Lemuel Penn
| Lemuel Augustus Penn | |
|---|---|
 Lt. Col. Lemuel A. Penn | |
| Born |
September 19, 1915 Washington D.C. |
| Died |
July 11, 1964 (aged 48) Madison County, Georgia |
| Buried at | Arlington National Cemetery |
| Allegiance |
 United States of America |
| Service/branch |
 United States Army |
| Years of service | 1942 – 1964 |
| Rank |
 Lieutenant Colonel |
| Battles/wars |
|
| Awards | Bronze Star |
Lt. Col. Lemuel Augustus Penn (September 19, 1915, Washington, D.C. – July 11, 1964 in Madison County, Georgia) was a decorated veteran of World War II and a United States Army Reserve officer who was murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan in 1964, nine days after passage of the Civil Rights Act.
Of African American descent, 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. At the time of his murder, Penn, 48, was the assistant superintendent of Washington, D.C. public schools[1] and the father of two daughters and one son, Linda, 13, Sharon, 11, and Lemuel Jr., 5.[2]
Penn was driving home, together with two other black Reserve officers,[2] to Washington, D.C. from Fort Benning, Georgia where they were on a summer camp. Their Chevrolet Biscayne was spotted by three white members of the United Klans of America[3] - James Lackey, Cecil Myers and Howard Sims - who noted its D.C plates. "That must be one of President Johnson's boys.",[2] Howard Sims, one of the white killers evidently motivated by racial hatred, said then. Klansmen followed the car with their Chevy II. "I'm going to kill me a nigger," said Sims.[2]
Just before the highway crosses the Broad River, the Klansmen's Chevy II pulled alongside the Biscayne. The Klansman, Cecil Myers, raised a shotgun and fired. From the back seat, Howard Sims, also a white member of the Ku Klux Klan, did the same.
Penn was shot to death on a Broad River bridge on the Georgia State Route 172 in Madison County, Georgia, near Colbert, twenty-two miles north of the city of Athens. Soon Lackey, also white and a Klansman, Myers and Sims were identified as the ones who chased the trio of Army reservists. Sims and Myers, both members of the Ku Klux Klan, were tried in state superior court but found not guilty by an all-white jury.[4]
Federal prosecutors eventually charged both for violating Penn's civil rights under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. They were tried and found guilty by a federal district court jury. Sims and Myers were sentenced to ten years each and served about six in federal prison. Howard Sims was killed with a shotgun in 1981 at age 58. James Lackey died at age 66 in 2002. Cecil Myers is still alive.
The historical marker erected by the Georgia Historical Society, the Lemuel Penn Memorial Committee, and Colbert Grove Baptist Church at Georgia Highway 172 and Broad River Bridge on the Madison/Elbert County Border states:
On the night of July 11, 1964 three African-American World War II veterans returning home following training at Ft. Benning, Georgia were noticed in Athens by local members of the Ku Klux Klan. The officers were followed to the nearby Broad River Bridge where their pursuers fired into the vehicle, killing Lt. Col. Lemuel Penn. When a local jury failed to convict the suspects of murder, the federal government successfully prosecuted the men for violations under the new Civil Rights Act of 1964, passed just nine days before Penn's murder. The case was instrumental in the creation of a Justice Department task force whose work culminated in the Civil Rights Act of 1968.[5]
Out of Penn's murder arose the Supreme Court case United States v. Guest, in which the Court affirmed the ability of the government to apply criminal charges to private conspirators, who with assistance from a state official, deprive a person of rights secured by the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Footnotes
- ↑ Violence in the U.S.: 1956-67 by Thomas A. Parker. Facts on File, Inc. p. 69
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Thompson 2004.
- ↑ The Ku Klux Klan: A Secret History. The History Channel documentary, 1998.
- ↑ Alschuler 1995, 706.
- ↑ Historical marker noting the murder of Lt. Col. Lemuel Penn by members of the Ku Klux Klan
References
- Alschuler, Albert W. (February 1995). "Racial Quotas and the Jury". Duke Law Journal (Duke University School of Law) 44 (4): 704–743. doi:10.2307/1372922. JSTOR 1372922.
- Thompson, Jim (July 11, 2004). "Highway 172 revisited". Athens Banner-Herald.
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries
- Lemuel Penn's tombstone at Arlington National Cemetery
- GeorgiaInfo
Further reading
- Shipp, William. Murder at Broad River Bridge: The Slaying of Lemuel Penn by Members of the Ku Klux Klan. Atlanta, Ga: Peachtree Press, 1981. "Journalist Bill Shipp tells the tragic story of the murder of Army Colonel Lemuel Penn on the Broad River Bridge in July, 1964. Shipp details the climate of racial tensions in Athens during 1964, the events of the fateful night of Mr. Penn's murder, the subsequent investigation, the trial of the Klan suspects, and the Federal Civil Suit brought against the murder suspects." (Book description at University of Georgia civil rights project)
Also, there is a great deal of material about the murder and its aftermath in"Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-1965" by Taylor Branch, Touchstone, 1998.