Tom Joyner Wants Justice

10:56 am EST October 8th, 2009 | News | 11 Comments

Very interesting.

Nationally syndicated radio host Tom Joyner is asking South Carolina to posthumously pardon two of his great-uncles – black landowners executed in 1915 after being convicted of murdering an elderly Confederate Army veteran.

Joyner learned of the fate of his great-uncles, farmers Thomas and Meeks Griffin, during filming of the PBS documentary ‘African American Lives 2,’ which first aired in February 2008 and was based on research by Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr.

…

‘The records will show they did not do what they were executed for, and maybe now they can rest in peace,’ Joyner said from his Dallas studio.”

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11 Responses to “Tom Joyner Wants Justice”

  1. jr says:
    October 8, 2009 at 12:05 pm

    The death penalty isn’t cool.

  2. soullite says:
    October 8, 2009 at 12:44 pm

    A lot of families have marks on their name because local cops thought (and very often still think) that just picking a black guy at random and charging him with crimes counts as justice.

  3. Indeed says:
    October 8, 2009 at 12:52 pm

    A lot of families have marks on their name because local cops thought (and very often still think) that just picking a black guy at random and charging him with crimes counts as justice.

    Tulia, Texas comes to mind. That story wasn’t big enough, in my opinion. You didn’t hear much from the usual right-wing suspects about it. For some reason (happy to be proven wrong).

    Fucking monsters.

    http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_tulia.html

  4. Frank DiSalle says:
    October 8, 2009 at 1:15 pm

    Finkelman, an Albany Law School professor, called the petition astonishing. In his decades studying Southern history, this is the first time he’s seen petitions signed by prominent white residents in support of a black man accused of murdering a white man.

    Apparently, the “fucking monsters” are making progress.

    Reason.com reviewed, favorably, a book about the whole sordid mess in 2006.

    That conservative enough for you?

    A quick check of Tulia, TX news shows that hardly anyone covered the story. Apparently, police corruption isn’t big news, even if the victims are black.

  5. SaveFarris says:
    October 8, 2009 at 1:32 pm

    Did the research show that the actual killer was the Cambridge Police Department?

  6. Indeed says:
    October 8, 2009 at 1:33 pm

    That conservative enough for you?

    Not really.

    A quick check of Tulia, TX news shows that hardly anyone covered the story. Apparently, police corruption isn’t big news, even if the victims are black.

    There’s more than Fox News out there. Thankfully.

  7. Sean D. Martin says:
    October 8, 2009 at 4:16 pm

    Frank DiSalle: Apparently, the “fucking monsters” are making progress.

    Yea! So they’ve advanced to being just plain monsters now?

    Progress is good and should be recognized. But the cheers don’t come until you pass the goal line.

  8. Frank DiSalle says:
    October 8, 2009 at 4:41 pm

    Excuse me, Sean, but if your goal is a color blind America, then we won’t be passing the goal line until racial distinctions are obliterated, That will take at least three generations, or ninety years, at the current rate of biracial marriages.

    I believe in “Progress, not perfection”.

    Also, I was sticking a jab, because he sounds silly when he says “Fucking monsters”, each time he says it. The faux outrage tickles me.

  9. Zython says:
    October 8, 2009 at 10:08 pm

    I believe in “Progress, not perfection”.

    No you don’t.

  10. Porlock Junior says:
    October 9, 2009 at 2:29 am

    Reason magazine? That’s not conservative, it’s libertarian-skeptic. All the difference in the world, if you believe the Reason libertarians. Which, of course, no one does so I guess we can agree with FDS on one point. See how liberal we are?

  11. Frank DiSalle says:
    October 9, 2009 at 7:11 am

    libertarians are more like conservatives than they are like liberals. The fact that their name begins with “liber” shouldn’t sway you.

    And, please note that I didn’t say Reason was a conservative blog. What I said was,”Is that conservative enough for you?”

    And, for the record, the story first came to national attention because of the work of a Texas based reporter, not Bob Herbert.

    Zython, why don’t you give up? That comment does not say I “don’t believe in progress”. It says, and I quote (because I wrote it, I know what I meant, and YOU DON”T!) :

    Is that one of those rules, that society is “supposed” to progress socially and technologically?
    Who says?

    The operative word being “supposed”, which is why it is in quotes.

    Secondly, if you reread the sentemce with some decent reading comprehension, “progress” is being compared to “perfection”.

    So, you see, I prefer progress to perfection. And, also, I do not believe that society as a whole has some abstract mandate to progress socially and technologically.

    I trust that will keep you happily sucking your thumb ’til sunset.