"If, by ... looking at a person in a leering manner, or watching and then following, one causes another to become frightened and run, then he is guilty of assault," said the judge to the jury in the superior court in Yanceyville, N.C. last November. The all-white jury promptly found Mack Ingram, a Negro farmer, guilty of "assault" against Willa Jean Boswell, daughter of a neighboring white farmer—even though everybody agreed that Willa Jean had safely run off across a cornfield, and Ingram was never closer than 50 feet to her (TIME, July 23, 1951).
Last week, on appeal the North...
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