THE DAILY COMPASS, 'THURSDAY, JUNE 15, 1950

# The Story of Willie McGee

A white woman says she was "raped" while her husband and children slept nearby. She says it was pitch dark and she couldn't see who attacked her, but that it was a Negro.

The place is Laurel, Miss., and the white woman's statement results in the arrest of Willie McGee on Nov. 3, 1945. For 33 days McGee is held incomunicado, beaten, starved, tortured. He signs a confession.

Mrs. Willie McGee, here in the North to help the Civil Rights Congress in the fight to stave off her husband's execution, scheduled for July 27, has told the whole terrible story to THE DAILY COMPASS. In yesterday's installment, she related how McGee was arrested and how, after "confessing," he was nearly lynched. THE COMPASS is presenting her story exactly as she related it, without altering her simple but eloquent language.

'In Sweatbox
You Sign
Anything'

By MRS. WILLIE MCGEE

I feel deep down in my heart that Willie is innocent. So when they say he confess to raping Mrs. Hawkins I just know that isn't true. They say he confessed oral when they bring him back to Laurel. That's when they beat him all the time. And then they wrote it down what they wanted him to say and Willie he sign it so they don't beat him to death.

The confession they make Willie sign say he raped Mrs. Hawkins while she lying in bed with a sick baby in the same room. And Mr. Troy Hawkins and two other little children asleep in the next two rooms. And they say Mrs. Hawkins cry out but nobody hear her. It's funny nobody hear nothing. It's because it didn't happen. That's why.

Well, the sheriff take Willie to Jackson 'cause a lynch mob want to kill Willie. And they took White's clothes and his underwear and they kept them all the time and they never took them to a laboratory to test them. They said they never had time.

And what happened that night, Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins they was fighting and she ran down the street with no clothes on but the husband he testify he stayed in bed and never woke up until Mrs. Hawkins woke him up and said she been raped.

Down in Jackson they make Willie sign that confession. They kept him in the sweatbox 14 days on bread and water. Willie say that's a place where they put you and sweat you 'bout nearly to death. He say he stayed in that box and stayed in that box and when you stay in that box you sign anything.

I just knew he didn't do it. They know it, too. I didn't see Willie while they held him there 30 days before putting him on trial. Nobody saw Willie, not me, his mother Bessie, no lawyer, nobody, nobody. Nobody but the police and then they let Mr. Troy Hawkins in to look at Willie but not me.

## They Hold a Sanity Hearing.

Then on Dec. 6, 1945, they bring Willie back to Laurel and the lynch mob they gather all around the courthouse. They bring Willie in a jeep that got machine guns on it and they have to carry Willie into the courthouse, he can't walk, he's so beat. And they hold a sanity hearing to find out if Willie crazy.

They pick them a jury off the street for that sanity hearing and they ask a lot of people who know Willie if he sane but they don't have no doctor to look at him. And Willie he can't say nothing. He don't even recognize his own mother Bessie. And that jury they say he sane all right. And they try him.

They got troopers in the courthouse to keep that mob down and that's the way it was when they tried Willie. The court they appoint two lawyers, N. W. Boyd and H. E. Koch, but those lawyers they don't see Willie 'til an hour before the trial and Willie he can't talk. He don't say nothing to these lawyers. Then they have the trial.

I don't know what all happened in that trial because they don't let no Negroes in the courtroom but they say Willie he never say a word, just sit there and shake and be scared. And they don't have no defense witnesses and the lawyers they hardly even cross-examined the state witnesses. They don't even ask Mrs. Hawkins any questions. And then the jury go out and they give Willie that two-minute justice. They say he guilty and the mob they want to get at Willie and they take Willie out the back door and take him back to Jackson. And that all happened in one day. They bring him from Jackson to Laurel, hold a sanity hearing, pick a jury, try Willie, convict him and sentence him to death and take him back to Jackson. One day. I never forget that day.

Tomorrow: Mrs. McGee sees the electric chair.

WILLIE MCGEE'S WIFE (RIGHT) AND MOTHER

McGee's
'Sanity'
Hearing

On the day of Willie McGee's first trial, the defense lawyers asked for a sanity hearing. Excerpts from the testimony follow:

Defense Attorney: "I ever saw (McGee) before I didn't know it. I probably have, he has been here all these years, was raised here, but we take him in the room and try to get something out of him and can't. We get his mother in there and she can't get a word out of

## The Pattern of Terror

From a letter from one of Willie McGee's defense attorneys:

"Friends of my associate and myself reported incidents of threats made against our own lives but refused to testify to these facts because of public sentiment. . . . Near the conclusion of the trial-the sheriff again took the husband of the prosecurixto custody when he was discovered in the courtroom armed with a pistol. . . "

him and she prays over him, I reckon everything else. Of course he looks more to me like a wild hyena than anything else. . . . He may be sane and may not be. I'm not a mental specialist. . . "

Direct examination by prosecuting attorney of Horace Moraes, former employer of Willie McGee:

Q. The issue that is before the jury now is to determine whether or not the defendant is sane or insane. Do you know the defendant, Willie McGee?

Objection by defense.

The judge: Overruled. A layman can give an opinion as to whether he is sane.

A. Yes, I know him. . .

Q. What is your opinion of him now . . . as to whether you think he is sane?

A. I think he is sane myself, Mr. Pittman.

Q. (Referring to Willie's shaking and silence) And you think this is kind of horse play?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. Do you think he can talk to his lawyers if he wants to?

A. I believe he can.

Direct examination of Capet, Robert B. Taylor of the National Guard:

Q. When you got to the Jackson

(Continued)

Willie McGee's
Sanity Hearing

(Continued
son or Hinds County jail, tell
the jury how he acted?

A. He ate supper. And then when he was turned loose he acted just like a mule heading for his stall when you turn him aloose. He knew right where to go . . . The jailer said, "Willie, go to your cell," and p-s-s-s-t, just like a mule to his stall."

Q. Do you think he is feigning over there now, or what we can call horse play?

A. He is putting on a pretty good act, sir.

Defense examination of Mrs. Bessie McGee, mother of Willie: Q. State what you think about his condition now.

A. To my notion he been over there in jail . . . and stayed worried until he just about done lost his mind. That's my notion. VERDICT: SANE.

Tomorrow: McGee's "confession."