Page 4A
The Braselton News
Wednesday, February 22, 2023
Opinion
Remembering a tragic past
This year’s Black History
Month comes amid an
atmosphere where some
politicians want to white
wash the nation’s history
(pun intended.)
There's two very differ
ent sides to this story.
One the liberal side, some
have taken the extreme po
sition that just about all of
today’s social pathologies
are due to institutional rac
ism. In this view, all issues
are viewed through the lens of race even
if the issue isn’t obviously about race.
On the conservative side, some politi
cians are trying to suppress the teaching
of black history in public schools, or
at least ban teaching that might make
white students feel bad about the na
tion’s treatment of minorities.
Both sides in this debate are wrong.
Not every issue can be framed
around race or racism. While there is
institutional racism in society, to focus
entirely on that ignores the individual.
The ideology that groups of people
are victims based on racial or ethnic
heritage doesn’t fully explain the
complexity of human nature, or our
social/political dynamics. It’s a lot more
complicated than to simply portray
everything through a racial lens.
The Black Lives Matter movement is
one example. The death of Black men
at the hands of law enforcement isn’t
just about white policemen abusing
Black suspects; Black policemen have
also abused Black suspects, as was
evident in the recent beating death of
a Black man in Memphis, Tenn. by a
group of Black cops. Racism doesn’t
explain that event; a bad police culture
is perhaps a bigger problem than racism
when it comes to the mistreatment of
Black suspects.
On the other side, the quisling ap
proach to teaching the facts of Amer
ican history, as is being advocated by
some Republicans, does a disservice
to students. Whatever its merits and
accomplishments. America does have
a tainted history with its inhuman treat
ment of minorities — Native Americans
were rounded up and herded like cattle
onto reservations; slavery and the later
violent suppression of civil rights of
Black Americans is a stain on the nation
that is still evident; and the nation has
never fully come to terms with its many
other minorities, including Asians,
Hispanics and Jews.
•••
Now during Black History Month,
the nation should remember not only
the achievements of Black Americans,
but also how many Blacks were treated
in the past. And that wasn't just “some
where else.’’ Here in our local com
munities, some whites treated Blacks
shamefully.
Here’s one of those stories:
Exactly 100 years ago this month,
a shocking thing happened in Jackson
County: A grand jury indicted six white
Jefferson men on attempted
murder charges for having kid
napped and shot a black man.
I’ve not been able to find
the final disposition of those
charges, so I'm not naming
those indicted here; their
families are still in the area and
some decedents carry the same
name as their ancestors.
But here’s the story as re
ported in the press in 1923.
In Oct. 1922, a black man,
Jones (or Jesse or Ben, differ
ent first names were published) Maxey
was abducted from his home near Jef
ferson around midnight when a group
of hooded white men knocked down
his door and came into the house firing
pistols into the walls. Maxey was told to
get out of bed and put on his clothes.
The men then put a sack over Max-
ey's head and led him to a car, which
was followed by a second car through
Jefferson and toward Winder. When the
two cars got to the Mulberry River, they
stopped on the side of the road and took
Maxey out of the car.
The men were angry with Maxey be
cause he had dared to sue one of them
in court over $60. Maxey had loaned
one of the men the money a couple of
years earlier when he had worked as a
sharecropper on the man’s farm.
But the man refused to pay the mon
ey back to Maxey and had him arrested
at one point on what was apparently
trumped-up charges to avoid the debt.
So Maxey sued his former employer
(he was by then working for someone
else). A black man suing a white man in
the 1920s was rare, almost unheard of
given the imbalance of power between
whites and Blacks in the courts at that
time.
Two weeks before that lawsuit was to
be heard, Maxey was kidnapped.
When they got to the Mulberry River,
the six men surrounded Maxey and
asked him about the suit. As they talked,
Maxey removed the hood over his
head and saw the six men, all of whom
he recognized. Four were related by
marriage, including the man who owed
him money.
As the men told Maxey to prepare to
die, they asked him his final words for
his wife.
“Tell her good-bye,’’ Maxey said. As
he spoke, Maxey burst through the men
and began running up the road. The
men began for shoot at him, one bullet
striking him in the back.
As he veered off the road toward
the bushes and the river, another shot
hit Maxey in a knee. Out of options,
Maxey jumped into the river.
The group of men thought Maxey
had been wounded severely enough
that he wouldn't survive in the water,
so they left and went home, thinking
Maxey was dead.
But he wasn’t.
Maxey crossed the river to the Bar-
row County side and hid in a cornfield
until dawn. From the held, he made
his way to a nearby farm and Jackson
County’s sheriff, Ben Collier, was
summoned.
That incident led the six men to be
indicted for attempted murder in Feb.
1923. The indictments made headlines
around the state since it was unusual at
that time for white men to be charged
in a killing, or attempted killing, of a
Black man.
Bench warrants were issued for the
six men in July 1923 to appear in court
in August that year.
But then the trail goes cold. I’ve not
been able to find any final disposition of
those cases.
I doubt any of the six men, who were
described as being prominent in the
community, were convicted even if they
were tried. Likely, the case was contin
ued until it was forgotten or tossed out.
One part of that may have been that
in August 1923, court was postponed
due to the creation of the new Piedmont
Judicial Circuit and the need to fill
positions in that new judicial circuit.
The cases may have conveniently fallen
through the cracks at that time.
•••
At the same time in August 1923,
another violent incident happened near
Jefferson.
The body of Felix Davenport, a Black
man. was found in the Oconee River
between Jefferson and Pendergrass.
Davenport had a long rap sheet, hav
ing himself been charged in 1896 for at
tempted murder. One newspaper article
said he was “notorious” and a gambler
and bootlegger. He was certainly in
court a lot on various charges.
Roy Toney, 25, was soon arrested
a charge with the murder. Toney had
been a barber in Jefferson and Athens,
according to newspaper reports at
the time. Toney, who was white, was
reportedly the last person to see Daven
port alive.
In November, a brief newspaper re
port said that the grand jury didn’t indict
Toney for the murder due to insufficient
evidence. That was the typical outcome
of these kinds of cases. Few white men
were ever convicted of kilting a black
man; it just didn’t happen.
•••
Both of those events happened
during a violent time in the state’s
history where lynchings, floggings and
beatings of Black citizens by white men
happened on a regular basis. The KKK
was strong in the state at that time and
politically powerful.
To not remember these events, to
pretend they didn't happen, is to ignore
history.
Politicians may be successful in hav
ing public schools downplay the history
of that troubled time in our state and
nation, but many others will continue
to write about the events in the hope
that our nation will never repeat its past
mistakes.
Mike Buffington is co-publisher of
Mainstreet Newspapers. He can be
reached at mike@mainstreetnews.com,
The Ugly Shirts
When Tink came South,
toting all his worldly pos
sessions. included in the
myriad boxes were some
of the ugliest shirts I’d ever
seen.
Until Tink began to hap
pily pull the beloved plaid
shirts from storage. I don’t
believe I had ever looked at
a man’s shirt and thought,
“Yuck.” There was plenty
of yuck in those boxes.
Each shirt was mun
dane in color but the ones
with varying shades of grays were
definitely in the majority. He had at
least six shirts that had four tones of
gray in the checks. Drab.
Do you remember the old, plaid
shirts that Billy Bob Thornton wore
in the Southern Gothic movie.
“Slingblade”? That was exactly
what these shirts, from Los Ange
les, California, resembled — which
is particularly eye-rolling because
Southern California enjoys laughing
at Southerners. Yet. they had stores
that sold shirts like those.
This was in the early days of our
marriage when I sought to guard
what I said. Finally, though. I had to
speak up.
Tink came bouncing down the
stairs, rolling up the sleeves on yet
another dreary, gray, plaid shirt.
Perhaps we’d already had a fuss
that day. Or perhaps I was in a bad
mood and just couldn’t take ugly
anymore.
I sighed heavily... the way wives
do when they want to make a point
without saying it.
“What?” asked Tink
innocently, believing he
looked quite fine in the
blah shirt.
“Tink, I'm sorry, but
that is the ugliest shirt I
have ever seen.”
His sweet face fell and
hurt darted in his eyes. I
almost wished I hadn’t
said it. Almost.
“What’s wrong with
it?” he asked.
“First, it’s about 20
years old and out of style. That
makes it a fine shirt for yard work
and bam cleanings. Second, all your
shirts are gray plaid and dreary.”
I paused. “You look like ‘Sling
blade.’”
Let me kindly and generously
warn all wives against saying such
a thing to your husbands. What
ensued was so ugly that it made the
shirts look beautiful.
A couple of days later, our battle
troops in retreat, Tink popped into
the bedroom where I was watching
television. He had on his ugliest
gray shirt, buttoned all the way up
to his neck in Slingblade-style, his
jaw jutted out like the character,
while he quoted memorable lines
from the movie. I laughed so hard,
I choked. It remains, to this day. the
funniest moment in our marriage.
Soon, though, Tink agreed that I
could throw out all the ugly shirts
and replace them with colors of
red, yellow, green, and orange. It
had worked very well for several
years until a couple of months ago.
I had ordered four beautiful new
button-up shirts for Tink. He prefers
these over polo shirts. He always
rolls his sleeves up and these had
contrasting fabric on the cuffs. We
were traveling to North Carolina
where I was to produce and host a
documentary.
The first day I was in the studio,
I got a text from Tink, back at the
hotel. “Baby, I'm sorry but I left all
my shirts at home. I’m going out
and buy one or two new ones.”
I shook my head but was too busy
to get mad. That afternoon, after a
long hard day. a friend dropped me
at the hotel. As I was getting out of
her car, Tink was strolling across
the parking lot in one of his new
shirts.
Gray plaid. Drab. Ugly. It was
identical to the discarded shirts of
years past, as if they had resurrected
from the trash graveyard.
“You’re kiddin’ me?” I said,
astounded.
“Baby, it was only $14.1 got
two!”
“Tink, there’s a reason they were
only $14. Nobody else wanted
them.”
My friend was doubled over in
laughter. She’s married, too. so she
knows: there are just some battles a
wife can’t win.
Either in color or drab gray.
Ronda Rich is the best-selling
author of What Southern Women
Know About Faith. Visit www.rond-
arich.com to sign up for her free
weekly newsletter.
Remembering
Billy Harper
For many years, I enjoyed a friendship with a French
sportswriter by the name of Denis Lalanne, who wrote for
L’Equipe, (The Team), a daily sports paper based in Paris.
Lalanne traveled the world, covering all sports, but was
considered an expert in rugby and tennis. He later added
golf to his “preferred lineup.” He was the Jim Murray of
France, one of the most respected sports journalists in
Europe.
With a flat in Paris, he spent his work week in the “City
of Lights,” and repaired to his home
in Biarritz which is near the Spanish
border on the weekends. We often went
into San Sebastian, just across the bor
der, for dinner along with a great num
ber of Frenchmen who had an affinity
for Spanish ham. The wines were very
good, too, and my friend Denis was an
expert with a seasoned regard for food
and wine.
Often, people would stop him in the
street and compliment him on his writ
ing. One night, a young rugby aficio
nado got carried away and gushed with
great emotion about my friend’s work,
saying in halting English, “He is our Hemmingway.”
As we moved on to our place for dinner, Denis turned
and said, shrugging this head and lifting his arms, “I’m just
a local star.”
That scene flashed back in my mind when I heard the
news that the longtime sports editor of the Athens Banner
Herald, Billy Harper, had passed away. Billy was a local
star in the Classic City for years. He was a nice man who
wrote nice things about everybody.
He didn’t travel the world as my French friend did but
became highly appreciated for his patronizing of Bulldog
teams and whatever competition was taking place in Ath
ens. He wrote about Little League baseball, Pony League
games and whatever competition was taking place at the
“Y.”
My recollection is that he never wrote a critical column.
After all, the sports he covered were about local teams
which were part of HIS community. He felt that it was
his job to support local teams, not to critique someone’s
little boy when he pitched a no hitter but walked enough
hitters that he lost the game 20-19; or find fault in print for
some fuzzy faced, precocious quarterback who threw an
interception that cost his team a big game. In fact, Billy
consoled the poor kid in print.
Billy enjoyed being a homer. He was there to bring about
a “feel good” atmosphere for the kids growing up in Ath
ens. I bet there are seasoned businessmen in Athens who
have a faded clipping in a treasured scrapbook with Billy’s
smiling photo and a tribute to their prowess in competition
in Little League, or the Athens YMCA, or one of the local
high schools or a moment in the sun in Sanford Stadium.
I will always appreciate his love of high school football.
He enjoyed the competition of the prep games as much as
he did UGA outings in Sanford Stadium or the confines
of the plush stadiums around the SEC when the “Dogs”
played on the road.
When the news came that Billy had moved on to that
great press box in the sky, the sad disclosure came from a
couple of his former staff members — Steve Colquitt and
Chuck Perry. Steve was a long-time photo manager for
UGA sports and Chuck advanced from the Atlanta Jour
nal-Constitution sports pages to a successful run as a book
publisher.
They both were “around” some very accomplished
writers over the years. While Billy’s credentials might not
have turned heads in major league baseball or the National
Football League, owing to his confining himself to a small
market, they pointed out what was important. He was a
good boss at the Banner Herald, and he was always giving
his staff a pat on the back as he directed passionate cover
age of all local sports teams.
The last time I saw Billy was one fall morning when he
was loosening up on Rutherford Steet by the Barrow Street
School, propping himself for his daily three mile run down
Milledge to Prince Avenue and back.
This local star loved his life, his family, the University
of Georgia, and his community. He invested his time into
the local sports scene because he loved what he did and
loved his constituency. The cynicism that has always been
a staple of sports writing was never embraced by this local
star with a big and generous heart.
Loran Smith is a UGA football radio personality and col
umnist for Mainstreet News.
loran
smith
The Braselton News
Mike Buffington Co-Publisher
Scott Buffington Co-Publisher & Advertising Manager
Ben Munro Editor
Taylor Hearn Sports Editor
Wesleigh Sagon Photographer/Features
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