Frank Wills, an unsung hero of the Watergate break-in scandal suffered the consequences of his actions in 1972

 

Frank Wills

Had it not been for the keen eyes and mental alertness of 24-year-old Frank Wills, Republican President Richard Nixon might have completed his second term. Watergate would not have happened. Despite of him thwarting the burglary that rocked Nixon’s underhanded politicking, Wills is seldom, if ever, mentioned when the 1972 scandal is discussed. 

Wills was not famous, a militant or a civil rights activist. He was a security guard. The 1970s was not a time when African Americans got positive press. Because of his actions June 17, Wills enlarged the target on his back. He became an enemy of the Nixon administration rather than a hero. 

In addition to Nixon and all the players connected to the break-in, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein are names you hear about and read about in books and news stories. Neither of them bothered to mention or acknowledge that Frank Wills is the reason they got the chance to write the hottest investigative story of their careers. It threw them into the national spotlight and landed a Pulitzer for The Washington Post.

Colbert I. King, op-ed columnist for The Washington Post was surprised in 2005 to discover that the paper completely ignored Wills on the anniversary of the Watergate scandal.

“My goodness. How is it possible that The Post could publish reams of copy rehashing the Watergate scandal, complete with detailed timelines, personal recollections, character sketches and portraits of characters -- living or dead -- related to Richard Nixon's downfall, and not once mention Frank Wills?

“Were it not for Wills's suspicion of a break-in and his decisive action, the world most likely would never have heard the names E. Howard Hunt or G. Gordon Liddy. There would have been no "Deep Throat" and no "All the President's Men" by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. There would have been no Pulitzer Prize for The Post, no image of a disgraced President Nixon waving goodbye before liftoff on Aug. 9, 1974, no President Gerald Ford, Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, and probably no President Jimmy Carter to sweep into office on the heels of the 20th century's greatest Washington political meltdown.

“But in all the stories written in The Post after Felt's admission, Wills did not get so much as an honorable mention.”

 
 Frank Wills is in demand and popular for a while after thwarting Watergate burglary 

Wills with his cat

Jet magazine wrote in 2002: “The Black building guard who discovered he tape on the door of the Watergate building in Washington, and touched off the biggest political scandal of the century, was not remembered during the thirtieth anniversary of the event. Frank Wills was not mentioned as the nation recalled the action that brought down the administration of President Richard Nixon.

“Wills died in 2000 in South Carolina, a broken man spiritually, mentally and financially. The Rev. Nathaniel Irvin, pastor of the Stormy Branch Baptist Church, in Aiken, SC was credited with raising funds to give Wills a moving funeral.”
 
I looked at a number of sites noting the Watergate scandal timeline, and I was surprised that none of them mentioned Frank Wills in the timeline. To name a few: Watergate info—1968 to 1974; Wikipedia —1968 to 2008; Fox News—1972 to1974; The Education Forum—1971 to 1974; American Presidents History—1972 to 1974; the Robinson Library—1969 to 1973.

Here is how the break-in was described in a book titled "The White House Transcripts": June 17. Second break-in at D.N.C. headquarters is interrupted at 2:30 A.M. McCord, Barker, Sturgis, Gonzales and Martinez are captured by Washington police and charged with second-degree burglary. Police confiscate their cameras and electronic surveillance equipment and sequenced $100 bills, part of Barker's $89,000 withdrawals from his April deposits."

Notice there is no mention of Frank Wills. The book's introduction, penned by a writer from the New York Times, does not state that Frank Wills blew the lid off the burglary. The reader is led to believe that the police automatically caught the burglars in the act.   

Los Angeles Sentinel wrote in 2005: “The recent revelation of the identity of the shadowy Watergate figure, "Deep-Throat," and the media saturation with events of the Watergate scandal forces the question--Whatever happened to Frank Wills?

“Wills was the Black security guard who discovered the break-in at the Democratic National headquarters in the Watergate Hotel in June 1972. Mainstream media has not bothered to mention Wills, even as a footnote in the Watergate history. It's as though he wasn't even there, and that is how history is often distorted.”

Frank Wills commenced this historical journey in the a.m. hour. He was working the midnight shift at the Watergate complex in Washington, DC. He began his rounds on the lower level, working his way up to the 11th floor. It was on the basement floor that he noticed duct tape on a door latch between the stairwell and the basement that led into the complex. He removed the tape and continued his rounds, after which he took a break.

Returning from his break Wills started his usual routine. He checked the door again around 1:55 a.m. The door latch was taped again. He did not remove it this time. He called the police, who arrived in an unmarked car and dressed in plainclothes. They did not want to alarm the burglars—if this was the case-- who were in the Democratic National Committee headquarters on the sixth floor. Inside the office police found five burglars: James McCord, Bernard Barker, Eugenio Martinez, Frank Sturgis and Virgilio Gonzales. They were equipped with cameras, film, wiretapping equipment and a few thousand dollars in cash. They were arrested at 2:30 a.m.

In an interview with The Florida Times-Union, Wills said, “When we turned the lights on, one person, then two persons, then three persons came out, and on down the line.”

The break-in eventually led to President Richard Nixon. Reportedly, 30 or m or government officials in his administration were charged with perjury, burglary, wiretapping. Trials for the burglars started January 8, 1973. Nixon was forced to resign in 1974. He did not want to face the embarrassment of impeachment.

Wills said in an interview with The Washington-Star News, “We treat the president like a king, when he should be a man for all the people.”

The Washington Post wrote in 2005, “Nixon and his top aides attempted to coverup involvement in the break–in and in other political dirty tricks and intelligence-gathering operations that were employed in the 19721 re-election victory over Democratic challenger George McGovern. While the media and members of Congress ignored or played down the significance of the break-in, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, two young reporters on the metropolitan news staff of The Washington Post, doggedly pursued leads that led to the highest levels of government.”

Wills was given an award by DNC chair Robert Strauss for his role in foiling the Watergate burglary. He said Wills “played a unique role in the history of the nation.” The plaque given to Wills by the DNC was taken back because dates on it were wrong. There are no reports that it was returned to Wills. He got recognition from the Southern Christian Leadership and the NAACP presented him with a truck.

Carl Bernstein (L) and Bob Woodward

Nixon leaving Washington after resigning

Woodward once said of Wills, “He’s the only one in Watergate who did his job perfectly.”

Life after Watergate went downhill for the 24-year-old security guard, who earned $80.00 a week. He did not get an increase in pay, a promotion or paid vacations that he asked for. Wills thought he had leverage to bargain with after thwarting the Watergate break-in. After leaving his job as a security guard it was difficult for Wills to find employment. A few reporters 
wrote that his taking off to do 
interviews was the reason he 
was terminated, as opposed to him quitting. Talk shows and the media were asking to interview him, which meant taking off work.

In the movie “All The President’s Men” Wills played himself. The book bearing the same title was written by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Wills did interviews with the media, and supposedly hired an attorney as his agent. He was asking for $300 per interview. Some paid, some did not. Wills fame was short lived. He did not go on the lecture circuit as he intended. He was not able to cash in on his temporary fame. Interest in the scandal faded from the public memory too fast.

After the rush of attention ended, he had to find employment. Wills's brush with fame proved to be his downfall. He told the Washington Post, “I don’t know if they are being told not to hire me or if they were just afraid to hire me.” He said he applied for a job with Howard University. Personnel was scared to hire him because its federal funds might have been cut. He finally got a job with at Georgetown University, but the job did not last long. Supposedly, he got into an argument with another employee.

On the 25th anniversary of Watergate, Wills’ resentment was loud and clear when he said to the Boston Globe: “I put my life on the line. I went out of my way. If it wasn’t for me, Woodward and Bernstein wouldn’t have known anything about Watergate. This wasn’t finding a dollar under the couch somewhere.” A few critics said he overplayed the danger he faced.

Comedian and activist Dick Gregory stepped in and hired Wills as a spokesman for a diet product that he was selling. Wills had to uproot and move to the Bahamas, where worked as a diet counselor at a health clinic.

In 1983 Wills was accused of shoplifting a $12.00 pair of tennis from a Georgia department store. According to an Associated Press story, “Wills said he was going to buy the shoes for his son and was hiding them in a bag so they would be a surprise. The arrest was a mistake, he said.”

Workers World did not take kindly to this charge, as was noted three decades later. “President Nixon’s partner in crime, Vice-President Spiro Agnew, got three years' probation for evading taxes on bribes filched from highway contractors. Frank Wills was sentenced to a year in jail in 1983 for allegedly trying to shoplift a $12 pair of sneakers.

“A victim of racial profiling, Wills wasn’t arrested while leaving the store. He was nabbed just for putting the shoes in his bag. He'd wanted to surprise a friend with his gift at the check-out counter.”

Frank Wills was born February 4, 1948 in Savannah, Georgia. His parents separated when he was a child; he was raised by his mother. He got a GED in Job Corps. While a teenager, Wills moved from South Carolina to Detroit to work in the Chrysler factory on the assembly line. He was laid off and eventually moved to Washington in 1971. Wills got an invitation to come to Washington from someone he met at the Chrysler plant. He took a Greyhound bus to DC, where he landed a job as a security guard with a private company. His work site was the Watergate office complex.

Near tragedy struck in 1990. Wills returned to North Augusta, South Carolina to be a caretaker for his mother, who suffered a stroke, leaving her impaired. He was unemployed, and they lived on her Social Security check of $450 a month. She died in November 1992. Wills was so cash strapped and destitute he could not afford to bury his mother.

Jet magazine wrote in 1993: “Nearly 21 years after his discovery of the infamous Watergate building complex break-in, which led to the downfall of the administration of former President Richard Nixon, Frank Wills, once hailed as ‘the hero of Watergate’, says he’s facing hard times, struggling to feed himself and pay bills accumulated since his mother’s death in North Augusta, SC. Neighbors say the grieving Black man is ‘at the end of the road’ and is desperate for a helping hand.
 

Wills sitting on step of his house

“He has applied for state disability assistance, but processing the case will take upwards of a month. He has been given food stamps. There are no rugs pm the house floor and cold air rushes between the cracks of the walls.”

Unlike Woodward and Bernstein, who got $5 million from the University of Texas for their Watergate notebooks and files in 2003, Wills was never able to gain a financial footing. Other individuals involved in Watergate also benefited financially from the scandal despite being involved in a crime.
 
Frank Wills died of a brain tumor September 27, 2000 at the University Hospital in Augusta, Georgia. He was buried in the Mount Transfiguration Baptist Church Cemetery in North Augusta, South Carolina. He was 52 years old.

North Augusta WRDW-TV News 12 wrote in a story June 11, 2012: “In a quiet North Augusta graveyard, you’ll find a quiet hero. His name is Frank Wills, and his tombstone in the Mount Transfiguration Baptist Church Cemetery reads, ‘Our native son in 1972 discovered the Watergate break-in.’ Wills’ discovery is a detail history seems to have all but forgotten.

“We remember Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the famous Washington Post reporters who tied the burglary to the White House and to Richard Nixon’s re-election campaign. In 2005, we learned the identity of Deep Throat, the man known as the Watergate whistle-blower. After decades of silence, Mark Felt, a retired associate director for the FBI, finally came forward.

“But Wills? Not a lot of people remember the night watchman whose sharp eyes started it all. He says he felt like he was being crucified for doing his job. All he wanted was some appreciation.”

He died three years after the interview. It took the media over 33 years to recognize Frank Wills role in the Watergate scandal. The recognition came too late for him to appreciate the   incensed indignation from the media. 

A first: Hattie McDaniel wins Best Supporting Actress for 1939 movie 'Gone With The Wind'

Hattie McDaniel accepts Academy Award

Unless you are a movie buff or film historian, you probably are not aware of actress Hattie McDaniel, an African American who was born June 10, 1895 in Wichita, Kansas. She was called “colored” back then, among other names that identified her ethnicity. McDaniel was one of 13 children born to Henry McDaniel and Susan Holbert, a gospel singer. Her father was a Baptist minister who played the banjo and performed in minstrel shows.

In 1900 the McDaniel family headed for Denver, Colorado.

McDaniel is Mammy in Gone with the Wind

Hattie attended Denver East High School, where she graduated. When she was a teenager, she trained to work in her father’s minstrel show. In 1920 she became a member of Professor George Morrison’s troupe, a traveling orchestra and minstrel show called Melody Hounds. She toured with the band for five years. 

McDaniel began courting her showbusiness career singing and dancing and performing comedy skits while attending high school. Years later she was asked to perform on Denver’s KOA radio. This gave McDaniel the distinction of being the first Black woman to sing on radio. Her brother Sam was a performer on radio station KNX. He was a regular on The Optimistic Do-Nuts show. McDaniel was added to the show after she moved to Los Angeles in 1929. Sam and sister Etta persuaded her to move to California. On the radio show Hattie was popular with the listening audience. She earned the nickname “Hi-Hat-Hattie.” 

McDaniel’s brother, an aspiring actor, played a butler in the "Three Stooges" short film, Heavenly Daze. Her sister Etta also wanted to be an actress. McDaniel honed her skills as a songwriter while performing in her father’s minstrel show. From 1926 to 1929 she recorded some of her songs on Okeh and Paramount Record labels. McDaniel had her eyes on getting into the movies, and in 1931 she got a break—sort of—as an extra in a Hollywood musical. 

A couple of years later she landed a nice size role in The Golden West, 1932. She got more bit parts, but no substantial roles. Significant roles for Black actors and actresses were few and far between, as is the history of Hollywood and Black actors. McDaniel was not discouraged by the roles she got. She refused to step away from her dream. In the meanwhile, she worked as a rest room attendant and other jobs to earn a living, while waiting for the next role or her big break.

Hattie McDaniel, Oscar night

In the movie Judge Priest (1934) McDaniel performed a duet with humorist/actor Will Rogers. It was a major role for her. Stepin Fetchit, another Black actor, also appeared in the movie. The next year she won a hefty role-playing Mom Beck in The Little Colonel (1935). McDaniel had finally gotten the eye of a Hollywood director, and her movie career was looking up. Her big break had arrived!
 
During the late 1930s Blacks appeared in movie roles that were stereotypical and somewhat demeaning in tone and context. Black actors played maids, mammies, slow taking buffoons, tap dancers. Despite these roles that would not make them rich, Black actors wanted to make it in show business. They understood the roles they accepted, and limitations put on them in an all-White industry. In racist tainted America, White movie goers were not ready to accept Blacks on the big screen unless they played subservient roles.

Stephin Fetchit appeared in the comedy Carolina, Judge Priest and Steamboat the Bend. Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, a tap dancer, was in The Little Rebel, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and One Mile From Heaven. Louise Beavers played a maid in the classic movie Imitation of Life and No Time for Comedy. She went to get more memorable roles. 

Whereas African Americans viewed her roles as stereotypical and demeaning, McDaniel milked her roles for all they were worth. And, yes, she had answers for her critics. The Kansapedia-Kansas Historical Society wrote of McDaniel: "Hattie McDaniel's screen career was built upon the image of the verbally flip, clever maid whose knowledge of human nature is wider and wiser than that of the bourgeois sorts who employ her. Hattie McDaniel filled these roles with an ironic energy, using her massive figure, enormously mobile face, and rich voice to transform the meek servant into a knowing critic of the ways of the masters. When asked why she played only these stereotypical domestics, McDaniel replied: 'It's Better to get $7,000 a week for playing a servant than $7.00 a week for being one.'

"That was her practical response; her artistic response was equally direct. She created a series of memorable characters whose inescapable humanity could be enjoyed by both white and black audiences. In Alice Adams (1935), Show Boat (1936), Saratoga (1937, and The Mad Miss Manton (1938), she managed to embody the conventional virtues of the faithful servant, while preserving a sense of pride and autonomy in her characters. McDaniel's control over her own artistic vision built toward her portrayal of Mammy in Gone With the Wind (1939). Named best supporting actress for this performance, she became the first black American to win an Academy Award."

McDaniel’s big break came when she auditioned in 1939 for, and got the role of "Mammy" 

McDaniel auditions for role of Mammy

in Gone With The Wind, a movie that earned her $1,000 a week; considerably less than what White female actresses earned. She beat a number of Black actresses bidding for the role. McDaniel auditioned in full “mammy” costume, making her stand out from her competitors. Butterfly McQueen also had role in the movie. Her career basically stood still after Gone With the Wind.  McDaniel was awarded for her efforts by winning an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. The 12th Academy Awards took place at the Cocoanut Grove Restaurant of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.

The award presentation was preceded by a banquet in the hotel. McDaniel and her guest had to sit in the back of the room. They were not allowed to mingle with the White actors and their guests. Her fellow White actors appeared to be satisfied with the arrangement. At the premiere in Atlanta, McDaniel and other Black actors were not allowed to attend because of racism in the segregated South. Clark Gable, the leading male actor in Gone With The Wind, threatened to boycott the premiere if McDaniel could not attend. Supposedly she persuaded him to attend. When the movie premiered in Hollywood McDaniel was there.

A gossip columnist name Louella Parsons wrote about Oscar night, 1940: "Hattie McDaniel earned that gold Oscar by her fine performance of 'Mammy' in Gone with the Wind. If you had seen her face when she walked up to the platform and took the gold trophy, you would have had the choke in your voice that all of us had when Hattie, hair trimmed with gardenias, face alight, and dress up to the queen's taste, accepted the honor in one of the finest speeches ever given on the Academy floor”. 

McDaniel said in her acceptance speech: “Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, fellow members of the motion picture industry and honored guests: This is one of the happiest moments of my life, and I want to thank each one of you who had a part in selecting me for one of their awards, for your kindness. It has made me feel very, very humble; and I shall always hold it as a beacon for anything that I may be able to do in the future. I sincerely hope I shall always be a credit to my race and to the motion picture industry. My heart is too full to tell you just how I feel, and may I say thank you and God bless you".

The Oscar that McDaniel accepted at the award ceremony was not the actual Oscar (golden statue). The presentation was a farce. Off stage or sometimes later, McDaniel received a golden plaque with the image of Oscar statue imprinted on it. She donated the Oscar to Howard University. Not long afterwards it disappeared during six days of rioting in Washington, D.C. after the April 4, 1968, assassination of Martin Luther Kings, Jr. To this day no one knows what happened to the Oscar. The university told Jet magazine in 1998 that the university had no record of it arriving at Howard. It has been rumored that civil rights protesters took the Oscar and threw it in the Potomac River. 

Sidney Poitier was the next Black actor to win an Oscar 24 years later for “Lilies Of The Field.” It took 38 years before another Black actor won an Oscar. Denzel Washington won an Oscar for his role in “Training Day.” Even today the Oscar is elusive for African Americans in movies. None of Tyler Perry’s movies have ever been nominated for an Oscar, despite his movies being big money makers, attracting integrated audiences.
 
Through the 1940s McDaniel appeared in many more movies, but her on screen characters did not change. The NAACP and the African American community were not happy seeing Blacks playing the roles written for them. They did not feel these were the only parts Black actors and actresses could play. The NAACP did not consider the fact that there were no “colored’ directors, producers or “colored” owned studios during that time.

Walter White, president of the NAACP, asked Black actors and actresses to stop accepting the negative roles. He reasoned that the roles reflected poorly on the Black community. He said Black people were portrayed as a people incapable of progressing farther than cleaning and cooking and being mammies for White people’s children. He urged White owned studios to create positive parts for Black actors. White’s pleas fell on deaf ears. Besides, White movies goers would not accept “colored” actors playing aggressive roles like those played by White actors and actresses. Because of the conflict between McDaniel and the NAACP, roles for her slowed considerably.

McDaniel returned to radio in 1947 to perform in “The Beulah Show” on CBS radio. The show debuted on TV in 1951. Before the show had a full season McDaniel suffered a heart attack, forcing her to take a short leave of absence. She returned shortly to continue filming. Misfortune hit again when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1952.

Hattie McDaniel succumbed to cancer October 26, 1952 in Woodland Hill, California. She was 57. She was the first African American actor be interned at the Angeles-Rosedale Cemetery. She married four times, three of which ended in divorces; her first husband preceded in her death. 

Her estate was valued at less than $10,000 when she died. She left $1.00 to her first husband, Larry Williams. She had no children. McDaniel was posthumously awarded two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 1975 she was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame. Her face was on a January 25, 2006 Commemorative Stamp, which was produced for Black History Month.

 McDaniel played a maid 93 times out of the 300 movies she appeared in.

Black actors and actresses that have received Oscars:

• 1940 Hattie McDaniel  Best Supporting Actor, Gone With The Wind 

• 1963 Sidney Poitier  Best Actor in Leading Role,  Lilies of The Field

• 1982 Louis Gossett, Jr.   Best Supporting Actor, Officer and A Gentleman

• 1989 Denzel Washington  Best Supporting Actor, Glory

• 2002 Denzel Washington  Best Leading Actor in Leading Role, Training Day
  

• 1990 Whoopie Goldberg  Best Supporting Actress, Ghost

• 1996 Cuba Gooding, Jr.  Best Supporting Actor, Jerry McGuire

• 1999 Michael Clarke Duncan  Best Supporting Actor, The Green Mile

• 2002 Hally Berry  Best Actress in Leasing role, Monster's Ball 

•  2004 Jamie Foxx  Best Leading Actor, Ray

• 2004 Morgan Freeman  Best Supporting Actor, Million Dollar Baby

• 2006 Forest Whitaker  Best Leading Actor, The Last King of Scotland

• 2007 Jennifer Hudson  Best Supporting Actor,  Dreamgirls

• 2009 Mo’Nique  Best Supporting Actor, Precious

• 2009 Roger Ross Williams,  Best Documentary Short Subject

• 2011 Octavia Spencer  Best Supporting Actor,  The Help

• 2012 T. J. Martin  Best Documentary Feature, Undefeated

Henrietta Lacks suffered the pain of cervical cancer; science and medicine benefitted financially, and her family is dirt poor

In 1920 an estimated 53 African Americans were lynched; the 1920 Census noted there were 10, 463, 131 African American residing In the United States. The same year Marcus Gravey announced his “Back to Africa” movement. August 1, 1920 was also the year Henrietta Lacks was born in Roanoke, Virginia. Her name is not in history books despite of the contributions her cancerous cells have made to medicine and research all over the world.

Henrietta and her husband David Lacks

Lacks mother died when she was four; after which she went to Glover, Virginia to live with her grandfather, a tobacco farmer. By the time she was 14, Lacks had given birth to a daughter. When she was 20 she married her first cousin, David Lacks, the father of her children. They eventually moved to Baltimore in search of work for David.

“Shortly after Henrietta turned 30, she felt a knot in her lower stomach that she knew meant something was wrong. But with a husband and a house full of kids to take care of, Lacks could ill afford to worry for long; her family had little money for a doctor's visit, and at the time, many hospitals offered African-American patients substandard treatment.

“Months later, after the birth of her fifth child, the knot was still there, so Lacks finally asked her husband to drive her to Johns Hopkins Hospital, the only medical facility nearby that saw "colored people" for free. There, the doctors diagnosed Lacks with stage I epidermoid carcinoma of the cervix, which would require her to have radiation treatments a few times a month. During her first two-night stay in the hospital, doctors sliced several pieces of tissue from the cancerous tumor and placed them in a Petrie dish in the hopes of growing and studying them. Neither Lacks nor her family gave permission for her cells to be taken,” writes Allison Samuels for the Daily Beast.

Rebecca Sklott author of "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" writes: “On February 1, 1951, under the cover of a solitary tree, David Lacks stared through the window of his parked car, watching the rain fall. He and his five children, three still in diapers, sat outside Hopkins Hospital, waiting for Henrietta. A few days earlier, she had found blood spotting her underwear.

Howard Jones, a Hopkins physician, found a smooth eggplant-hued tumor glistening under the light on Henrietta's cervix. He touched its surface, shocked by its supple texture. Jones carefully cut a section of her quarter-sized tumor, sent it to the lab for a diagnosis, and sent Henrietta home with her family. Then came the news: the tumor was malignant.” 

According to Sklott, Henrietta was sent home after a couple of days, but eight days later she returned to John Hopkins for further treatment. The attending physician decided to “cover her cervix with radium in an attempt to kill the cancer. But before applying the first treatment, a young resident took one more sample.”

The cancer was too far along to cure. It was completely ravishing her body. Henrietta Lacks died a horrific death October 4, 1951. Sklott said Lacks was moaning, asking “the Lord to help her.”

Allison Samuels editorialized that, “Some 60 years after doctors committed what today would be an unconscionable violation of medical ethics, there's still only limited information on how often the practice of taking samples without consent was done to patients of poor backgrounds and limited education.

But Henrietta Lacks certainly wasn't the only African-American mistreated by the American medical establishment. Books such as Harriet Washington's "Medical Apartheid" have documented many cases of blatant misuse of medical practices on unknowing and unsuspecting black patients in the name of furthering science and discovering cures.”

Lacks' cells, called Hela cells, proved to be a gold mine for the medical world. Her cells have been the principal subject of 74,000 studies.  Financial fortunes were made and are continuing to be made today, but Lacks family have never benefitted from this discovery. Lacks family was not tole about the studies; therefore, they did not consent to the research boom.

When she died at age 31, Lacks was buried in an unmarked grave. In recent years the medical community donated money for a gravestone. Lacks surviving family members, still dirt poor, learned about the cells and their contribution to the medical world 25 years later.

The top photo to the left is the unmarked grave site of Henrietta Lacks, who was buried in a family's plot across the street from the family tobacco farm in Virginia. photo by Rebecca Sklott

Gravestone made possible with donations from medical community

Sklott writes about researching Henrietta Lacks story, not likely found in history books. “Eventually I tracked down a few magazine articles about her from the seventies. Ebony quoted Henrietta's husband saying, "All I remember is that she had this disease, and right after she died they called me in the office wanting to get my permission to take a sample of some kind. I decided not to let them."  

Jet magazine said the family was angry — angry that Henrietta's cells were being sold for twenty-five dollars a vial, and angry that articles had been published about the cells without their knowledge. "Pounding in the back of their heads was a gnawing feeling that science and the press had taken advantage of them".

Recently (2013) the National Institute of Health agreed with Lacks family that they should have some control of how Henrietta's genome is used. Unfortunately, they will not be rewarded financially. And despite of the agreement that was reached, the family was ignored again.

"Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory published the genome of a line of HeLa cells, making it publicly available for downloading. Another study, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health at the University of Washington, was about to be published in Nature. The Lacks family was not made aware of neither project.

“I said, ‘No, this is not right,’ ” Jeri Lacks Whye, one of Henrietta Lacks’s grandchildren, said in an interview. “They should not have this up unless they have consent from the family.”

Officials at the National Institutes of Health now acknowledge that they should have contacted the Lacks family when researchers first applied for a grant to sequence the HeLa genome. They belatedly addressed the problem after the family raised its objections. (The Washington Post).

Henrietta Lacks is survived by her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Senior citizens yell at cardboard cutout of President Obama at Romney/Ryan rally

On October 1, 2012 a rally for presidential candidate Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan was held at the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum in Denver, Colorado. Thousands of people attended, their brains loaded with silliness. The majority were senior citizens, most likely receiving Social Security and Medicare. Some are probably getting food stamps and other government help. I was surprised that no one had a poster informing big government to "Keep Your Hands Off My Social Security!"

In a news video a reporter in ProgressNow, folks were seen walking back and forth, holding a life size cardboard cutout of President Obama. People passing by look at it and make belittling comments. One woman can be heard saying the President makes her want to puke. A pot bellied senior proudly holds a poster that said he is one of the "47 percent." Little does he know that he is one of the freeloading, welfare getting, food stamps collecting, I don't want to work bums that Romney got caught talking about on a secretly recorded video at a high-end fundraiser. Romney, the candidate they went to see, is not concerned about them. Yet, this man is proud to display his ignorance on his big yellow poster.

Another senior female stuck her tongue out at the ProgressNow reporter videoing them. Someone told the cardboard cutout to "Go back to Kenya!" Someone else yelled at the reporter, "Is that your Muslim communist buddy?" Yet, another deranged senior yelled, "Strangle him!" It is not clear if he was talking about the reporter or the Obama cutout.

Joanne Schwartz, executive director of ProgressNow told KDVR in an email,  “It’s clear that not all, but many within Romney’s base of support dislike the President for irrational and often hateful reasons. Comments like ‘go back to Kenya,’ and asserting Obama is ‘black and used up’ reflect a much uglier prejudice than most Americans would not identify with. Everyone we videotaped yesterday has a right to free expression. But others have the right to publicly reject intolerance. In a free society, we have an obligation to call this out.”

On video the behavior of these senior citizens borders on childish nonsense.  That's what hatred and racism does to a person. It drives them batshit crazy.  These are the same kinds  xenophobic White people that belong to the Tea Party.  Strutting around in various city parks and streets, wearing ridiculous homemade costumes, holding equally ridiculous homemade posters, these lost souls steadfastly broadcast that they are the "true American patriots." 

The haters in Colorado are akin to other bigots who go into a tizzy,  proclaiming, "We want our country back!" The hype began after Barack Obama was elected president. If America went somewhere, no one told me. So obviously, America has never gone anywhere. It would be nice if these discombobulated folk packed their suitcases and moved to a Third World country, taking their buffoonery and antagonism with them.

The big problem here is that thousands of White people--educated and uneducated-- cannot stand an African American man being president of the United States. The America they grew up in has changed and will continue to change. The merry-go-round, like a fast moving train, will not stop for them to hop on board if they are standing in the wrong place. These sick seniors are too blinded their memories of the past. They do not to realize the world is passing them by.

Double murder of 2 White girls in a small town divided by race and railroad tracks

George Stinney, Jr; a copy of his fingerprints 

UPDATE: December 2014: After 70 years George Junis Stinney, Jr has been exonerated for the double murders of  June Binnicker and Mary Emma Thames, two White girls, in 1944 in Clarendon Alcolu, South Carolina. 

Judge Carmen Mullen of Beaufort, vacated the conviction against Stinney on Wednesday, December 17. In January, a judge agreed to hear new testimony and arguments in the case. 

Mullen made no finding of whether Stinney was guilty or innocent in the death of two White girls he was accused of killing. Segregation and intimidation of African Americans were rummaging across South Carolina, and  African Americans were at the mercy of angry White people in Clarendon County.

Third Circuit Solicitor Ernest Finney 111,  “ . . . praised Mullen who took nearly a year to write her 28-page opinion for doing a fine job of deliberating over some very novel issues that had to be addressed. As I understand it, this is not an exoneration of the young man, but it is a statement that due process was not complied with in the way it should have been.

"Mullens found numerous errors: Stinney's confession was likely coerced; the all-White jury was not a jury of his peers and his court appointed lawyer did little or nothing to defend him. There was no appeal of the case. Today juveniles cannot be executed. Less than two months passed between the trial and the execution." (The State, South Carolina's Homepage) 

On October 25, 2013, a 27-page motion was filed by lawyers to grant George Stinney, Jr. a new trial in hopes of posthumously clearing his name. Steve McKenzie, the lead attorney in the case, said they are confident that they can present enough evidence, so the judge will look at "this from the standards of today and say, 'this was not justice that was served back in 1944,'" said McKenzie.

According to another recent article in the Grio, " . . . the motion also includes two sworn statements from Stinney's two siblings, who say George was with family completing chores at the time of the murders and could not have committed the crime." 

 

The Grio interviewed Wilford 'Johnny' Hunter, who was jailed for car theft in 1944. He said he was in the cell with George Stinney. Hunter said they became friends, and the teenager told him that he did not kill the two girls. 

He said, ''Johnny  I didn't do it. Why would they want to kill me for something I didn't do? For years . . .I used to have dreams," Hunter said, "About [Stinney] and the electric chair."  

A few months ago I watched a true-life 2005 documentary titled The Trials of  Darryl Hunt. 

The documentary was about a young African American male, 19, born and raised in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Hunt was convicted to raping and murdering Deborah Sykes, 25, in 1984. She was a White woman employed at the Sentinel as a newspaper copy editor. This documentary got my attention, because it reminded me of other similar stories I had read about about Black males and young Black boys. They were always guilty before they were considered innocent.

The Sentinel reported that Sykes was stabbed 16 times. She was raped and sodomized on the morning of August 10, 1984. Reportedly, she was on her way to work.

14-year-old George Stinney, Jr. and another prisoner are escorted into the death chamber with another Black male as two jailers standby at the South Carolina State Penitentiary in Columbia.

Police did not find any physical evidence connecting Hunt to the crime. Nevertheless, he was convicted by a jury composed of one African American female and 11 Whites. Hunt was sentenced to life in prison, but was eventually freed by DNA evidence. 

In 2003 Willard E. Brown, an African American, and career criminal, confessed to the rape/murder of Deborah Sykes. DNA evidence confirmed that Brown was the killer. Hunt, who proclaimed his innocence throughout his imprisonment, served 19.5 years in prison. He was awarded $1, 650,000 million after filing a lawsuit against the state of North Carolina.

This brief journey into history is not only about Darryl Hunt. As I said in the first paragraph, his story reminded me of other similar stories. Hunt's story reminded of a baby faced 14-year old boy name George Stinney, Jr., an African American teenager, who was born in Alcolu, in Clarendon County, South Carolina, October 21, 1929.

I wish I could write that Stinney’s story was a rarity in 1944, but I cannot. None of these "guilty until proven guiltier" cases were peculiar to the kinfolk of hanged and executed African Americans. Speedy trials and even faster sentences of death have never been rare in Black communities throughout the United States. A White woman could scream "rape" and most assuredly the accused, regardless of his proclaims of innocence, would be sentenced to death. Kangaroo trials were disguised as actual trials. All White jurors did not pretend to deliberate in jury rooms.

Recently, several authors and journalists have written about the forgotten story of George  Stinney, Jr.; a true tale of a double murder in a small town. In the articles Alcolu is described as a small, working class town, where Blacks and Whites were separated by railroad tracks and race. Ironically, there is still a railroad tracks separation of Blacks and Whites in states all across America.

At the time Stinney was accused of committing these two brutal murders he was 5'1" tall and weighed between 90 and 95 pounds. When angry eyes zeroed squarely on him, pointing accusatory fingers at the youngster, there was no abject reasoning, or process of elimination among the White citizens in Alcolu. They wanted revenge for the killing of two White girls.

Over the span of 24 hours or less, local police officers arrested 14-year-old Stinney, charging him with brutally killing of Betty June Binnicker, 11, and Mary Emma Thames, 8.  According to limited accounts regarding this tragedy on March 23, 1944, the girls rode their bicycles across the railroad tracks into the Black community. It's said they were looking for maypops, a yellow edible fruit flower.

George Stinney's brother, Rev. Charles Stinney, in an interview with WEBEALL Radio,  said the police "rounded up several Black boys in the neighborhood." Alcolu police said Stinney used a railroad spike to beat the girls to death. They surmised that he dragged their bodies, along with their bicycles, down to a nearby creek. This murderous rampage occurred in broad daylight. None of Stinney’s neighbors came forward to say they had witnessed the beating deaths. None of his neighbors came forward to say they witnessed Stinney dragging the girls' lifeless bodies down to a nearby creek. Their bodies were found the next day by a White man, who later testified for the prosecution.

Quick (personal) analysis: Stinney was light in weight. He supposedly beat the two girls to death a with railroad spike, then dragged the two dead girls--both dead weight--down to a creek, along with their bicycles. There were no reported screams from the girls. It was still daylight. Stinney would have to make at least four trips to the creek without stopping. Surely someone in the neighborhood would have seen him dragging the dead girls to the creek.  A grown man couldn't have pulled this off this bloody feat without someone seeing him. And, he had the frame of mind to clean up the crime scene, making sure there were no footprints in the crime area. He weighed 95 pounds.

Stinney's weight eliminates the possibility of him being a muscular teenager, physically capable of committing two beating deaths. There was no mention of bloody clothes found in his home. No mention of a bloody crime scene. No bloody railroad spike was ever found. No White males in Alcolu were suspected or questioned. It takes strength to beat someone to death. One has to assume that one girl stood by still in panic, and watched her friend getting beat to death before she was finally beaten.

 A story about George Stinney was written in the Grio, September 28, 2011, by Zerlina Maxwell. The headline asked:  Was one of the youngest ever executed innocent?  Maxwell's article drew national attention to the 67-year-old story. According to Maxwell, “George Junis Stinney was even part of the search crew and told a bystander simply that he had seen the girls earlier that day. This claim was enough probable cause for the South Carolina police to arrest Stinney for the double murder, even though, the idea of him being strong enough to kill not one but two girls is a stretch.

"Despite this fact, the police hauled Stinney into the station for hours of intense interrogation, without the presence of either of his parents. Reports claim the police offered Stinney ice cream if he confessed to them that he committed the double murder. Stinney confessed. There is no written record of his confession in the archives. There is no physical evidence linking Stinney to the murder. There is no paper record of Stinney’s conviction,” writes Maxwell.  “This was South Carolina in 1944, with a Black male defendant, two young White female victims, and an all White, male jury. Stinney never stood a chance.”

Following Stinney’s arrest his family was given an ultimatum: leave town immediately or stay in Alcolu and face an angry mob. Stinney's father, who worked at Alderman Lumber Mill, was fired and forced out of their rental house owned by the company he worked for. Charles Stinney said they were not given time to pack their personal belongings. They left Alcolu the same evening Stinney was arrested. They go out of town with nothing but the clothes on their backs.  The Stinney family was forced to leave a son and brother behind to face his trial and predictable fate, alone and scared.

Stinney was represented by Charles Plowden, 31, a tax commissioner, who had political ambitions. It is not clear if he was an attorney who worked as tax commissioner. He was appointed by the court to represent Stinney. Plowden did not protest or object to the testimonies of the police officers, all claiming that Stinney freely confessed to the double killings of Binnicker and Thames. No written confession was available to exhibit during the rushed trial. The prosecution called three other witnesses, all White men. Not one of them was cross examined by Plowden. What these three witness testified to is puzzling, given there were no witnesses to the daylight murders of the two girls. What could they testify to?

Young Stinney could not look around the packed courtroom and see a friend. He could not search out the faces of his relatives to send him a comforting smile. He was surrounded by a courtroom of White Alcolu citizens that wanted him found guilty for the crime he was accused of committing. His court appointed lawyer made it easy for the jury to return a guilty verdict.

Prior to the trial a mob of White vigilantes went to the jail where the teenager was being held, intent on lynching him without a trial. Unbeknownst to them, the police had secreted Stinney to another jail 40 miles away in Charleston. In the meanwhile, a speedy trial was in the works. An all-White jury of 12 males was quickly selected. The trial lasted all of two-and-a-half hours. An estimated 1,000 people crowded the small courtroom. It took the jury 10 minutes to find the Stinney guilty. Fourteen year old George Stinney, Jr. was sentenced to die in the electric chair. To date, he is the youngest person to be “legally” executed in the United States.

Author David Stout wrote in his book Carolina Skeletons, “After a lunch break the case was heard before Judge Stoll. Plowden did not cross-examine any of the prosecuting witnesses. His defense consisted of claiming that Stinney was too young by law to be held responsible for the crimes. In response, the prosecution presented Stinney's birth certificate stating that he was born on October 21, 1959, which made him 14 years and five months old. Under South Carolina law in 1944 an adult was anyone over the age of 14.”

Stout further wrote about the execution (he was not an eyewitness): “June 16, 1944. At 7:30 p.m., George Stinney, Jr. was fitted into the electric chair. It had been designed for grown men, not children. He was five feet, one inch tall and weighed ninety pounds. The guards had a hard time strapping him into the seat. The mask over his face did not fit properly. When the switch was thrown, the force of the electricity jerked the too-large mask from his face and for the final four minutes of his life, spectators in the gallery had a full view of Stinney's horrified face as he was executed.

"Stinney's sister, Katherine Stinney Robinson, was interviewed on the fiftieth anniversary of her brother's execution and said, 'He was like my idol, you know. He was very smart in school, very artistic. He could draw all kinds of things. We had a good family. Small house, but there was a lot of love. It took my mother a long time to get over it. And maybe she never got over it,'” Stout wrote.

Charles Stinney, George's brother, said when their mother saw her son after the execution, she said, "They didn't have to burn him up like that." Stinney was buried in an unmarked grave in South Carolina. Charles said he have never gone back to visit the grave site.

Currently, there is an effort underway to clear Stinney’s name. Supporters of the effort want the state of South Carolina to confess and admit that officials executed the wrong person for the double killings. Charles Stinney said the NAACP attempted to get the execution stopped to no avail. They even called on President Franklin Roosevelt for help but they did not hear from him.

Today, Attorney Steve McKenzie is spearheading the effort to get justice for the 14-year-old boy. Upstate.com writes that McKenzie said, "As an attorney, it just kind of haunted me, just the way the judicial system worked to this boy's disadvantage or disfavor. It did not protect him." McKenzie is preparing whatever documentation is necessary to ask that the case  reopened.

Zerlina Maxwell of Grio, reported that McKenzie said Stinney was suspected simply because he said he saw the girls earlier in the day. "[Stinney] was a convenient target,” says McKenzie, but the challenge now is ”[h]ow do you exonerate somebody where there is absolutely no evidence one way or the other? There was only a coerced confession. The confession was never written. It was an oral confession testified to two White officers and told to an all White male jury.”  

Dog shot to death by police officer in East Austin causes angry uproar from public

On Saturday, April 14, Austin Police Officer Thomas Griffin answered a domestic violence call in East Austin, deemed a “high crime” area by the media and Austin Police Department.

What happened next is in dispute by the responding officer, and the owner of a Blue Heeler  named Cisco. The officer told Michael Paxton--Cisco’s owner--the dog should have been on a leash, despite it being in Paxton’s back yard. There was no mention in the media if Griffin entered a locked gate, after which he was confronted by the dog.

I am not a dog owner, but I know they (dogs) are territorial and protective of their space and their owners, especially when a stranger encroaches on their space. They tend to bark, growl and bare their teeth in a threatening manner. I think this is a dog’s way of telling a stranger to “back off.”

Whatever happened, Officer Griffin thought his life was in danger. According the police manual an officer can justifiably shoot and kill a dog (or human) if there is a perceived threat to an officer or any one else. Cisco was shot to death in its owner’s back yard.

Initially, Griffin pulled his gun on Paxton when he arrived at the resident.

Dog owners and lovers have bombarded the Austin Police Department since the shooting. Some have made threats, and writing emails, both of which are full of profanity and anger,  Police Chief Art Acevedo said during a press conference. People are writing angry responses on Facebook, causing the incident to go international. He says complainers have a developed a “mob mentality” about the shooting.

I was listening to a couple local radio jocks this morning and they were very upset. They said people were calling the show expressing extreme anger at the police officer. Some callers said the officer could have maced the dog instead of killing it.

The conservative radio jocks justified the shooting, saying the officer was responding to a call in East Austin, a “high crime” area, where “those people” live. To them, both of whom are White, whoever is killed by the police in East Austin, it's justified. No questions need be asked.

Griffin said he had his patrol car video on, but shooting of the dog was out of  camera range. What has to be heartbreaking for Paxton is that Cisco did not have to die at the hands of Griffin, who answered a disturbance call at the wrong address. He was not supposed to be at Paxton’s house.

The Chief Acevedo said the shooting is under investigation. A local TV station investigated the “criminal history” of Cisco. Neither human nor pet misses media scrutiny in East Austin.

According to the Austin American Statesman, “Paxton has denied that Cisco behaved aggressively. KXAN  TV reported Wednesday that Animal Control records indicate that a man, who was not bitten, reported that Cisco was overly aggressive, and had charged him as he walked down the sidewalk. In another instance, the news station reported, a woman claimed that Cisco had bitten her as she tried to pet him in a parking lot."