Thread by @DrRJKavanagh

In 1946 Monroe Georgia, a mob of 30 White men lynched 4 young African American men and women. Despite a grand jury hearing evidence from more than 100 witnesses, no one was ever indicted. Now, a court may rule that those grand jury transcripts be unsealed. tampabay.com/opinion/column…

A three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals had already ruled that the grand jury testimony be unsealed, but the full court vacated that opinion, ordering that the case be heard as a full court.
washingtonpost.com/history/2019/0…

Why? A reason was not given, but it is worth noting that the dissenting opinion in the Court of Appeals was based on "reputational harm" that may be done to living relatives of the perpetrators and witnesses to the lynching.

The four people lynched in what is now known as the Moore's Head Lynching were George W. and Mae Murray Dorsey; and Roger and Dorothy Malcom; two married couples.

George W. Dorsey was a veteran of World War Two. His wife Mae was 7 months pregnant.

All four were employed as sharecroppers by a White man, L. Roy Harrison, reputed to be a member of the KKK.

The day of the lynchings, Roger Malcom had been arrested and jailed for allegedly stabbing a White man, Barnett Hester.

Harrison took the Dorseys & Dorothy Malcom to bail out Roger Malcom.

He claims they were set upon by a White mob as they drove home along Moore's Ford Road (but he was almost certainly also a participant himself).

The Dorseys & Malcoms were then taken to the banks of the Apalachee River and shot dead. After Mae Dorsey was shot, a man cut her fetus from her body with a knife.

Although 30 White men were said to have actually participated in the lynching, a crowd of about 200 people watched.

In 2006, the FBI reopened the Moore's Ford lynching case, in response to a number of factors. New suspects, including a man named Charlie Peppers, were identified and investigated, but no one was prosecuted and the case was closed again in 2015. theguardian.com/us-news/2015/f…

The unsealing of the grand jury testimony from 73 years ago will almost certainly not lead to any prosecutions. Which just makes you realize how backwards it is for the court's focus to be the "reputational harm" of relatives of KKK members and perpetrators of the lynching.

But that doesn't mean it's not vitally important to unseal the transcripts - not just because the case is historically significant. It's because it's the last semblance of a measure of justice for George and Mae Dorsey and Dorothy and Roger Malcom. We owe them that.

Finally, @TB_Times , this story is horrific enough without using the photograph you have to accompany it.

These are George and Mae Dorsey and Dorothy and Roger Malcom.