On April 5, 1921, a plantation owner named John S. Williams was tried in “Georgia’s greatest murder trial.” Yes, you read that right – plantation owner, 1921!
Though slavery had ended decades before, Williams ran an illegal “peonage” system, or forcing people to work in bondage to pay off debts. And he was especially brutal.
From paying only 35 cents a YEAR, to whipping his Black “peons” daily, Williams’ violence initially flew under the radar. In fact, local police even arrested random Black people just so they could be forced to work on plantations!
But then came the murders.
When one farmhand escaped and confessed what was really going on, Williams made his Black farm boss Clyde Manning kill the “evidence.” Within a few weeks, they had murdered 11 men. And when a young boy discovered one of the bodies in a stream a month later, the trial began.
Manning was sentenced to prison for life. But to Williams’ surprise, so was he! The “death farm” murders were so shocking, Southern leaders had to admit they’d been letting illegal peonage slide. But it didn’t completely disappear.
“Freedom” is never really freedom in this country, even to law enforcement and the courts. Although Williams was punished for peonage, debtor’s prisons actually still exist today. The system never stops being anti-Black – it only pretends to change its ways.