Filed under: News, Race and Civil Rights
The people are welcoming, the Trojan band is legendary and cousins Jerry Lee Lewis, Mickey Gilley and Jimmy Swaggart all call the "Sportsman Paradise" home. Tucked away in an isolated corner of Highway 15, the locals often speak of the talent and rich history of Ferriday with the defensive pride of southerners accustomed to the condscending ridicule of some of their more urban counterparts.
But not many people talk about the Civil Rights Era murders that haunt the town to this day.
Stanley Nelson, editor of weekly newspaper The Concordia Sentinel, is on a mission to change that, using the power of media to hopefully bring Ku Klux Klan member Authur Leonard Spencer (pictured below) to justice for the 1964 slaying of black shoe repair shop owner Frank Morris.
Nelson has fearlessly written more than 100 articles on Frank Morris, who was 51 years old when his shop was doused with gasoline and set on fire by three white men. Morris ran out of the back door in flames and died 4 days later, but not before giving authorities vague descriptions of his murderers, saying he thought the men were his "friends."
"I feel sorry for his family, but I didn't have nothing to do with it," the now-71-year-old Spencer said.
With the assistance of the Civil Rights Cold Case Project, a organization of investigative reporters, academics, documentary filmmakers and others who want to tell the stories of unsolved cases from the Civil Rights Era, the latest article to explode across the pages include Spencer's ex-wife, brother-in-law and son admitting that the Klansman confessed to taking part in the crime.
In the sleepy town of Ferriday, Morris was well-liked and known to have both white-and-black patrons, and also for his refusal to provide free service to the corrupt Concordia Parish sheriff's office.
Though no official motive has surfaced for the attack, in an era where whistling at a white woman is cause for mutilation, many believe that Nelson, with his progressive business practices and color-blind friendships, signed his own death certificate.
Bill Frasier, Leonard's former brother-in-law and sherriff's deputy, told The Associated Press that the suspect admitted to the murder decades ago while reminiscing about the glory days of the KKK:
"I asked him, `Did y'all ever kill anybody?'" Frasier said in an interview. "He said, `We did one time by accident.'"
Leonard then describes the scene of Morris's murder, but insisted he stayed in the car the entire time.
"We are aware of these allegations, but allegations alone are not proof," the FBI said in a statement. "As with any case, [we are] committed to a thorough investigation of all information we receive."
Spencer, now living in Rayville, La., "The White Gold of the South," due to the abundance of cotton fields that populate the area, says resentment at his lack of family involvement is fueling his clan's claim:
"It's like a fatal attraction - you know, like that movie. They won't leave me alone. And now they're trying to put a murder on me that I don't know nothing about," he said.
Leonard's son, Boo Spencer, reportedly reveals portions of a conversation with his father, and the graphic images of a burning man covered in gasoline emerging to chants of "run, ni**er, run" are recurring in all testimony against Mr. Leonard.
"Only the bottom of his feet weren't burned," said the Rev. Robert Lee Jr. of Clayton, La., age 96, who visited Morris in the hospital. "He was horrible to look at."
As more evidence surfaces, it is becoming apparent that the murder of Mr. Morris was a premeditated act spawned from the evil minds of a corrupt sheriff's office and a racist organization -- all because a black man dared to run a business and had the audacity to converse with white women while he was doing it.
I grew up in Natchez, Miss., about 13 miles from Ferriday, and the remnants of slavery and Jim Crow are tangible throughout the Miss-Lou. From streets and hospitals named after slave owners to antebellum homes and confederate flags dotting the landscape, the subtle stench of forced inferiority weighs on the psyches of its black citizens like an invisible noose.
So, for me, the sad part is not only the tragic, painful death of Mr. Morris, but the fact that our society is reluctantly willing to dredge up a 46-year-old murder and refuses to tackle the hate crimes occurring all across this country on a daily basis.
While the family of Mr. Morris deserves peace, so do the families of Joe Edwards, Wharlest Jackson, Frederick Carter, Sean Bell, Amadou Diallo, Danroy Henry, Timothy Stansbury Jr., Oscar Grant and the many other faceless black men murdered for simply existing.
As Leonard Spencer takes his rightful place in the lengthy line of elderly Klansmen pulled from the brink of obscurity, let's not be so quick to applaud the wheels of justice and become complacent.
There is always one more battle fight.
Watch Arnold Leonard Spencer discuss how the KKK created "wrecking crews" in order to terrorized blacks: