Murder at Broad River Bridge,
by Bill Shipp (1983; reprinted 2017 by UGA Press), is powerful journalism,
reportage, and historical recovery. Most people living in Athens, Georgia,
today don’t recall the murder of Lemuel Penn in 1963 by members of the Ku Klux
Klan headquartered in Athens on Prince Avenue. Today Athens is a progressive
town full of people with progressive attitudes. Athens almost always appears on
election maps as a blue patch in a red state. It is important to remember Lemuel
Penn’s murder. It was one of many murders and attacks committed by the Klan in
the early years of the civil rights movement. Yet Penn was not a participant in
the civil rights movement. He was an educational administrator in Washington, DC.
He was murdered as he was returning home from a three-week stint of service in
the Army reserves. Penn and two fellow reservists drove up from Fort Benning to
Atlanta, where they stopped to refuel. Then they headed to Athens, where they asked
a police officer for directions, and headed out of town towards Colvert,
Georgia, which they thought would be a direct route to their destination but
which instead was an empty two-lane
state road. Several miles outside of Colbert at a bridge over the Broad River,
a car pulled up beside the one carrying the reservists. Two shotgun blasts
penetrated the windows. Penn was killed instantly. The car nearly ran off the
road until the surviving occupants regained control and pulled over. A passerby
saw there was trouble, but instead of stopping to help he drove back to Colbert
and informed the local policeman on duty that there were problems at the Broad
River Bridge.
In the investigation that
ensued, the FBI, GBI, and local police determined that local Klansmen had
committed the murder. Ultimately, the two individuals who wielded the shotguns
and fired the shots were identified and arrested, along with several
accomplices. In the trial that followed the state made a convincing case but
the jury voted to acquit. In a federal civil rights trial several months later,
the two primary perpetrators were found guilty and sentenced to ten years in
prison.
Shipp is particularly concerned
in this book with the willingness in 1963 of Athens citizens to tolerate the
Klan’s presence, with their unwillingness (with some exceptions) to speak out
publically about the murder and about the Klan.
Shipp covers all the primary details of these events. A writer and editor at the Atlanta Constitution, he followed the investigation of Penn’s murder and the trial closely. He's done a service in writing this book. It's interesting to consider this book in the context of the ongoing controversy about Civil War historical markers and whether they should be removed. Historical markers may commemorate, but they do not explain and reveal history. It's far more important that books like Shipp’s are read and discussed than it is that we worry over the presence or absence of historical monuments to Civil War generals. Few of us in the contemporary South would choose to return to the era of the Civil War, which included slavery and the abuse of the rights of human beings. There is nothing about this period in Southern history that is honorable or laudatory. I see no reason to commemorate it. I stand with those who want to move the historical monuments, most of which were erected in support of white supremacy in the deep South rather than as monuments to Civil War figures. I'd be happy with relegating those monuments to museums, or to the back lots of cemeteries where Confederate soldiers are buried. What's most important is that this country find a way to move forward and to heal the still festering wounds of the Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, decades of suppression of the rights of African-Americans, the Civil Rights movement, and the conflicts of the present day. Books like Murder at Broad River Bridge make possible the understanding of historical events that are far more important to remember than the Civil War, which took place over 150 years ago. Everyone should read this book: to remember how things were in 1963 in the deep South, in Georgia, in Athens. We have come a long way since 1983. But not far enough.
Shipp covers all the primary details of these events. A writer and editor at the Atlanta Constitution, he followed the investigation of Penn’s murder and the trial closely. He's done a service in writing this book. It's interesting to consider this book in the context of the ongoing controversy about Civil War historical markers and whether they should be removed. Historical markers may commemorate, but they do not explain and reveal history. It's far more important that books like Shipp’s are read and discussed than it is that we worry over the presence or absence of historical monuments to Civil War generals. Few of us in the contemporary South would choose to return to the era of the Civil War, which included slavery and the abuse of the rights of human beings. There is nothing about this period in Southern history that is honorable or laudatory. I see no reason to commemorate it. I stand with those who want to move the historical monuments, most of which were erected in support of white supremacy in the deep South rather than as monuments to Civil War figures. I'd be happy with relegating those monuments to museums, or to the back lots of cemeteries where Confederate soldiers are buried. What's most important is that this country find a way to move forward and to heal the still festering wounds of the Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, decades of suppression of the rights of African-Americans, the Civil Rights movement, and the conflicts of the present day. Books like Murder at Broad River Bridge make possible the understanding of historical events that are far more important to remember than the Civil War, which took place over 150 years ago. Everyone should read this book: to remember how things were in 1963 in the deep South, in Georgia, in Athens. We have come a long way since 1983. But not far enough.
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