<html><head></head><body><div class="ydp8c107f88yahoo-style-wrap" style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><div id="ydp8c107f88yiv4112148335"><div><div class="ydp8c107f88yiv4112148335ydp46e4a44fyahoo-style-wrap"><div id="ydp8c107f88yiv4112148335ydp46e4a44fyiv9865267066"><div dir="ltr"><div style="color: rgb(38, 40, 42); outline: currentcolor !important;" dir="" data-setdir="true"><font size="3"><b style="outline: currentcolor !important;">The public is invited</b></font></div><div style="color: rgb(38, 40, 42); outline: currentcolor !important;"><font size="3"><b style="outline:currentcolor !important;"><br></b></font></div><div style="color: rgb(38, 40, 42); outline: currentcolor !important;"><font size="3"><b style="outline:currentcolor !important;">Monday, July 8 at 7:30.</b><br></font></div><div dir="ltr" style="color: rgb(38, 40, 42); outline: currentcolor !important;"><font size="3" style="outline:currentcolor !important;"><div><div dir="ltr" style="outline:currentcolor !important;"><b style="outline:currentcolor !important;">West Club Blvd & Berkeley</b>, the site of the shooting. </div><div><br></div></div></font></div><div dir="ltr" style="color: rgb(38, 40, 42); outline: currentcolor !important;"><font size="3" style="outline:currentcolor !important;">Vigil for Private Booker Spicely on the 80th anniversary of his death (more below).</font></div><div dir="ltr" style="color: rgb(38, 40, 42); outline: currentcolor !important;"><font size="3"><br></font></div><div dir="ltr" style="color: rgb(38, 40, 42); outline: currentcolor !important;"><font size="3">Brief remarks, followed by the lighting of candles.<br></font></div><div dir="ltr" style="color: rgb(38, 40, 42); outline: currentcolor !important;"><b style="outline:currentcolor !important;"><font size="3" style="outline:currentcolor !important;"><br clear="none" style="outline:currentcolor !important;"></font></b></div><div dir="ltr" style="color: rgb(38, 40, 42); outline: currentcolor !important;"><span style="outline:currentcolor !important;"><font size="3" style="outline: currentcolor !important; background-color: inherit;"><b>Hosted by the Booker T. Spicely committee. </b></font></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="color: rgb(38, 40, 42); outline: currentcolor !important;"><span style="outline:currentcolor !important;"><font size="3" style="outline: currentcolor !important; background-color: inherit;">(Sunday's performance at NorthStar sold out.)</font></span></div><div><b style="outline:currentcolor !important;"><font size="3" style="outline:currentcolor !important;"><br></font></b></div></div><div dir="ltr"><span style="background-color:inherit;"><b><font size="3"><br></font></b></span></div><div dir="ltr"><span style="background-color:inherit;"><b><font size="3">This NC soldier's story reminds us why racial history matters</font></b></span></div><div dir="ltr"><span style="background-color:inherit;"><b><font size="3">Jerry Gershenhorn, 5 July 2024, N&O, Herald-Sun, Charlotte Observer</font></b></span></div><div dir="ltr"><span style="background-color:inherit;"><font size="3" style="background-color:inherit;"><br></font></span></div><div dir="ltr"><span style="background-color: inherit;"><font size="3" style="background-color:inherit;">Eighty years ago on July 8, 1944, in the midst of World War II, Private First-Class Booker T. Spicely gave his life for his country.</font></span><div class="ydp8c107f88yiv4112148335ydp46e4a44fyiv9865267066ydped89158yahoo-style-wrap"><div id="ydp8c107f88yiv4112148335ydp46e4a44fyiv9865267066ydped89158yiv7394183145"><p style="margin-top: 12px; margin-bottom: 12px; line-height: 21.6px;" class="ydp8c107f88yiv4112148335ydp46e4a44fyiv9865267066ydped89158yiv7394183145s2"><font size="3"><span style="line-height:21.6px;">But he did not die in any battle against America’s foreign enemies. Instead, he gave his life to the cause of freedom at ho</span><span style="line-height:21.6px;">me, fighting for equal rights for Black people in America.</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 12px; margin-bottom: 12px; line-height: 21.6px;" class="ydp8c107f88yiv4112148335ydp46e4a44fyiv9865267066ydped89158yiv7394183145s2"><font size="3"><span style="line-height:21.6px;">A white bus driver in Durham executed Spicely for boldly questioning the order that he move to the back of the bus. As he defied Jim Crow law, Spicely</span><span style="line-height:21.6px;"> said: “I tho</span><span style="line-height:21.6px;">ught I was fighting this war for democracy.”</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 12px; margin-bottom: 12px; line-height: 21.6px;" class="ydp8c107f88yiv4112148335ydp46e4a44fyiv9865267066ydped89158yiv7394183145s2"><span style="line-height:21.6px;"><font size="3" style="background-color:inherit;">When Spicely exited the bus, the driver, Herman Lee Council, pulled out his .38 caliber pistol and shot the Black soldier, who was unarmed and in uniform.</font></span></p><p style="margin-top: 12px; margin-bottom: 12px; line-height: 21.6px;" class="ydp8c107f88yiv4112148335ydp46e4a44fyiv9865267066ydped89158yiv7394183145s2"><font size="3"><span style="line-height:21.6px;">Today, conservative Republican pundits and politicians w</span><span style="line-height:21.6px;">ork to erase America’s racist past from public schools by removing books from school libraries and manipulating social studies standards. That’s why it’s paramount that we learn about and remember the acts of courageous Americans like Spicely.</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 12px; margin-bottom: 12px; line-height: 21.6px;" class="ydp8c107f88yiv4112148335ydp46e4a44fyiv9865267066ydped89158yiv7394183145s2"><font size="3"><span style="line-height:21.6px;">Ten minutes </span><span style="line-height:21.6px;">after Spicely was shot, military police arrived at the crime scene. They took him to Watts Hospital, less than half a mile away, but Watts refused to admit him because of his race. Instead of treating a gravely wounded man, Watts’ medics tested Spicely’s b</span><span style="line-height:21.6px;">lood for alcohol (the result was negative). Spicely was then transported to Duke Hospital where he died.</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 12px; margin-bottom: 12px; line-height: 21.6px;" class="ydp8c107f88yiv4112148335ydp46e4a44fyiv9865267066ydped89158yiv7394183145s2"><font size="3"><span style="line-height:21.6px;">Spicely’s protest against racial segregation was part of a national movement known as the Double V Campaign, whereby African Americans fought racial in</span><span style="line-height:21.6px;">justice at home while fighting against America’s enemies overseas. Spicely gave his life for the principles that the United States claimed to be fighting for in the war against the Axis powers: freedom, democracy and equality.</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 12px; margin-bottom: 12px; line-height: 21.6px;" class="ydp8c107f88yiv4112148335ydp46e4a44fyiv9865267066ydped89158yiv7394183145s2"><font size="3"><span style="line-height:21.6px;">Three days after Spicely was </span><span style="line-height:21.6px;">killed, the Durham Morning Herald, the local voice of white supremacy at that time, claimed, “Fortunately, we live in a city where justice may be guaranteed,” adding “we live in a democratic country, in a state that has been noted for its fairness to all r</span><span style="line-height:21.6px;">aces.”</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 12px; margin-bottom: 12px; line-height: 21.6px;" class="ydp8c107f88yiv4112148335ydp46e4a44fyiv9865267066ydped89158yiv7394183145s2"><span style="line-height:21.6px;"><font size="3" style="background-color:inherit;">But, in fact, in 1944, the U.S. was not a democratic country, North Carolina was not fair to Black people, and Durham did not deliver justice for its Black citizens.</font></span></p><p style="margin-top: 12px; margin-bottom: 12px; line-height: 21.6px;" class="ydp8c107f88yiv4112148335ydp46e4a44fyiv9865267066ydped89158yiv7394183145s2"><font size="3"><span style="line-height:21.6px;">Despite the paper’s preposterous claim that “there can be no fear that race will ov</span><span style="line-height:21.6px;">erwhelm the evidence,” that is precisely what happened. Race did overwhelm the evidence in Durham, as it regularly did in the Jim Crow South.</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 12px; margin-bottom: 12px; line-height: 21.6px;" class="ydp8c107f88yiv4112148335ydp46e4a44fyiv9865267066ydped89158yiv7394183145s2"><font size="3"><span style="line-height:21.6px;">At the trial, despite several witnesses’ testimony that demonstrated the bus driver’s guilt, the all-white jury de</span><span style="line-height:21.6px;">liberated for 28 minutes before declaring the driver not guilty.</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 12px; margin-bottom: 12px; line-height: 21.6px;" class="ydp8c107f88yiv4112148335ydp46e4a44fyiv9865267066ydped89158yiv7394183145s2"><font size="3"><span style="line-height:21.6px;">After the trial, the leading Black newspaper in the country, The Chicago Defender, declared: “The country has again been treated to North Carolina justice,” noting that </span><span style="line-height:21.6px;">for some white Southerners winning the war took second place to keeping “Negroes in their place.”</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 12px; margin-bottom: 12px; line-height: 21.6px;" class="ydp8c107f88yiv4112148335ydp46e4a44fyiv9865267066ydped89158yiv7394183145s2"><font size="3"><span style="line-height:21.6px;">Spicely’s killing was not an isolated case. Indeed, many whites viewed the very presence of Black men in uniform as a threat to white supremacy. From 1941 </span><span style="line-height:21.6px;">to 1946, at least 50 Black soldiers and veterans were killed in the United States, including five in North Carolina, because they challenged Jim Crow law. In failing to hold whites like Council accountable for their murderous actions against Black citizens</span><span style="line-height:21.6px;">, the justice system sanctioned violence in service to white supremacy.</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 12px; margin-bottom: 12px; line-height: 21.6px;" class="ydp8c107f88yiv4112148335ydp46e4a44fyiv9865267066ydped89158yiv7394183145s2"><font size="3"><span style="line-height:21.6px;">Today more than ever, we must remember and learn about the heroic acts of courageous Americans like Pfc. Booker T. Spicely, who fought racism at home to ensure that America lived up to</span><span style="line-height:21.6px;"> its professed ideals of freedom and democracy.</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.6px;"><span style="line-height:21.6px;"><i><font size="3">Jerry Gershenhorn is a retired North Carolina Central University history professor and a member of the Booker T. Spicely Committee.</font></i></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.6px;"><span style="line-height: 21.6px;"><font size="3" style="background-color: inherit;"> </font></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.6px;"><span style="line-height:21.6px;"><font size="3" style="background-color:inherit;"><img alt="image0.jpeg" src="cid:ad309214-4aed-6a6c-d5b3-462cbf4dacad@yahoo.com" style="width:50%;max-width:400px;" class=""><br></font></span></p><div id="ydp8c107f88yiv4112148335ydp46e4a44fyiv9865267066ydped89158yiv7394183145AppleMailSignature" dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>