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Julius Blair, a 76-year-old black store owner, arranged to have the
Stephensons released to his custody. He drove them out of town for their protection. When the mob did not disperse, about 100 African-American men began to patrol their neighborhood, located south of the courthouse square, determined
131:. Marshall and two Tennessee attorneys required an escort to leave the county safely. At the last murder trials in November 1946, Marshall won also acquittal for Rooster Bill Pillow, and a reduction in the sentence of Papa Kennedy, allowing him to go free on bail.
42:. The national press, which covered it extensively, called it the first "major racial confrontation" after the Second World War. It marked a new spirit of resistance by African-American veterans and others following their participation in
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to resist. Four police officers were shot and wounded when they entered "Mink Slide", the name given to the
African-American business district, also known as "The Bottom". Following the attack on the police, the city government requested
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veteran, was with his mother at a store, where she learned that a radio she had left for repair had been sold. When she complained, the white repair apprentice, Billy
Fleming, struck her. Stephenson had been a welterweight on the Navy
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as the lead attorney to defend
Stephenson and the other defendants. He gained a change of venue, but only to another small town, where trials took place throughout the summer of 1946. Marshall was assisted by two local attorneys,
92:, who were sent and soon outnumbered the black patrollers. The state troopers began ransacking black businesses, stealing goods and cash, and rounding up African Americans. They cut phone service to Mink Slide, but the owner of a
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According to historian
Dorothy Beeler, "the Columbia incident and the reaction to it were major events of the late 1940's, which helped create a base from which black organizations gathered strength for the
104:. Two black men were killed and one wounded, allegedly while "trying to escape" during a transfer. About 25 black men were eventually charged with
84:. When whites learned that Fleming had gone to a hospital for treatment, a mob gathered. A risk arose that the Stephensons would be lynched.
124:, and Maurice Weaver, a white activist from Nashville. Marshall was also preparing litigation for education and voting-rights cases.
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team and retaliated by hitting
Fleming, who crashed through a window. Both Stephenson and his mother were arrested, charged with
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Race relations in the county were tense, and several lynchings had taken place there. (See
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Devil in the Grove: Thurgood
Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America
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Marshall gained acquittals for 23 of the black defendants, even with an
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On the night of
February 26–27, 1946, a disturbance known as the
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Civil rights|civil rights push of the 1950's and 1960's
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Van West, Carroll (2017). "Columbia Race Riot, 1946".
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40:Maury County, Tennessee
196:Tennessee Encyclopedia
167:King, Gilbert (2012).
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