Lemuel Penn Center Washington Dc

American murder victim (1915–1964)

Lemuel Augustus Penn
Lt. Col. Lemuel A. Penn
Built-in	(1915-09-nineteen)September 19, 1915 Washington D.C.
Died	July 11, 1964(1964-07-xi) (aged 48) Madison Canton, Georgia
Buried	Arlington National Cemetery
Allegiance	U.s.a.
Service/branch	U.s. Ground forces
Years of service	1942 – 1964
Rank	Lieutenant Colonel
Battles/wars	World War II New Guinea Entrada Philippines Campaign
Awards	Bronze Star

Lemuel Augustus Penn (September nineteen, 1915 – July xi, 1964) was the Assistant Superintendent of Washington, D.C. public schools, a busy veteran of Earth State of war Two and a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Ground forces Reserve who was murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan, 9 days after the passage of the Ceremonious Rights Act of 1964.

An African American, Lemuel Penn joined the Army Reserve from Howard University and served as an Officer in World War II in New Guinea and the Philippines, earning a Bronze Star. When he was murdered at the age of 48, he had been an banana administrator for the public schools in Washington, D.C.,^[1] and the father of two daughters and one son, Linda, thirteen, Sharon, 11, and Lemuel Jr., 5.^[two] In the 1940s, Penn had worked for Gunnar Myrdal on the landmark report of race relations, An American Dilemma, and is cited in that book'south acknowledgments.

Murder [edit]

Penn was driving home, together with ii other black Reserve officers,^[2] to Washington, D.C. from Fort Benning, Georgia returning from their annual summer grooming camp. Their Chevrolet Biscayne was spotted past 3 white members of the United Klans of America^[three] – James Lackey, Cecil Myers and Howard Sims – who noted its D.C. license plates. Howard Sims – one of the killers – so said "That must be one of President Johnson's boys", patently motivated by racial hatred.^[ii] The Klansmen followed the auto with their Chevy 2 with Sims saying "I'yard going to impale me a nigger".^[2]

The shooting occurred on a Broad River bridge on Georgia Country Route 172 in Madison Canton, Georgia, near Colbert, twenty-two miles due north of the city of Athens. Simply earlier the highway reaches the Broad River, the Klansmen'southward Chevy II pulled alongside Penn's Biscayne. The Klansman, Cecil Myers, raised a shotgun and fired; from the dorsum seat, Howard Sims, too a member of the Ku Klux Klan, did the same. Penn was killed instantly.

Authorities quickly identified James S. Lackey, also a Klansman, and Myers and Sims equally the ones who chased the trio of Ground forces reservists. Sims and Myers were tried in state superior court but constitute not guilty past an all-white jury.^[4]

Federal prosecutors eventually charged both for violating Penn'southward civil rights under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. On June 27, 1966, criminal proceedings began against Sims, Myers, Lackey, and three other local Klansmen, Herbert Guest, Denver Phillips, and George Hampton Turner.^[five] Two weeks afterward, Sims and Myers were found guilty of conspiracy charges by a federal district court jury;^[5] their four co-defendants, still, were acquitted.^[5] Sims and Myers were sentenced to ten years each^[five] and served about half dozen in federal prison house. Howard Sims was killed with a shotgun in 1981 at age 58.^[6] James Lackey died at historic period 66 in 2002. Cecil Myers died in 2018 at the age of 79.^[seven]

The historical marking 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 xi, 1964 three African-American World War II veterans returning habitation 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 regime successfully prosecuted the men for violations nether the new Civil Rights Act of 1964, passed just 9 days earlier Penn'south murder. The case was instrumental in the creation of a Justice Department job strength whose work culminated in the Civil Rights Act of 1968.^[8]

Penn'due south murder was the basis of the Supreme Court case United states v. Guest, in which the Court affirmed the ability of the government to employ criminal charges to private conspirators, who with help from a state official, deprive a person of rights secured by the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.

References [edit]

^ Violence in the U.Southward.: 1956-67 past Thomas A. Parker. Facts on File, Inc. p. 69
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Thompson 2004.
^ The Ku Klux Klan: A Secret History. The History Channel documentary, 1998.
^ Alschuler 1995, 706.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d "Lemuel Penn Murder".
^ Thompson, Jim. "Highway 172 revisited | Online Athens". onlineathens.com . Retrieved 2018-02-02 .
^ Hornick, Andrew (Oct 29, 2018). "Cecil Myers". 921wlhr.com.
^ "Explore Georgia's Historical Markers - Lt. Col. Lemuel Penn". Georgia Historical Society . Retrieved 18 December 2015.

Bibliography [edit]

Alschuler, Albert W. (February 1995). "Racial Quotas and the Jury". Knuckles Law Journal. Duke University School of Police force. 44 (4): 704–743. doi:10.2307/1372922. JSTOR 1372922.
Thompson, Jim (July 11, 2004). "Highway 172 revisited". Athens Imprint-Herald.

External links [edit]

Lemuel Penn's tombstone at Arlington National Cemetery
This Solar day in Georgia History - July 11, 1964 - Lemuel Penn Killed Provided by Georgia Info
This Day in Georgia History - August 31, 1964 - Trial in Lemuel Penn Murder Case Began Provided by Georgia Info
Hatfield, Edward A. (August five, 2013). "Lemuel Penn Murder". New Georgia Encyclopedia. Georgia Humanities Council and the University of Georgia Press. Retrieved 18 December 2015.