JOYCE FAYE NELSON-CROCKETT was 13 years old in 1955, dancing to a jukebox in the Hughes Cafe on a Saturday night in East Texas with her sister and her 16-year-old cousin, John Earl Reese. The boy had come home to the nearby town of Mayflower earlier that day after a summer away picking cotton, and he held Nelson-Crockett's hand as he spun her around the room. All of a sudden, a sharp crack interrupted the music. Nelson-Crockett thought it was fireworks at first, until she heard a thud on the floor and noticed Reese lying there. “I looked and saw his brain coming out of his head, she later told a reporter. She felt warm liquid running down her arm and saw that she'd been struck, too, in her wrist. Her 15-year-old sister also took a bullet in the shoulder. Nelson-Crockett later learned that two white men shot through the cafe windows from their car because they were angry that local politicians had agreed to spend money on a school for Black kids.
Reese died from his wounds. But the gunmen never spent a day in prison. “I felt terrible then. Still do,” Nelson-Crockett told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in 1989. “I guess I will until I’m dead.” She’d been close with her cousin, who had lived down the street from her and walked with her to catch the bus, often making her laugh when she was having a bad day. The county government didn’t seem to care about the way his life had been cut short: Its records listed Reese’s death as an accident, despite plenty of evidence, including the killers’ confessions, that he’d died in a racist murder.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة November/December 2021 من Mother Jones.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 8500 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة November/December 2021 من Mother Jones.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 8500 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
FOOD FOR THOUGHT - CRIME OF THE CROP
Will GMOs harm my kids? Your pediatrician's response might not be grounded in science.
ECONUNDRUMS - CHATBOT QUACKS
AI was supposed to fix online health misinformation. Instead, it's making it worse.
WELL PLAYED
One man’s mission to make gaming a little less white
FIGHTING CHANCE
RUBEN GALLEGO'S BATTLE AGAINST KARI LAKE COULD DECIDE THE FATE OF THE SENATE-AND DEMOCRACY ITSELF. NO PRESSURE.
BLUUD MONEY
Tommy Alba could be a pain in the ass.
Become Ungovernable
The spectacular implosion of the Libertarian Party
Spoiler Alert
Third-party candidates never win national elections, but they can still have serious consequences.
THE DEMOCRACY BOMB
A day ahead of the third anniversary of January 6, President Joe Biden traveled to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania-where George Washington encamped during the Revolutionary War-before delivering what he described as a \"deadly serious\" speech framing the stakes of the 2024 election.
OH CRAP - SLUDGE REPORT
Can Maine lead the way to a future without forever chemicals?
JERSEY BOYS - AGE AGAINST THE MACHINE
Young voters are powering Rep. Andy Kim's challenge to Trenton's powers that be.