Title: Free Mayor Eddie Carthan and the Tchula 7
Description: Eddie Carthan was elected mayor of Tchula (the first black mayor of a bi-racial Mississippi plantation town since Reconstruction). His most vocal opponent was John Edgar Hayes, a wealthy white farmer who served on the town council. Hayes recruited two black aldermen, Roosevelt Granderson and Jason Gibson, to form a dissident majority. Tensions came to a head in 1980, when the police chief stepped down and Hayes engineered the appointment of a white businessman named Jim Andrews. Mayor Carthan recruited six men, including several police officers, to confront Andrews and tell him to step aside. Andrews refused and sustained minor injuries in an ensuing scuffle. The officer later told reporters Carthan had been set up. A white judge nonetheless sentenced Carthan to three years in prison, and Carthan was forced to leave office in 1981. While in prison, Carthan was (wrongly) charged with other crimes, including murder and giving false information to a federally insured bank.
Subjects: African American mayors, African American politicians
Places: Mississippi
People: Eddie Carthan (1949-)