Sound familiar?-----Forgotten Appalachian Memories - Posts

Forgotten Appalachian Memories - Posts

"August, 1946: The citizens of Athens, Tennessee stage an armed revolt against their corrupt local government. 

People had long been outraged by the local Democratic machine, headed by Boss E.H. Crump, which maintained power through graft and electoral fraud, and used the local sheriff's department as a tool of oppression and brutality. 

The machine also kept tight control over the region's newspapers and its grasp extended to every part of local government: said one veteran returning from WWII, "You couldn't even get hired as a schoolteacher without their okay, or any other job." 

The sheriff's department routinely rousted returning G.I.s and hit them with trumped up fees and fines to steal as much of their pay as possible.

Receiving no help from the federal government - The (DEMOCRAT) Department of Justice had investigated election fraud in 1940, 1942, and 1944, but had failed to take any effective action - tensions grew until the August 1946 election, when a group of G.I.s put forward their own slate of candidates in an attempt to overthrow the Crump machine once and for all. 
They were met on Election day by false arrests, vote fraud, and voter intimidation. 
Things finally came to a head when an elderly black farmer was turned away from the polls, and subsequently beaten by a policeman with brass knuckles when he and the veteran assigned as a poll watcher objected. The farmer tried to escape, but was shot in the back and killed.

The people had had enough..."
READ ALL!!