Two Negros Are Lynched One Missing

Case(s)
Source Type: Newspaper
Publisher: The Bee
Place of publication: Danville, Virginia
Date of publication: 8/13/1933 0:00
Source URL: View Source
Transcript:

One of three negroes spirited away by a lynching party was still missing today after the bodies of his two companies were found riddled by bullets. The three, Dan Pippen, Jr, 18, Elmore Clark, 28, and A.T. Harden, 16, had been indicted for killing Miss Vaudine Maddox, 21-year-old white girl, whose battered bidy was found in a ravine. Police said that as a result of rumors dof a threatened attack on the jail here, they decided to remove the prisoners to Birmingham for safekeeping. Sheriff R L Shamblin said that on the way, the party was halted yesterday near the Jefferson county ? by two automobile loads of armed men, who seized the negroes. Later the bodies of Pippen and Harden were found near Blocton. Acting on instructions from Governor B M. Miller, judge Henry B Foster ordered a grand jury investigation. Bitter criticsm came from the international labor defense, radical organization Lawyers for the I L D had sought to represent Pippen but were ruled out. Sheriff Shamblin charged that feel aroused by “the interference of the international labor defense lawyers in the case is directly responsible for this violence.”