He Calls Me by Lightning

by S Jonathan Bass

  Jefferson County Circuit Court Records (Bessemer Division). Jefferson County (Alabama) Jefferson County Records Facility (Ketona). Tarrant, Ala.

  Newspaper Clipping Files. Department of Southern History and Literature. Birmingham Public Library. Birmingham, Ala.

  Papers of the NAACP. Microfilm Edition. Part 23: Legal Department Case Files, 1956–1965. Bethesda, Maryland, 1997.

  “Provisional Anatomical Diagnoses of Mr. James B. Clark.” Jefferson County Coroner/Medical Examiner Office, July 12, 1957. Birmingham, Ala.

  St. Paul Lutheran Files. St. Paul Lutheran Church. Birmingham, Ala.

  Washington, Caliph. Military Personnel Records. National Personnel Records Center. St. Louis, Missouri.

  ———. Prison Records. Alabama Department of Corrections. Montgomery, Ala.

  ———. Prison Writings. Copies in possession of author.

  PUBLISHED PRIMARY SOURCES

  A Circular of Information about Bessemer City, Alabama (Bessemer Land and Improvement Co). New York: South Publishing Company, 1889. Special Collection. Samford University. Birmingham, Ala.

  African American Heritage Hymnal. Chicago: GIA Publications, Inc., 2001.

  “Bessemer, Alabama (Bessemer Land & Improvement Co.).” New York: South Publishing Company, 1891.

  The Bessemer Weekly: Special Illustrated Edition, May 18, 1901. Copy in possession of author.

  Engineering and Mining Journal. Vol. 90. New York: Hill Publishing Company, 1910.

  “From the Rough: The Bessemer Story, 1887–1962.” Copy in possession of author.

  Lake, Clancy. “Birmingham News Report on Alabama’s Prisons (1959).” Copy in possession of author.

  Lucas, Fielding. Geographic, Statistical, and Historical Map of Alabama. Philadelphia: Carey & Lea, ca. 1822.

  “Report of the Osborne Association, Inc. on the Alabama Prison System: Summary of Findings.” New York: Osborne Association, Inc., 1949.

  Seay, Noble H. Report of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of Alabama During the October Terms, 1926–1927, 1927–1928. Vol. 217. St. Paul, Minn.: West Publishing Company, 1928.

  Transactions of the American Institute of Mining Engineers. Vol. 19. New York: American Institute of Mining Engineers, 1891.

  Younger, William C. Alabama Appellate Courts. Montgomery: Alabama Supreme Court Library, 1973.

  GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS

  Alabama Official and Statistical Register. Alabama Department of Archives and History. Montgomery, Ala. 1907, 1915, 1919, 1927, 1931, 1935, 1943, 1947, 1951, 1959, 1963, 1967, 1971, 1975, 1979.

  Code of Alabama, 1940, 1953.

  Code of the City of Bessemer, Alabama, 1954.

  Congressional Record: Containing the Proceedings and Debates of the Forty-Third Congress, Second Session. Vol. 3. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1875.

  Conscientious Objection. Special Monograph, No. 10, Vol. 11. Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1950.

  Constitution of the State of Alabama, 1901.

  Official Proceeding of the Constitutional Convention of the State of Alabama, May 21, 1901 to September 3, 1901. Wetumpka: Wetumpka Printing Co., 1940.

  Simpson, Thomas. “Geologic and Hydrologic Studies in the Birmingham Red-Iron-Ore District Alabama.” Geological Survey Professional Paper 473-C. Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1965.

  United States Bureau of the Census. Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930.

  ———. Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940.

  ———. Seventeenth Census of the United States, 1950.

  ———. Eighteenth Census of the United States, 1960.

  ———. Nineteenth Census of the United States, 1970.

  ———. Twentieth Census of the United States, 1980.

  ———. Twenty-First Census of the United States, 1990.

  ———. Twenty-Second Census of the United States, 2000.

  ———. Twenty-Third Census of the United States, 2010.

  United States Congress. House Un-American Activities Committee Hearings, 1959. Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1959.

  United States Department of Justice. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Surveillance Files.

  Bapbomb.

  Barron, George.

  Bessemer Voters League.

  Billingsley, Orzell.

  Grimes, Lawton “Stud.”

  Hammonds, James.

  Howard, Asbury.

  Howard, Asbury Jr.

  Liuzza, Viola.

  Pipolo, Rudy.

  Washington, Caliph.

  United States Statutes at Large. Act of March 1, 1875 (Civil Rights Act of 1875), Ch. 114.

  COURT CASES

  Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986)

  Beecher v. Alabama, 88 Sup. Ct. 189 (1967)

  Billingsley v. Clayton, 359 F.2d 13 (1966)

  Boggs v. State, 116 So. 2d 903, 209 (1959)

  Boles v. Stevenson, 13 L.Ed. 2d 109 (1964)

  Bowen v. State, 145 So. 2d 421 (1962)

  Browder v. Gayle, 352 U.S. 903 (1956)

  Brown v. Allen, 73 S. Ct. 397 (1953)

  Carter v. Texas, 177 U.S. 442 (1900)

  Cassell v. Texas, 339 U.S. 282 (1950)

  Chessman v. Teets, 354 U.S. 156 (1957)

  Cobern v. State, 142 So. 2d 869 (1962)

  Coleman v. Alabama, 377 U.S. 129 (1964)

  Clark v. State, 25 Ala. App. 30 (1932)

  Dickey v. Florida, 398 U.S. 30 (1970)

  Dockery v. State, 114 So. 2d 394 (1959)

  Edwards v. Sard, 250 F. Supp. 977 (1966)

  Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478 (1964)

  Evans v. State, 461 U.S. 1301 (1983)

  Fikes v. Alabama, 352 U.S. 191 (1957)

  Francis v. Resweber, 329 U.S. 459 (1947)

  Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972)

  Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963)

  Goldsby v. Harpole, 263 F.2d 71 (1959)

  Gosa v. State, 139 So. 2d 321 (1961)

  Hamilton v. State, 368 U.S. 52 (1957)

  Hampton v. Oklahoma, 368 F.2d 9 (1966)

  Holman v. Washington, 364 F.2d 618 (1966)

  Jacks v. Sullinger, 284 Ala. 223 (1969)

  Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368 (1964)

  Jackson v. Goodwin, 400 F.2d 529 (1968)

  Johnson v. State, 133 So. 2d 53 (1961)

  Jordan v. Fitzharris, 257 F. Supp. 674 (1966)

  Lee v. Washington, 390 U.S. 333 (1968)

  Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967)

  Manning v. State, 116 So. 360 (1928)

  Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966)

  Needel v. Scafati, 412 F.2d 761 (1969)

  Norris v. Alabama, 294 U.S. 587 (1935)

  Parker v. State, 94 So. 2d 209 (1956)

  Patterson v. Alabama, 294 U.S. 600 (1935)

  People v. Dorado, 62 Cal.2d 338 (1965)

  Phillips v. State, 41 Ala. App. 393 (1961)

  Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400 (1965)

  Reeves v. State, 88 So. 2d 561 (1956)

  Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 (1964)

  Robinson v. California, 82 S. Ct. 1417 (1962)

  Salary v. Wilson, 415 F.2d 467 (1969)

  Salary v. Wilson, 313 F. Supp. 1037 (1970)

  Salary v. Wilson, 493 F.2d 627 (1974)

  South Highlands Infirmary v. Imperial Laundry Co., 149 So. 106 (1933)

  State v. Washington, 6 Div 227 (1957)

  State v. Washington, 6 Div 524 (1959)

  State v. Washington, 6 Div 66 (1969)

  State v. Washington, 6 Div 127 (1970)

  Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303 (1880)

  Swain v. State, 275 Ala. 508 (1962)

  Swain v. State, 380 U.S. 202 (1969)

  Talley v. Stephens, 247 F. Supp. 683 (1965)

  Thomas v. Texas, 29 S. Ct. 393 (1909)

  Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86 (1958)

  United States Security Life Insurance v. Clark, 40 Ala. App 542 (19
59)

  U.S. v. Brittain, 319 F. Supp. 1058 (N.D. Ala. 1970)

  U. S. ex. rel. Seals v. Wiman, 304 F.2d. 53 (1962)

  Walker v. Birmingham, 388 U.S. 307 (1967)

  Walker v. State, 114 So. 2d 402 (Ala. 1959)

  Washington v. Holman, 245 F. Supp. 116 (1965)

  Washington v. Lee, 263 F. Supp. 327 (1966)

  Washington v. State, 269 Ala. 146, 112 So. 2d 179 (1959)

  Washington v. State, 274 Ala. 386, 148 So. 2d 206 (1962)

  Washington v. State, 45 Ala. App. 173, 227 So. 2d 805 (1969)

  Washington v. State, 46 Ala. App. 539, 245 So. 2d 824 (1971)

  White v. Crook, 251 F. Supp. 401 (1966)

  DIRECTORIES

  Bessemer City Directory, 1911, 1913, 1916, 1920, 1924, 1938, 1940, 1946, 1948, 1951, 1953, 1955, 1957, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1963.

  Birmingham Suburban Directory, 1965–1969, 1971–1980, 1982–1985.

  Montgomery City Directory, 1957–1972.

  Martindale’s American Law Dictionary, 1906, 1908, 1910, 1915, 1917, 1919, 1927.

  Hubbell’s Legal Directory, 1913, 1922.

  Polk’s Birmingham City Directory, 1923.

  Alabama Blue Book and Social Register, 1929. Birmingham: Blue Book Publishing, 1929.

  The Book of Birmingham and Alabama. Birmingham: Birmingham Ledger, 1914.

  BOOKS

  Allison, Thomas. Moonshine Memories. Montgomery: New South Books, 2014.

  Armes, Ethel. The Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama. Birmingham: Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, 1910.

  Ashmore, Susan Youngblood. Carry It On: The War on Poverty and the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama, 1964–1972. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2008.

  Atkins, Leah Rawls. The Valley and the Hills: An Illustrated History of Birmingham and Jefferson County. Windsor Publishing, 1981.

  Auerbach, Jerold S. Labor and Liberty: The La Follette Committee and the New Deal. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966.

  Ayer, N. W, and Sons. The Story of the States. Philadelphia: N. W. Ayer & Son, 1916.

  Baker, Gordon E. The Reapportionment Revolution: Representation, Political Power, and the Supreme Court. New York: Random House, 1967.

  Banner, Stuart. The Death Penalty: An American History. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002.

  Barefield, Marilyn Davis, comp. Bessemer, Yesterday and Today, 1887–1888. Birmingham: Southern University Press, 1986.

  Barkan, Elliot Robert, ed. Immigrants in American History: Arrival, Adaptation, and Integration. Volume 1. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-Clio, 2013.

  Bartley, Numan V. The Rise of Massive Resistance: Race and Politics in the South During the 1950s. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1997.

  Bass, Jack. Unlikely Heroes. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1990.

  ———. Taming the Storm: The Life and Times of Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr., and the South’s Fight over Civil Rights. New York: Doubleday, 1993.

  Bass, Jack, and Walter DeVries. The Transformation of Southern Politics: Social Change and Political Consequence Since 1945. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995.

  Bass, S. Jonathan. Blessed Are the Peacemakers: Martin Luther King, Jr., Eight White Religious Leaders, and the “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2001.

  Bennett, Linda, and Genevieve Ames. The American Experience with Alcohol: Contrasting Cultural Perspectives. New York: Springer Science+Business Media, 1985.

  Blackmon, Daniel. Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II. New York: Anchor, 2009.

  Bodenhamer, David J., and James W. Ely Jr., eds. Ambivalent Legacy: A Legal History of the South. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1984.

  Branch, Taylor. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–1963. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989.

  ———. Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963–65. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989.

  ———. At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965–68. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989.

  Brandon, Craig. The Electric Chair: An Unnatural American History. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2009.

  Brooks, Jennifer. Defining the Peace: Race, World War Two Veterans, and the Remaking of Southern Political Tradition. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004.

  Brown, Richard Maxwell. Strain of Violence: Historical Studies of American Violence and Vigilantism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1975.

  Brown, William Garrott. The South at Work: Observations from 1904. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2014.

  Burnett, Jason. Early Bessemer. Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing, 2011.

  Carlton, David. Confronting Southern Poverty in the Great Depression: The Report on Economic Conditions of the South with Related Documents. New York: Bedford Books, 1996.

  Carr, Jess. The Second Oldest Profession: An Informal History of Moonshining in America. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1972.

  Carter, Dan. Scottsboro: A Tragedy of the American South. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979.

  ———. The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000.

  Carter, Donald A. Forging the Shield: The U.S. Army in Europe, 1951–1961. Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2015.

  Cash, W. J. The Mind of the South. New York: Vintage Press, 1941.

  Cason, Clarence. Ninety Degrees in the Shade. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2004.

  Cobb, James C. Away Down South: A History of Southern Identity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

  Cortner, Richard C. The Apportionment Cases. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1970.

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  Cowie, Susan D., and Tom Johnson. The Mummy in Fact, Fiction and Film. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland Press, 2002.

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  Cruikshank, George M. A History of Birmingham and Its Environs: A Narrative Account of Their Historical Progress, Their People, and Their Principal Interests, Volume 2. Birmingham, Ala.: Lewis Publishing Company, 1920.

  Curtin, Mary Ellen. Black Prisoners and Their World, Alabama 1865–1900. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2000.

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  Dray, Philip. At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America. New York: Modern Library, 2002.

  Dunbar, Paul Laurence. The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1922.

  Egerton, John. Speak Now Against the Day: The Generation Before the Civil Rights Movement in the South. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994.

  Fallin, Wilson Jr. Uplifting the People: Three Centuries of Black Baptists in Alabama. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2007.

  Fairclough, Adam. Better Day Coming: Blacks and Equality, 1890–2000. New York: Penguin Books, 2001.

  Fischer, David Hackett. Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America (America: a cultural history). New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.

  Fitzgerald, Maurice J. Handbook of Criminal Investigation. New York: Greenberg Publisher, 1951.

  Flynt, Wayne. Poor but Proud: Alabama’s Poor Whites. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1989.

  Frederick, Jeff. Stand Up for Alabama: Governor George Wallace. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2007.

  Freyer, Tony, and Timothy Dixon. Democracy and Judicial Independence: A History of the Federal Courts of Alabama, 1820–1994. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Carlson, 1995.

  Friedman, Lawrence M. Crime and Punishment in American History. New York: Basic Books, 1993.r />
  Garrett, Aubrey. Bessemer Bombing: How Absolute Power Corrupts. Bloomington, Ind.: Xlibris Corporation, 2012.

  Garrow, David. Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. New York: Vintage Books, 1986.

  Gibson-Graham, J. K. Re/presenting Class: Essays in Postmodern Marxism. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2001.

  Goldstein, Robert Justin. Political Repression in Modern America from 1870 to 1976. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001.

  Goodman, James. Stories of Scottsboro. New York: Pantheon Books, 1994.

  Goluboff, Risa. Vagrant Nation: Police Power, Constitutional Change, and the Making of the 1960s. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.

  Grantham, Dewey. The South in Modern America: A Region at Odds. New York: Harper, 1995.

  Green, Hardy. The Company Town: The Industrial Edens and Satanic Mills That Shaped the American Economy. New York: Basic Books, 2010.

  Greenhaw, Wayne. Fighting the Devil in Dixie: How Civil Rights Activists Took on the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2011.

  Gurr, Ted Robert, ed. Violence in America, Volume 2: Protest, Rebellion, Reform. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1989.

  Harris, Carl V. Political Power in Birmingham, 1871–1921. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1977.

  Harvey, Paul. Freedom’s Coming: Religious Culture and the Shaping of the South from the Civil War through the Civil Rights Era. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012.

  Hayman, John. Bitter Harvest: Richmond Flowers and the Civil Rights Revolution. Montgomery: Black Belt Press, 1996.

  Hobson, Fred. But Now I See: The White Southern Racial Conversion Narrative. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1999.

  Hudson, Hosea. The Narrative of Hosea Hudson: The Life and Times of a Black Radical. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1993.

  Huntley, Horace, and David Montgomery, eds. Black Workers’ Struggle for Equality in Birmingham. Champaign, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 2004.

  Ingram, John. Biographical Dictionary of American Business Leaders. Vol. 1. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1983.

  Isom, Chervis. The Newspaper Boy: Coming of Age in Birmingham, Alabama, During the Civil Rights Era. Birmingham, Ala.: The Working Writer Discover Group, 2013.

  Jackson, Harvey H. Inside Alabama: A Personal History of My State. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2004.