The Waterbury Democrat., 1937-06-14

VIII 0S GIlC ldSL dCL Ol tIlI6 II racial conflict.
 After more than year of delay, the trials of eight Negro boys who have become news figures will be Te0pened in a small, musty Nor gan County courtroom here July 6.
 Judge w. w. Callahan, symbol of Alabama rural justice, has or dered the Negroes brought here from Birmingham for arraign- lnent on charges that they crimin- ally attacked two white women foboes on 8 freight train near Paint Rock, Ala, in March, 1881.
 Only eight of the original nine Negroes will face Judge Callahan. One, Haywood Patterson, was con- victed under a new indictment in January, 1886, and sentenced to 75 years in prison.
 His appeal fro mthat sentence $ now before the Alabama Supreme Court.
 Four On Trial For Life
 The eight Negroes will be fighting for their lives and freedom for the fourth time before an Alabama bar of justice. Three times they have been convicted and sentenced to death, and three times their con- victions have been reversed by higher courts.
 Twice, the U. s. Supreme Court intervened and ordered the con- victions set aside. One reversal was by an Alabama trial judge.
 The trials have been delayed since Patterson's conviction for various causes, including the absence of a material witness and the illness and death of Lieutenant-G Governor Thomas E. Knight, Jr., special pros ecutor in the cases.
 It was at the end of Patterson's trial while the defendants were being taken to the Jefferson County jail in Birmingham that one of them, Ocie Powell, was shot during an at- tempted break.
 Powell was critically wounded ny Sheriff J. Street Sandlin after the Negro had slashed the throat of a deputy.
 Powell has recovered from his wounds and will be ready to face Judge Callahan, the warden at the Birmingham jail said.
 The eight Negroes will face ar raignment under indictments re- turned in 1885 by grand jury which sn.a I.,Ia Ia Nf fhpiT- rare The U. s. Supreme Court had re- versed previous decision on grounds that Negroes were sys- tematically excluded from jury rolls in Alabama.
 RetriaI Previously Ordered
 Earlier, in the fall of 1882, the high court had ordered new trials on grounds that the Negroes had not been given sufficient time to prepare their defense.
 As time for opening of the cases neered, persistent reports pre- vailed in Decatur and in Mont gomery, the state capital, that state and defense attorneys would get together on compromise before the Negroes are arraigned.
 However, Attorney General A.. A. Carmichael has announced that the state would go ahead with the prosecution.
 Members of defense and prose cution counsel have admitted that conferences have been under way for several months seeking an agreement whereby the Negroes would plead guilty and accept prison sentences.
 There was little indication today that Alabama would take special precautions against demonstrations when the trials are reopened other than to send detachment of high way patrolmen to Decatur to pre- serve order.
 The Negroes probably will De taken to Decatur on July 6 for arraignment and then returned to Birmingham pending the actual opening of the trials.
 At the new trials, the state will again recount it's oft-repeated