Lemuel Penn

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Lt. Col. Lemuel A. Penn (September 19, 1915 in Washington, D.C. - July 11, 1964 in Madison County, Georgia) was an African American United States Army Reserve officer who was killed by members of the Ku Klux Klan in 1964, nine days after the Civil Rights Act was passed.

Lemuel Penn joined the Army Reserve from Howard University and served in World War II in New Guinea and the Philippines, earning a Bronze Star. After war he worked in Washington, D.C. public school system.

Penn was driving home, together with other two black Reserve officers, to Washington, D.C. from Fort Benning where they were on a summer camp. Their Chevrolet Biscayne was spotted by three Klansmen - James Lackey, Cecil Myers and Howard Sims - who noted its D.C plates. "That must be one of President Johnson's boys."^[1], Howard Sims, one of the killers, said then. Klansmen followed the car with their Chevy II. "I'm going to kill me a nigger.", said Sims.^[1]

Just before the highway crosses the Broad River, the Klansmen's Chevy II pulled alongside the Biscayne. Cecil Myers raised a shotgun and fired. From the back seat, Howard Sims did the same.

Penn was shot to death on a Broad River bridge on the Georgia State Route 172 in the Madison County, Georgia, near Colbert, twenty-two miles north of the city of Athens. Soon Lackey, Myers and Sims were identified as the ones who chased the trio. Sims and Myers, both members of the Ku Klux Klan, were tried in state superior court but found innocent by all-white jury.^[2] Federal prosecutors eventually charged both of violating Penn's civil rights. They were found guilty by a federal district court jury. Sims and Myers were sentenced to ten years and served about six in federal prison. Howard Sims was killed with a shotgun by his friend in 1981. He was 58. James Lackey died in 2002 after extended illness. He was 66. Cecil Myers is still alive.

Lemuel Penn is buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. Out of his murder arose the Supreme Court case United States v. Guest, in which the Court affirmed the right of citizens to apply criminal charges to private conspirators who deprive them of rights secured by the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.