a young black man accused in the 1940's South, of raping a white woman named Willette Hawkins. The evidence was circumstantial; the trials were rushed, and the outcome was inevitable, based on the time period.
Willie McGee became somewhat of a "cause celebre", with various groups and prominent figures taking up the fight, first for a new trial, then another, then for his execution to be stayed, then for him to be pardoned.
It IS apparent that Mr. McGee was abused for an extended period of time to extract his initial "confession". What's NOT apparent, however, is whether or not he was actually guilty, AND whether or not there is even a rape that occurred at all.
Much of the book, although centered around Willie McGee, focuses on the events happening outside of this particular story.
Although it is apparent that the writer performed meticulous, laborious, research and spent quite a long time gathering the material to put this book together, including getting together with the surviving family members of both families, this book did not grab me. I wanted to be interested in it, but just could not summon up the interest to read more than a chapter or two at a time, which is a shame, because someone actually lost their life over this story.
The writer did not pick sides, which was good .. but ... well, it amounted to what to me came down to a bare recital of the facts and the times, and it just didn't pull me in. I DID, however, learn some facts about the times and people that I did not know prior to reading this book, and learning something new, even if it's only something that could be used as an answer on the Jeopardy category "1940's America" .. that's worth the read.
(I received a copy of this title through Crazy Book Tours to facilitate my review)
I am always interested in reading about events that really happened, especially if they have historical significance.
This book centers around Willie McGee, a young black man accused in the 1940's South, of raping a white woman named Willette Hawkins. The evidence was circumstantial; the trials were rushed, and the outcome was inevitable, based on the time period.
Willie McGee became somewhat of a "cause celebre", with various groups and prominent figures taking up the fight, first for a new trial, then another, then for his execution to be stayed, then for him to be pardoned.
It IS apparent that Mr. McGee was abused for an extended period of time to extract his initial "confession". What's NOT apparent, however, is whether or not he was actually guilty, AND whether or not there is even a rape that occurred at all.
Much of the book, although centered around Willie McGee, focuses on the events happening outside of this particular story.
Although it is apparent that the writer performed meticulous, laborious, research and spent quite a long time gathering the material to put this book together, including getting together with the surviving family members of both families, this book did not grab me. I wanted to be interested in it, but just could not summon up the interest to read more than a chapter or two at a time, which is a shame, because someone actually lost their life over this story.
The writer did not pick sides, which was good .. but ... well, it amounted to what to me came down to a bare recital of the facts and the times, and it just didn't pull me in. I DID, however, learn some facts about the times and people that I did not know prior to reading this book, and learning something new, even if it's only something that could be used as an answer on the Jeopardy category "1940's America" .. that's worth the read.
(I received a copy of this title through Crazy Book Tours to facilitate my review)
April 5, 2012
Willie McGee was an African-American man, who was accused of raping a white woman in 1945, in the state of Mississippi. There was no concrete evidence against him and no witnesses yet he was tried and found guilty in record time and sentenced to death. This was the era of lynchings and kangaroo courts and many black prisoners had been dragged out of the prison and lynched and no one ever brought to justice. This was at the beginning of the Civil rights movement and many groups got involved trying to fight for justice, I did find this book a little confusing for the amount of characters who were introduced, the author also brings in other similar cases to show this was not a one off case of injustice but a regular occurrence if you happened to be a black African American in those days you could not expect justice. Willie’s lawyers fought for his life at considerable risk to themselves pointing out there were no black jurors on the jury or indeed on any of the lists, in this and several other states. The case was taken up by celebrities and other famous people, it went to trial a couple of times and Willie was kept in prison for 8 years until finally being executed in 1950 despite worldwide protests. The lawyers also showed that a white man accused of a similar crime would have been imprisoned and not received a life sentence. Wille always maintained that there was no rape and he was in a relationship with the woman in question which was never used as a defence as it would have inflamed the situation even more. The author had a hard job as both families were involved and of course both declared their relative to be in the right. The author does not offer any new evidence or verdict to the case and you are left wondering what the correct version was, you also get the mystery of Rosalie ,Willie’s mysterious wife thrown in which is never resolved. A really good book if you are interested in the Civil Rights movement or the social history of the Southern States.
February 19, 2011
Although this book revolves around the tragedy of Willie McGee, the book is an overview of the plight of the African-American in the South in the 1940's and 1950's.
Willie McGee was arrested and accused of raping a white woman. The incident took place in 1945 and culminated with his electrocution in 1951.
The case againist Willie was circumspect at best. During the trials it was brought out that the sex may have been consensual. There was the fact no African-American was ever called to jury duty in this county or the much larger area of the Deep South. Willie was continually sentenced to death by all white and all male jurors.
The case became more prominent in Europe than in the United States. Many foreign countries called upon America to stop the execution and free Willie. Some of the more prominent Americans who petitioned the Government for clemency were; Albert Einstein, William Faulkner, Josephine Baker, and many others.
The biggers story, however, is that this was just one case in one state. The author briefly brings out the cases of the Scottsboro Boys and the Martinsville Seven. There are other cases mentioned in the book, and Mississippi was certainly not the only state that practiced this kind of justice.
Vigilange justice waas not unheard of and there are stories of men being taken out of their cells and brutalized before being hanged. This was all done in the name of justice.
This book is definately one that will be of major interest to those who enjoy history and lawyers who want to learn about how the law can be twisted and formulated to bring about a decision based on circumstantial evidence.
Willie McGee was arrested and accused of raping a white woman. The incident took place in 1945 and culminated with his electrocution in 1951.
The case againist Willie was circumspect at best. During the trials it was brought out that the sex may have been consensual. There was the fact no African-American was ever called to jury duty in this county or the much larger area of the Deep South. Willie was continually sentenced to death by all white and all male jurors.
The case became more prominent in Europe than in the United States. Many foreign countries called upon America to stop the execution and free Willie. Some of the more prominent Americans who petitioned the Government for clemency were; Albert Einstein, William Faulkner, Josephine Baker, and many others.
The biggers story, however, is that this was just one case in one state. The author briefly brings out the cases of the Scottsboro Boys and the Martinsville Seven. There are other cases mentioned in the book, and Mississippi was certainly not the only state that practiced this kind of justice.
Vigilange justice waas not unheard of and there are stories of men being taken out of their cells and brutalized before being hanged. This was all done in the name of justice.
This book is definately one that will be of major interest to those who enjoy history and lawyers who want to learn about how the law can be twisted and formulated to bring about a decision based on circumstantial evidence.
July 18, 2011
I expected to love this book, as the civil rights era is one that has fascinated me lately, but I didn't. The first part, which dealt with his arrest and trial, was good and held my attention. The appeals process was hard to read, perhaps mostly because you knew that they wouldn't be successful. I think, though, of how hard it must have been for the lawyers to keep it up, to say nothing of what it must have done to McGee and his family. It was also disheartening to read about the rift between the NAACP and the civil rights organizations that had the backing of the communist party. Ideological differences have broken so many good causes--I'm thinking particularly of the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War. Anyway, the book was set in Jacksonville Miss, which did lead beautifully into my next book.
August 26, 2010
Alex Heard has done a terrific job writing this book. His voice reconstructs the facts impartially; never, not even once, readers have the idea that he is taking sides, and that, per se, is remarkable.
But unfortunately that's all Heard does: he describes the terrible events that lead to McGee's death by electrocution; he puts such events in the correct order, the alleged attack on Hawkins, the imprisonment, the three trials and so on.. However, I was left mistified because Heard failed to shed light on what really happened - if anything - on that night back in 1945.
And that's why Heard's work only gets two stars from me: his book's a well written summary, but a summary nonetheless.
But unfortunately that's all Heard does: he describes the terrible events that lead to McGee's death by electrocution; he puts such events in the correct order, the alleged attack on Hawkins, the imprisonment, the three trials and so on.. However, I was left mistified because Heard failed to shed light on what really happened - if anything - on that night back in 1945.
And that's why Heard's work only gets two stars from me: his book's a well written summary, but a summary nonetheless.
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