Year ago the U. S. press carried an ugly tale: near Earle, Ark., when a picket line of sharecroppers was broken up by a mob of vigilantes, a Negro named Frank Weems had been beaten to death. Within a few days the Rev. Claude Williams, asked by the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union to preach Weems's funeral sermon, left Memphis accompanied by Willie Sue Blagden, Memphis social worker, to investigate Weems's death and gather material for his obituary. At Earle, they were seized by vigilantes. Parson Williams was given 14 thumping whacks with...
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