美国国家公共电台 NPR NPR Identifies 4th Attacker In Civil Rights-Era Cold Case

 

NOEL KING, HOST:

Today, NPR has exclusive reporting that reveals new information in a major civil rights-era murder case. Several white men attacked Reverend James Reeb and two other ministers in Selma, Ala., in March of 1965. Reeb died from his injuries, and three local men were put on trial in December of that year. They were later acquitted¹.

NPR has unearthed² the truth about the attack and learned the identity of a fourth unindicted assailant. He was an enforcer for a violent group led by a man named Elmer Cook.

WILLIAM PORTWOOD: I tried to forget it. I don't even want to talk about it.

CHIP BRANTLEY, BYLINE³: You said it scared you just thinking about - thinking about being a part of it was scary...

PORTWOOD: I was a part of it. I was part of it.

KING: That was the voice of the fourth man. And we should give a spoiler alert here for listeners of NPR's investigative podcast White Lies. This story will reveal some of what's in that new episode, which comes out this morning. Graham Smith of NPR's Investigations⁵ team has the rest of the story.

GRAHAM SMITH, BYLINE: The attack on James Reeb shocked a nation already struggling to process the violence they'd seen on the TV news from Selma two days earlier. State troopers beat and tear-gassed black voting rights marchers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, an event that came to be known as Bloody⁶ Sunday. Reeb, a white Unitarian Universalist minister and father of four living in Boston, had flown to Alabama in response to that brutality⁷, one of hundreds answering a call for solidarity⁸ from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

As twilight⁹ settled on Selma, Reeb and his companions, Reverends Orloff Miller¹⁰ and Clark Olsen, left a black-owned cafe to head back to a meeting at Brown Chapel¹¹ AME. Here's Olsen, interviewed days after the attack. He recalls seeing a group of white men moving in their direction.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

CLARK OLSEN: Jim was slightly behind as we were walking, and he did not look around. I did look around in time to see one man with some kind of a stick or a pipe or a club swing the stick violently at Jim Reeb. And it hit Jim on the side of the head, and Jim immediately fell to the pavement on his back.

SMITH: After the initial blow, the other men piled on, kicking and striking the fallen minister and his friends. A crowd gathered and watched. Reeb suffered a severe head injury, and he died two days later. President Johnson cited his death in introducing a voting rights bill. But in Selma, there was only a half-hearted murder prosecution¹² by the local DA, a strident segregationist¹³. No local witnesses testified for the state. An all-white jury delivered acquittals for the three accused - Elmer Cook, Stanley Hoggle and Namon O'Neal Hoggle, also known as Duck - all now deceased.

NPR's investigation⁴ of the case, led by reporters Chip Brantley and Andrew Beck Grace, identified a key eyewitness¹⁴ to the assault. Frances Bowden admitted she lied to the FBI and in court in 1965, claiming she had seen the attack but couldn't identify the attackers. She told us the men who'd been put on trial and acquitted were, in fact, guilty. Bowden also confirmed the identity of an unindicted fourth assailant, William Portwood, at the time still living in Selma. She told NPR she knew the men well.

FRANCES BOWDEN: Elmer and Duck and Stanley and Bill - they come by the Silver Moon, and they turn the corner. They come out the door and went 'round the corner behind them.

BRANTLEY: So you saw Stanley Hoggle, Duck Hoggle, Elmer Cook and Bill Portwood come out of the Silver Moon.

BOWDEN: And follow them around the corner and attack them, I sure did.

SMITH: FBI records say they investigated Portwood at the time, but he had an alibi¹⁵ and was never arrested. We found Portwood still living in Selma. He admitted to NPR that he had participated in the attack along with Cook and the Hoggles. Portwood, who said his memory was failing after a series of small strokes, claimed only to have kicked one of the ministers. He also admitted to being the muscle for Cook's group, which had a reputation for violence.

PORTWOOD: I was real, real bad. But I didn't kill. It was mostly just stomping¹⁶ the hell out of somebody that Duck didn't - that they didn't like. I was a bad, bad boy. But I never have been able to get, you know, caught.

SMITH: I never have been able to get caught, he said. According to Alabama law in 1965, anyone who participated in the assault on Reeb could be charged with murder. However, less than two weeks after reporters Brantley and Grace confirmed Portwood's involvement, he died.

Reeb's case is one of three murders connected to the voting rights movement in Selma and the only one without a conviction. Three Klansmen were convicted in 1965 for shooting Detroit housewife Viola Liuzzo to death, and a state trooper pleaded guilty in 2010 for the killing¹⁷ of civil rights organizer Jimmie Lee Jackson in nearby Marion.

Graham Smith, NPR News.

KING: James Reeb's murder is the subject of the NPR podcast White Lies.

1 acquitted   

宣判…无罪( acquit的过去式和过去分词 )； 使（自己）作出某种表现

参考例句：

• The jury acquitted him of murder. 陪审团裁决他谋杀罪不成立。
• Five months ago she was acquitted on a shoplifting charge. 五个月前她被宣判未犯入店行窃罪。

2 unearthed   

出土的（考古）

参考例句：

• Many unearthed cultural relics are set forth in the exhibition hall. 展览馆里陈列着许多出土文物。
• Some utensils were in a state of decay when they were unearthed. 有些器皿在出土时已经残破。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

5 investigations   

（正式的）调查( investigation的名词复数 )； 侦查； 科学研究； 学术研究

参考例句：

• His investigations were intensive and thorough but revealed nothing. 他进行了深入彻底的调查，但没有发现什么。
• He often sent them out to make investigations. 他常常派他们出去作调查。

6 bloody   

adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染

参考例句：

• He got a bloody nose in the fight.他在打斗中被打得鼻子流血。
• He is a bloody fool.他是一个十足的笨蛋。

7 brutality   

n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮

参考例句：

• The brutality of the crime has appalled the public. 罪行之残暴使公众大为震惊。
• a general who was infamous for his brutality 因残忍而恶名昭彰的将军

8 solidarity   

n.团结；休戚相关

参考例句：

• They must preserve their solidarity.他们必须维护他们的团结。
• The solidarity among China's various nationalities is as firm as a rock.中国各族人民之间的团结坚如磐石。

9 twilight   

n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期

参考例句：

• Twilight merged into darkness.夕阳的光辉融于黑暗中。
• Twilight was sweet with the smell of lilac and freshly turned earth.薄暮充满紫丁香和新翻耕的泥土的香味。

10 miller   

n.磨坊主

参考例句：

• Every miller draws water to his own mill.磨坊主都往自己磨里注水。
• The skilful miller killed millions of lions with his ski.技术娴熟的磨坊主用雪橇杀死了上百万头狮子。

11 chapel   

n.小教堂，殡仪馆

参考例句：

• The nimble hero,skipped into a chapel that stood near.敏捷的英雄跳进近旁的一座小教堂里。
• She was on the peak that Sunday afternoon when she played in chapel.那个星期天的下午，她在小教堂的演出，可以说是登峰造极。

12 prosecution   

n.起诉，告发，检举，执行，经营

参考例句：

• The Smiths brought a prosecution against the organizers.史密斯家对组织者们提出起诉。
• He attempts to rebut the assertion made by the prosecution witness.他试图反驳原告方证人所作的断言。

13 segregationist   

隔离主义者

参考例句：

• Recent federal action undermined the segregationist position. 近期的联邦行动消弱了隔离主义者的地位。

14 eyewitness   

n.目击者，见证人

参考例句：

• The police questioned several eyewitness to the murder.警察询问了谋杀案的几位目击者。
• He was the only eyewitness of the robbery.他是那起抢劫案的唯一目击者。

15 alibi   

n.某人当时不在犯罪现场的申辩或证明；借口

参考例句：

• Do you have any proof to substantiate your alibi? 你有证据表明你当时不在犯罪现场吗？
• The police are suspicious of his alibi because he already has a record.警方对他不在场的辩解表示怀疑，因为他已有前科。

16 stomping   

v.跺脚，践踏，重踏( stomp的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• He looked funny stomping round the dance floor. 他在舞池里跺着舞步，样子很可笑。 来自辞典例句
• Chelsea substitution Wright-Phillips for Robben. Wrighty back on his old stomping to a mixed reception. 77分–切尔西换人：赖特．菲利普斯入替罗本。小赖特在主场球迷混杂的欢迎下，重返他的老地方。 来自互联网

17 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。