3. Strain, Christopher Barry. “Civil Rights and ... - Freedom Archives

the head, causing a gash . Leneva Tiebeman, a white nurse, rushed Hectic to a car driven
by two Deacons, Henry Austan and Milton Johnson, who monitored the march from their
automobile . White toughs hassled the girl and the nurse, who sought to take Hattie to a
first-aid station in the black community. Miss Tiebeman hustled Hectic into the bsckseat
of the car. When Austan and Johnson leaned from the car window, twenty-five-year-old
Alton D. Crowe, Jr. of nearby Pearl River struck them both repeatedly in the face . Austan
shot Crowe in the chest and neck . Police yanked both Austan and Johnson from the car,
cuffed them on the car's hood, and took the two men to an undisclosed locale for
protection from angry whites, who shouted at policemen and attacked news
photographers .2~
That same night, again, two rallies occurred: one held by the Bogalusa Civic and
Voters League, which coordinated black protest in Bogalusa, and one held by the
National States Rights Party . The latter rally featured J . 8. Stoner, an Atlanta attorney
and outspoken racist who declared the "nigger" the "enemy" of his organization . "The
nigger is not a human being," he told the crowd of 2,000 men, women, and children . "He
is somewhere between the white man and the ape:' He observed that black people were
taking white jobs . "Every time a nigger gets ajob," he cautioned, "that's just one more
job that you can't have ." He urged whites to fire their black domestic help to speed black
emigration from the South . Finally, Stoner played the trump card of southern phobias,
saying, "You notice the niggers arc singing, `I Love Everybody.' They sure~love
2~Roy Reed, "White Man is Shot by Negro in Clash in 8ogalusa, La .;' New York
Times (July 9,1965): 1, 13 . See also `"Tension in Boglausa, La.," Facts on File (July 7,
1965) : 255 .
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