N – Negro Vet Beaten

This is my ninth year of blogging the A to Z Challenge. Everyday I will share something about my family’s life during 1950. This was a year that the USA federal census was taken and the first one that I appear in. At the end of each post I will share a book from my childhood collection.

Rev. A. B. Cleage, Jr

Negro Veteran Beaten By Cop, Klein Claims

Police Deny His Charges; NAACP Silent Until Probe Finished

Springfield Union Nov 1, 1950. Pg 26

About 500 flyers charging a Springfield police officer with the brutal beating of a Negro veteran, were circulated yesterday by the Progressive Party of Springfield, according to its chairman, Richard M. Klein.

The flyer charges that Orris Williams was stopped by an officer while going to his car from his house on Monroe St. and taken to a back lot and hit twice in the mouth. The flyer charges that protest have been made to the police chief and nothing has been done.

Deputy Police Chief Francis M. Gallagher stated last night that he had received the protest from Williams and as he does in the case of all such protests, made a through investigation. He said that he had questioned all persons involved and had found no evidence that the officer in question had struck Williams or was in any manner brutal.

Klein stated last night that the matter had been taken to the Legal Redress Committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Rev. Albert Cleage, chairman of the Legal Redress Committee of the NAACP stated that he has a statement from Williams, but that the NAACP will make no comment until its investigation is complete.

Springfield Union Nov 1, 1950. Pg 26

Noises and Mr. Flibberty-Jib

16 thoughts on “N – Negro Vet Beaten

  1. So sad to see another police brutality record. I also am aware that a lot of those incidents didn’t come to NAACP attention, nor get any news written about them. I wish I lived in a different kind of community, where nobody does that…ever!

    1. That is still the case today. I wish we did too – lived in a country where this didn’t happen regularly through the decades.

  2. The level of constant threat must be exhausting and debilitating. Why do we have to be so against anyone different from “us”? Did you find the results of the investigation and whether any action was taken?

    1. It is exhausting. No idea about the why.

      The only other thing I found about Oris M. Williams was that in July of 1950, he missed a court date for dangerous driving after being involved in an accident. It was rescheduled. Things I learned on Ancestry – he was born in 1929 in Springfield, MA and died in 2000 in Springfield. He grew up in his mother’s parents house with several siblings. He enlisted in the Navy, later married and had several children. And that’s it.

    1. Yep. There have always been sad times in the midst of good times. Sometimes those having the good times don’t even notice.

  3. When will our country ever become a fair place to everyone? 1950 was 72 years ago when I was born but we still have police who are taught to brutalize people of color. Nothing changes but we will forever fight for those changes!

    1. That’s what makes it so disturbing. If it was just the past I don’t think it would trigger the always underlying anger for us.

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