October 22, 1946 – Five White Men Freed by Mississippi Jury Even After Confessing to Beating a Black Man to Death

Leon McAtee was a Black man who worked as a tenant farmer on Jeff Dodd Sr.’s farm. When a saddle went missing, Dodd had McAtee arrested. Dodd withdrew the charges and McAtee was released from custody. When he got back to the farm, however, five white men, including Jeff Dodd, Sr., were waiting for him. They beat McAtee and whipped him with a three-quarter-inch rope. The men then drove the badly beaten man to his home, showed him to his wife, then took him away again. He was found dead in a bayou two days later.

The Equal Justice Initiative reports that on October 22, this day in history, the five men who beat McAtee to death were freed by the Holmes County, Mississippi court, even though one of the five had confessed to his own involvement in the murder and implicated the other four men. Before the trial ended, Judge S.F. Davis acquitted Spencer Ellis and James Roberts, finding the evidence insufficient to prove their guilt. The all-white jury then deliberated for ten minutes before acquitting Jeff Dodd Sr., Jeff Dodd Jr., and Dixie Roberts.

McComb Enterprise Journal via EJI