The death of Elbert Williams, a Black voter-registration activist who was referred to as “the first martyr of the NAACP,” has remained a mystery for 78 years. But now a white district attorney wants to make things right and has reopened the case into Williams’ murder, USA Today reports.
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Williams was 32 when his body was found June 23, 1940, in the Hatchie River in West Tennessee. While the coroner determined that his death was suspicious, the cause was simply labeled “foul means by parties unknown,” and the case was closed.
You probably didn't know about this voting-rights activist. Elbert Williams was killed in Tennessee more 20 years before Medgar Evers in Mississippi. His unsolved murder case is being reopened, https://t.co/ejt6lXmjwj via @JSunNews #CivilRights @NAACP pic.twitter.com/bmWcVOwmpV
— Linda Dono (@LindaDono) August 9, 2018
Williams’ body was immediately buried without an autopsy and no one was charged in the case. In fact, his grave site is a mystery although it is believed to be in a church cemetery called Taylor’s Chapel Cemetery near Brownsville.
“We cannot do all in 2018 that should have been done in 1940, but justice and historic truth demand that questions about the cause of Elbert Williams’ death and the identity of his killer(s) that should have been answered long ago be answered now if possible,” Gary Brown, 28th Judicial District attorney, said Wednesday in a statement. “We will do what we can.”
“His remains will be reinterred with honor and dignity and permanently marked in a manner befitting his station as a civil-rights hero,” Brown’s statement said.
There was renewed interest in the case after the federal government reopened its investigation into the slaying of Emmett Till, the Black teenager whose brutal killing in Mississippi shocked the world and helped inspire the civil rights movement more than 60 years ago.
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An NAACP official referred to Williams as “the first martyr of the NAACP.” Williams was heavily involved in registering Black voters in Tennessee in the early days of the civil-rights movement.
Investigators will work with a University of Tennessee forensic scientist to uncover Williams grave. They believe by exhuming the body, they can find vital clues to his cause of death and possibly give insight on what murder weapon was used.
“I hope this has a cascade effect,” said Jim Emison, a retired white lawyer who has been following the case closely.
“It’s a matter of the pursuit of justice, no matter how long it takes.”