Newspaper Page Text
Vol. 7, No. 19
Mom tells judge
‘Something wrong’ with
suspect in Elvis hit-run
MEMPHIS - “Lynch him!
hang him up!’’ the crowd of
Elvis Presley fans yelled, as the
ptdice whisked the suspected
nit-run driver and his three
companions away from the
scene of an accident outride of
Presley’s mansion.
The driver, 18-year-old
Treatise Wheler, had his
$20,000 bond revoked late last
week when his mother told the
judge to keep him in jail.
‘T'here’s something wrong
with him - something wrong
with his mind,” Mrs. Olivia
Wheeler told City Court Judge
Horace Pierotti during
arraignment of her son on two
coimts of second degree
murder.
Wheeler is charged with
driving his car into die crowd
Girls report sex attacks
on them by their father
A Richmond County woman
told sheriffs deputies Monday
that her father forced her
younger sisters 13 and 16 to
have sex with him.
Gloria Butler to head 01 C
Z J
4 'A
■ / /
Ms. Gloria J. Butler
Brock steals Cobb’s crown
SAN DIEGO - The St.
Louis Cardinals lou Brock,
already the holder of most of
the major league’s base stealing
records, stole his 893rd base of
his career Monday night to
shatter the mark that Ty Cobb
set 49years ago.
Lou Brock, one of nine
children, was bom June, 1939
in El Dorado, Ark. and reared
in Collingston, La. He has been
an outfielder for the St. Louis
Cardinals since June 1964,
after playing with the Chicago
Cubs for three years.
Lou is a graduate of Union
High School in Mer Rouge, La.
During high school, he’s played
three years of basketball (guard
and forward) and four years of
baseball (pitcher and
outfielder.) He never batted
under .350 and in his senior
year hit ,536 as a
switcher-hitter.
He attended Southern
University at Baton Rouge,
La., majoring in mathematics.
Paine College Library
1235 15th St. ®
Augusta, GA 30901
Augusta wtua-SUtnKtt
P.O. Box 953
of mourners who gathered
outside Presley’s mansion
following his death.
Police told Pierotti during
the hearing that Wheeler
“seemed to accelerate at a high
rate of speed” before his car
slammed into three teen-agers.
The car flung Alice Hovartar
and Juanita Johnson, both 19
and both from Monroe, La.,
into the air, killing them
instantly.
Tammy Baiter, 17, of St.
Clair, Mo., was hospitalized in
critical condition with a
shattered pelvis.
The judge, who scheduled a
preliminary hearing for early
this week said he revoked the
$20,000 bond set earlier
because of the mother’s
statement.
The woman said she knew
the girls were telling the truth
because she had been molested
by the father when she was
living at home.
a
Lou Brock
“If it is true what his mother
says about his condition, there
should be no bond until
Monday morning,” Pierotti
said.
Dressed in a wrinkled
rose-colored shirt and baggy
blue pants, Wheeler stood
silently at the side of the
courtroom during the brief
proceeding and showed no
emotion when he was ordered
returned to city jail where he
had been held since his arrest
before dawn on Thursday of
last week.
Following the hearing, Mrs.
Wheeler told reporter’s that she
asked the judge to keep her
son, the second oldest of five
See “HIT-RUN”
Page 6
She said their brothers told
her that he had witnessed the
attacks and that he would
testify or do whatever
necessary to help his sisters.
Ms. Gloria J. Butler has been
appointed acting executive
director of the Augusta
Opportunities Industrialization
Center (AOIC), Inc. Prior to
her Aug. 23 appointment, she
served as director of training.
Ms. Butler started at AOIC
in 1973 as a basic education
instructor, and was promoted
in 197 S to director of training.
In January of 1976, she was
called to serve as a field
consultant in Washington, D.C.
for the Department of Health,
Education and Welfare where
she evaluated Minority
Business Enterprise proposals
for the Office of Education.
She has served as a
consultant in Migrant
Education for the Research
Foundation of the State
University of New York at
Geneseo and as a program
coordinator for a governor’s
special grant program. Ms.
Butler lias also taught
elementary and adult
education for the Richmond
County public school system.
She is replacing the present
executive director, Isaac W.
McKinney, who is taking an
educational leave of absence.
He was named to me AU
SWAC (Southwestern Athletic
Conference) baseball team in
1959 and 1960. His
performance for the Pan
American Games baseball team
m 1959 and a junior year
batting average of .352 earned
him a bonus offer from the
Cubs in 1961. Lou has played
only 128 games in the minor
leagues. In his first time at bat
in professional baseball at St.
Cloud in 1961, he hit the
first pitch thrown to him for a
home run.
Lou Brock has accumulated
many post-season awards. He
was selected “Man of the
Year” by The Sporting News,
named “Major League Player
of the Year” by The Sporting
News and Baseball Digest,
named to Associated Press
Major League allstar team and
named to The Sporting News
and United Press International
National League all-star
teams.
September 1. 1977
Rev. Dr. C. S. Hamilton
Hamburg, S.C. riot
or massacre
By LUTHER P. JACKSON JR.
On the South Carolina side
of the sth St. bridge lies the
abandoned town of Hamburg,
the site of an 1876 clash in
which one white and an
unknown number of Blacks
were killed. Whites called the
incident a “riot”; Blacks called
it a “massacre.”
Only the names of two of
the Black dead are known
while the white victim, Thomas
McKie Meriwether, is
memorialized in the North
Augusta public square. At the
base of the monument
Meriwether is cited for
exemplifying “the highest ideal
of Anglo-Saxon civilization.’Tn
dying, the inscription
continues, Meriwether assured
“the children of his beloved
land the supremacy of that
ideal.” Thus white supremacy
prevades the public parks as
well as the history books.
Franciso Simkins, a white
South Carolina historian,
writes that at the time of the
“riot” Hamburg was a “once
prosperous town which had
degenerated into a refuge for
Negro criminals and
politicians.”
Founded in 1821 by a
German immigrant named
Henry Shultz, Hamburg had at
least been potentially
prosperous, as Shultz took
steps to comer the South
Carolina cotton market that
was bound for Augusta and
Savannah. Most importantly,
he was responsible for a
136-mile railroad to
Charleston. In 1833, it was the
world’s longest railroad.
Hamburg, however, was hurt
by Shultz’ financial reversals.
The city’s ultimate decline
dated to 1853 when the
railroad bridged the Savannah
River to Augusta.
Hamburg’s history is murkey
from that date until the 1876
“riot.” An Aiken Standard
article of 1970 says that whites
left the town after the Civil
War, leaving about 150 Blacks
behind. During Reconstr
uction, the town was
governed-as well as
populated-by Blacks. There
was a Black mayor, a Black
marshal, a Black trial justice,
and to the fury of whites-a
Black militia.
Judge won’t disqualify himself in Black festival suit
Superior Court Judge Edwin
Fulcher Tuesday denied the
Richmond County Property
Owners request that he dismiss
himself from a $26,500
damage complaint against the
Black Festival.
Judge Fulcher denied a
motion by Bobby G. Beazley,
attorney for Richmond County
Property Owners Association
(RCPOA), who asked the judge
to disqualify himself in favor
of another judge who might
provide “a clear, fresh
approach.”
Sources say
Rev. Hamilton
to run for mayor
The Rev. Dr. C. S. Hamilton
“definitely will run for mayor”
next year, according to an
informed source.
The source said Dr.
Hamilton has held a series of
meeting? to test his support.
Dr. Hamilton remained
And also to the fury of some
historians. Claude G. Bowers
writes that in Hamburg “white
women were frequently
crowded from the sidewalks,
and white men were arrested,
fined, and imprisoned on the
most flimsy charges.” Simkins
notes that it was “dangerous
for white men to go through
the town unless they were well
armed.”
Whether' riot or massacre, an
incident involving the Black
militia, headed by Capt. Dock
Adams, lit the spark on July 5,
1876, the day after the
nation’s first centennial.
As told by Simkins and the
Augusta Chronicle, on the
afternoon of July 5, two
whites, Henry Getzen and
Thomas Butler, attempted
what Simkins calls “the
perilous passage.” On
Hamburg’s main street, the
men found that their buggy
was blocked by a parade of the
Black militia company. Though
it may have been reasonable
for the whites to wait until the
parade ended, they refused to
wait or turn back.
(Simkins explains that by
Southern standards “a serious
wrong had been committed.
Negroes had attempted to
interfere with the prerogatives
of white men.”)
“Charge bayonets!,” Dock
Adams cried. The whites drew
t h eir pistols. One shouted, “We
will shoot the first man who
sticks a bayonet in that horse.”
The ranks were opened and the
men were allowed to pass, but
this did not end the dispute.
Adams swore out a warrant
charging the whites with
disturbing his drill. The whites
countered with a warrant
charging Adams with blocking
the highway.
As Prince Rivers, the Black
trial justice, prepared to
adjudicate the case, “seventy
armed white men stood bv to
see that the Black magistrate
decreed justice according to
white standards. “Among the
armed men was Benjamin R.
(Pitchfork Ben”) Tillman, then
an Edgefield farmer, who
would become a South
Carolina Governor and U.S.
Senator. Tillman later said that
he and others had come to
the court to “provoke a row”
Beazley, who argued that
RCPOA has been denied fair
and impartial treatment, said
another judge could “ignore all
personalities and decide this
case impartially.”
“We need someone who will
take this whole thing and act
affirmatively,” Beazley added.
Fulcher denied Beazley’s
motion, but granted all
attorneys 10 days in which to
file briefs in the suit filed July
19 in connection with the
county’s $12,000
appropriation to Augusta Black
non-commital, saying that he,
too, had heard that he will run.
Asked to confirm or deny the
report, he said, “I haven’t
made up my mind yet.”
A former city councilman,
Dr. Hamilton is vice president
of the Civil Service
or “make one.” Under this
pressure, Rivers postponed the
case.
When the court reconvened
three days later on July 8,
Dock Adams failed to appear.
He and his company “were up
the street in a difiant attitude.”
General M.C. Butler, who was
retained to defend the two
whites, told Rivers that the
dispute “had gone on long
enough” and that “the Negroes
must give up their arms at
once.”
Rivers got Butler’s assurance
that if the arms were
relinquished, the town would
be protected. Butler
said he would “give the names
of the best citizens of
Edgefield as security that they
(the arms) would be turned
over to Governor Daniel H
Chamberlain.”
Rivers, however, could not
persuade Adams to order his
men to lay down their arms.
Butler met with other Black
leaders and accomplished
nothing. Rivers met with the
militia’s officers with the same
result. But he came back with
the word that the Black men
would not give up their guns;
that they intended to fight.
News of the trouble quickly
spread to Augusta. A large
number of Augustans obtained
arms and ammunition and
joined forces with South
Carolinians massed around a
two-story brick structure
known a« Sibley’s building,
where Adams and his men were
bunkered.
Simkins depicts the
mobsters as being
“outnumbered and unarmed."
Yet the whites were confident,
he adds, that “the difference in
blood and the color of the skin
far more than made up the
odds in the armament.”
At about 7:30 p.m. the
white men opened fire. This
was returned by the Blacks and
a two-hour fusillade ensued. At
about 8 o’clock Meriwether
was killed when he was struck
in the head with a “minnie”
ball.
Jim Cook, the town
marshall, was killed while
trying to escape. He was
described by the Chronicle as
“one of the chief promoters of
the difficulty” and by Simkins
Festival.
“All of us have unpleasant
duties to perform....,” Fulcher
said. “I am going to decide this
case as promptly as 1 can after
1 study the case thoroughly.”
Other defendants in the
petition are Richmond County
Commissioner Edward M.
Mclntyre, festival founder and
chairman; Maxine Lanham,
festival coordinator; and
Robert C. Daniel Jr., county
attorney.
RCPOA President Ira D avis
Jr. is seeking to have the May
Less Than 75% Advertising
Commission, pastor of
Tabernacle Baptist Church and
formerly the dean of the
Morehouse School of Religion.
He is a graduate of
Morehouse College with an
A.B. degree and holds a B. D.
degree from the Morehouse
L-t r
LUTHER JACKSON examines monument inscription
as a man who “cherished a
brutal and fiendish hate” for
whites. When the white mob
saw that they had killed Cook,
the dead man’s head “was
almost shot to pieces.”
Among the 40 Blacks who
were captured was John
Thomas, first lieutenant of the
militia company, who was shot
in the back after he was
arrested. Though Thomas’
assailant was not known, his
deed was “condemned in
severe terms, especially by
General Butler.”
Simkins blames such
term grand jury’s presentments
concerning Augusta Black
Festival stricken from court
records. Davis alleges that the
grand jury was “duped” into
reporting that the county’s
$12,000 expenditure was legal
and aboveboard.
Plaintiffs allege that Daniel
violated his oath as a public
official when he failed to
advise the grand jury that they
had no authority to rule on a
question of law regarding the
$12,000 allocation.
Daniel, Mclntyre and Miss
School of Religion. He has a
master of sacred theology
degree from Inter
denominational Center of
Atlanta, and a doctor of
ministry from Colgate
Rochester Theological
Seminary.
atrocities to the mob’s beins
infuriated bv the Meriwether
killing. For this deed, whites
were determined to get their
pound of flesh. After two
Blacks had been killed, two
cousins of Meriwether’s asked
Tillman “if it were proper that
the lives of only two Blacks
should pay for the death of
one white.” An execution
party was organized and five
“of the meanest characters and
See “HAMBURG”
Page 2
Lanham conferred with grand
jurors prior to the May term
presentments. All are seeking
dismissal from the suit.
Daniel is represented by
Atty. Roy V. Harris. Atty.
John H. Ruffin is representing
Mclntyre, Miss Lanham and
the Black Festival.
Davis earlier this month filed
a SIOO,OOO class action suit
, against Daniel, the Richmond
County Board of
Commissioners and U.S.
Treasury Secretary W. Michael
Blumenthal.
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