Charter member, Brownsville NAACP. Overheard planning an NAACP meeting. Kidnapped from his home by police the night of June 20, 1940, questioned about the NAACP black voter registration. Never again seen alive. His corpse was exhumed from the Hatchie June 23, 1940. His murderers were never prosecuted. NAACP's first voting rights martyr. Say his name-Elbert Williams.

Courtesy NAACP

Annie Mitchell Williams, later in life. Married Elbert Williams in 1929. Worked in Sunshine Laundry with him. Witnessed Elbert's kidnapping from their home by Brownsville policemen Tip Hunter and Charles Read. Searched in vain for husband for two days. Identified Elbert's body on the Hatchie riverbank.  Described two "bullet holes" in Elbert's chest. Fled Brownsville to Long Island, New York. Retained Thurgood Marshall to represent her.

Courtesy of James Hess

Charter member Brownsville NAACP. Second Branch President. One of the five would be voter registrants May 6, 1940. A preacher and owner of a fish market & restaurant. Escaped the kidnap mob Saturday night June 15, 1940, travelled to Philadelphia & reported on the Brownsville terror to the NAACP Annual Conference. At a conference arranged by Thurgood Marshall, met with DOJ Prosecutors to start the investigation into the Brownsville voting rights terror.

Courtesy NAACP

Charter member, Brownsville NAACP. Chair, Executive Committee. Leader of five would be voter registrants May 6, 1940. Husband of Nann Hess Davis. Brother to Casher Davis and Thomas Davis. Successful businessman; Cities Service service station operator. Kidnapped from his home by a white mob led by Brownsville policemen Tip Hunter and Charles Read about 1 a.m. Sunday, June 16, 1940, Father's Day, taken deep into the Hatchie swamp, surrounded by the mob, threatened with death, and expelled from the county. Fled to Niles, Michigan, where he became a community leader. A lifelong Republican, Elisha Davis attended Richard Nixon's inauguration.

Courtesy NAACP

Wife of Elisha Davis. Charter member Brownsville NAACP. Witnessed her husband's kidnapping from their home. Identified the officers. Watched as the mob caravan drove away with her husband. She spirited her seven children out of Haywood County under cover of darkness and joined her husband in Niles, MIchigan.

Courtesy of Evelyn Davis Fleming

The seven children of Elisha & Nann Davis living in Brownsville in the home from which their father was kidnapped. Later, escaped Haywood County with their mother under cover of darkness.

Courtesy Evelyn Davis Fleming

Brother of Elisha & Thomas Davis. Charter member Brownsville NAACP. Coca-Cola Bottler employee. Refused his employer's request to inform on NAACP.  Went into hiding. Fled Haywood County. 

Courtesy NAACP

Brother of Elisha & Casher Davis. Charter member Brownsville NAACP. Employed as Capitol Theater custodian. On June 20, 1940, after Elisha's kidnapping on the 15th, Elbert Williams was overheard confiding to Thomas his plan to have an NAACP meeting & continuing the plan to register Black voters, and was reported to Brownsville police. That night Thomas & Elbert were kidnapped by the police, jailed & interrogated about the NAACP & Black voter registration. Thomas was released and fled Haywood County. Elbert was not so lucky.

Courtesy NAACP

Brownsville policeman June 1940. Haywood County sheriff 1928-1934, 1940-1946, 1959-1966. Kidnapped Elbert Williams from his home June 20, 1940, jailed him, interrogated him, and claimed to have released him unharmed. Elbert's body was found in the Hatchie three days later. The FBI's Chief Suspect. Thurgood Marshall called him the killer. 

Courtesy, The States Graphic, Brownsville, TN 

Brownsville policeman. Accompanied Tip Hunter in the kidnappings of Elisha Davis, Thomas Davis, and Elbert Williams. Later promoted to Brownsville Police Chief.

Extracted from a print given to the author by James Hart Carvin. Photographer unknown.

Manager, Brownsville Coca-Cola Bottler. President, Brownsville Chamber of Commerce, 1938. Attempted unsuccessfully to recruit his employee, Casher Davis, to inform on the NAACP. Accompanied Tip Hunter & Charles Lee in Elbert Williams kidnapping.

Courtesy, The States Graphic, Brownsville, TN  

Mayor, Brownsville. President, Brownsville Bank. County's wealthiest man. A political powerhouse. Refused NAACP men's request for help in registering to vote and stopping threats of violence. Questioned Tip Hunter about why he did not take Elbert Williams home after releasing him from jail, the night Elbert was killed.

Courtesy City of Brownsville, TN

Planter. City councilman. Vice-president, Brownsville Bank. Brother of Haywood County 'redeemer', CC Shaw, and planter-bootlegger, Ernest Shaw. Tasked his nephew, Brownsville policeman, Wallace Palmer "Hot" McLeish, with informing Elisha Davis's kidnappers to get Davis out of the county but do him no harm. The message may have saved Elisha's life. 

Courtesy, The States Graphic, Brownsville, TN  

Brownsville City Council in 1940. Former Mayor. Negotiated with Buster Walker to try to avoid Black voter registration. Informed Walker that Blacks would not be allowed to register to vote in Haywood County.

Courtesy, City of Brownsville, TN

Intrepid President of Jackson Madison County TN NAACP. Atlanta Life Insurance Company salesman. Indispensable helper to the Brownsville Branch & National NAACP in efforts to register voters and prosecute the Brownsville terrorists. Drove Thurgood Marshall to Brownsville, offered to take FBI special agents to Elbert Willimas killers and point them out. 

Courtesy Patricia Couto

NAACP Southeast Organizer. Visited Brownsville NAACP Branch & encouraged them to register to vote. Reported threats against Brownsville NAACP members to NAACP headquarters in New York and repeatedly warned, in vain, of impending violence.

Courtesy John LeFlore Papers, the Doy Leale McCall Rare Book & Manuscript Library, University of South Alabama

NAACP Special Counsel, known as Mr Civil Rights. Grossly overworked, spread thin, underfunded, and understaffed. Arranged for DOJ interview of Buster Walker after hearing his report on the Brownsville Terror. Retained to represent Annie Williams regarding Elbert's death. Investigated at Brownsville and Chicago on December 8 and 9, 1941. Too little, too late. Vocal critic of the FBI's poor investigation and the DOJ's closure of the case without prosecution.

Public Domain. Published by the Detroit Tribune November 23, 1946, without copyright notice. Wikimedia Commons

NAACP career began in 1918. NAACP Secretary 1929-1955. Never fully comprehended the danger posed by the Brownsville terrorists. Learned very hard lessons in Brownsville. Did not mention Elbert Williams or Brownsville in his autobiography.

National Portrait Gallery, photo by Clara Sipprell (1885-1975) made available under the Creative Commons CCO 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication, Wikimedia Commons.

NAACP Assistant Secretary, in charge of Public Affairs. Drafted NAACP press releases regarding Elbert Williams' murder and the Brownsville Branch's effort to register voters. Delivered eulogy at Medgar Evers' funeral, reminding mourners that the people in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s stood on the shoulders of "Pioneer Fighters" like Elbert Williams.

Public Domain. Photo by Yoichi Okamoto (1915- 1985) an em[ployee of the Executive Office of the President of the United States as an official duty. Wikimedia Commons.  

Co-founder NAACP 1909. Served as NAACP Executive Secretary & in 1940 was Treasurer & Board Member. Estranged from Walter White, accused him of using funds NAACP Board had appropriated for a particular purpose for another without Board approval. Backed Thurgood Marshall's legal work. Proposed a memorial that a Graveside Memorial for Elbert Williams be held on 1st Anniversary of his murder, but the NAACP failed to bring it off.

Public Domain. Photographer, the late Charles J Damph, restored by Adam Cuerden. Wikimedia Commons.  

Ultra wealthy industrialist, Harvard & MIT educated  Boston Brahmin. WWI US Navy pilot. Racial egalitarian. NAACP donor, board member & in 1940 NAACP vice-president. The cash strapped, understaffed, overworked NAACP failed to accept Cabot's offers to fund criminal prosecution and civil actions against the Brownsville terrorists.

Public Domain. Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, Vol. X, pgs. 300-301, 1924, Wikimedia Commons.

Civil rights champion. Governor of Michigan. Fifty-sixth Attorney General of the United States. Founder Civil Liberties Unit in Criminal Division of Department of Justice, the first government entity devoted entirely to civil rights enforcement since Reconstruction. Associate Justice US Supreme Court. 

Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons, Published in the Michigan Manual (1937-1938)

Fifty-eighth Attorney General of the United States. Considered a racial liberal and a friend of the NAACP, but closed the Elbert Williams case January 22, 1942 without prosecution of the Brownsville terrorist killers.

USHMM, courtesy National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. Public Domain Wikimedia Commons.

Assistant United States Attorney General, head of the Criminal Division Head January 1941 to August 1943. Twice ordered US Attorney McClanahan to indict the Brownsville terrorists, observing that the facts "undoubtedly" made out a violation of Federal Criminal Statutes, then without explanation did an about face and advised the US Attorney General that the evidence was insufficient to prosecute.

Harris & Ewing Photographer, Library of Congress. Public Domain. Wikimedia Commons.

On left, US Attorney William P McClanahan who opposed prosecution of the Brownsville terrorists. On Right, Assistant United States Attorney General, Head of the DOJ Criminal Division O John Rogge, a civil rights champion forced to resign his office in December 1940 because of his insistence on enforcement of Federal civil rights laws.

Dates of service: May 20, 1939 to December 20, 1940

University of Memphis Libraries, special collections 

John Doar, intergrating Ole Miss January 16, 1962, left to right: US Marshall James McShane, James Meredith, and John Doar, US Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, prosecutor 196-1967.

In 1960, John Doar brought justice to Haywood County, Tennessee. He obtained a Federal injunction against Tip Hunter and others, prohibiting them from taking punitive action against Black voter registrants. Twenty years after Elbert Williams' murder, the vote came to Black Americans in Brownsville without the terror.

Public Domain. Marion S Trikosko, photographer, US News & World Report Collection, Library of Congress, Wikimedia Commons

Father of the FBI Crime Lab, Director Hoover's crown jewel.

Public Domain. Work of US government employee.

FBI Director J Edgar Hoover and his Assistant Director and friend Clyde Tolson relaxing at the beach circa 1939.

Los Angeles Daily News Collection, UCLA Library, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, Wikimedia Commons 

Tennessee's senior US Senator Kenneth D McKellar, US Attorney McClanahan's mentor, with his political machine partner, Memphis Mayor, Edward Hull "Boss" Crump, enjoying themselves at the 1940 Democrat National Convention.

Courtesy, Ray Hill, McKellar scholar, Knoxville TN

Mississippi's notorious Senator Theodore Bilbo wound up his multi-state speaking campaign for FDR in 1940 at a huge West Tennessee Democrat Election Eve Rally in Brownsville, TN. Where he mingled with Democrat dignitaries and almost certainly terroists as well.

Harris & Ewing photographer. Library of Congress. Wikipedia Commoms.

TN Death Certificate #14150 Elbert Williams

Public Domain

Coroner's Affidavit identifying Elbert Williams's body and stating cause to believe his death was unlawful and the Coroner's Inquest Jury Verdict.

Public domain Courtesy, the author

FBI Report August 14, 1940, cover page, case file 44-HQ-359

Obtained by author per FOIA.

FBI Report November 28, 1940, Tip Hunter's Alibi, statements of Tip Hunter and his sole alibi witness W E Wilson

Obtained by author per FOIA.