The following is extracted from Workers World of April 27th:
On March 28th, J.B. Bller, a prison guard, entered Covington's cell, provoked a fight and shot him "while attempting to escape."
Covington was held on a charge of "secret assault" Actually, he appears to have been involved in a gunfight with the Ku Klux Klan. He is no more guilty of assualt than Mae Mallory is guilty of the phoney and ridiculous charge of kidnapping,
The jimcrow justice of the South has moved against Jay Van Covington - almost as fast as it acted againt his 15-year-old brother, Richard, who was sent to the reformatory after a five minute conference of an all-white jurye .
The brother's "crime": he rescued an inglish girl from a white mob during last summer's violence against the Afro-American people in Monroe, A policeman was wounded during the scuffle, and the blame for it was pinned on Richard. :
Monroe is the same town where two Afro-American children, one seven, the other nine, were sent to the reformatory for unlimited terms for the "crime" of kissing - or being kissed by — a little white girl - age eight. (A protest : movement of international proportions finally freed them. )
Monroe is the town where a white man was declared innocent by a court of his “peers" after he had kicked a pregnant hotel chambermaid down a flight of stairs because she had disturbed his slumbers. The chambermaid was Afro-American.
; Monroe is the towm where Afro-American girls have been raped in broad daylight. The identity of the rapists is generally know, The rapists are white.