SOUTH CAROLINA: Twelve Men

The famed Greenville lynch trial (TIME, May 26) drew to an end. On the ninth day, haggard from strain, Judge James Robert Martin Jr. read his instructions to the all-male, all-white jury. He minced no words: "A court of law recognizes no color. . . . I instruct you . . . not to allow any so-called racial issue to enter into your deliberations. . . ." The jurors filed out. A door closed behind them.

The jurors had just seen U.S. jurisprudence rise to brave heights in a Southern courtroom; they had sat before a determined, able prosecutor, a...

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