Jeremiah Reeves
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Jeremiah Reeves (1935 – March 28, 1958) was a 22-year-old
African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...
jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...
drummer who was executed by the state of
Alabama Alabama ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South, Deep Southern regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gu ...
by
electrocution Electrocution is death or severe injury caused by electric shock from electric current passing through the body. The word is derived from "electro" and "execution", but it is also used for accidental death. The term "electrocution" was coined ...
after being convicted of
raping Rape is a type of sexual assault involving sexual intercourse, or other forms of sexual penetration, carried out against a person without consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or against a person wh ...
a white woman, Mabel Ann Crowder in 1952. At the time of the events, Reeves was 16 years old, working as a grocery delivery boy; at his trial, he denied having had sex with the white woman. His sentence and execution provoked anger among civil rights advocates, who considered them unjust and disproportionate for the crime. A large protest movement had formed by the time he was executed, after appeals.


Background

Jeremiah Reeves was a 16-year-old respected senior in the segregated Booker T. Washington High School, a talented jazz drummer in a band. He was also working as a grocery delivery boy in
Montgomery, Alabama Montgomery is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Alabama. Named for Continental Army major general Richard Montgomery, it stands beside the Alabama River on the Gulf Coastal Plain. The population was 2 ...
when he was indicted in 1952 for the rape of a white woman. He was indicted, then quickly convicted at a two-day trial by an all-white jury that deliberated less than a half-hour; the judge imposed a death sentence. Members of the African-American community were outraged at the sentence, as they knew that not only were white men seldom prosecuted for rape of black women, but they never received the death sentence for such crimes. According to the memoir by Rev.
Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister, civil and political rights, civil rights activist and political philosopher who was a leader of the civil rights move ...
, he spent much time on the Reeves case. Black people were outraged by the injustice of the sentence in the case. Reeves retracted his confession, which was derived under duress. After his arrest, police strapped the terrified 16 year old Reeves to an electric chair and threatened to electrocute him unless he confessed to raping Mabel Ann Crowder as well as the reported rapes of white women that had occurred that summer. He denied for the rest of his life having had any relations with the white woman. Reeves' legal appeal of his conviction and death sentence by an Alabama State Criminal Court reached the Federal Circuit Court. One of the grounds by the defense was that the jury excluded African Americans. His case twice reached the
United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...
, with the high court ordering a new trial on December 6, 1954 and voting not to review an appeal on January 13, 1958, following Reeves' conviction on retrial. "Court Dismisses Appeal Of Convicted Negro", AP report in ''Troy (AL) Messenger'', January 13, 1958, p. 1 As King wrote in his memoir:
"The first time, the Court reversed the decision and turned it back to the state supreme court for rehearing. The second time, the United States Supreme Court agreed to hear the case but later dismissed it, thus leaving the Alabama court free to electrocute." The governor failed to commute his sentence.
Claudette Colvin Claudette Colvin (born Claudette Austin; September 5, 1939) is an American pioneer of the 1950s civil rights movement and retired nurse aide. On March 2, 1955, she was arrested at the age of 15 in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up ...
was a younger classmate of Reeves and among those very upset about his case during the years that appeals were underway. On March 2, 1955, she defied Montgomery's bus segregation rules, which required blacks to give up seats to whites in the middle of the bus once the first rows were filled.Phillip Hoose, ''Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice'' (Google eBook)
New York: Macmillan, 2009, p. 23
Her action took place 9 months before
Rosa Parks Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an American civil rights activist. She is best known for her refusal to move from her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus, in defiance of Jim Crow laws, which sparke ...
exercised her right of refusal and became the point person on a civil rights challenge case in which blacks conducted the more than yearlong
Montgomery bus boycott The Montgomery bus boycott was a political and social boycott, protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. It was a foundational event in the civil rights movement in the United ...
to protest the segregated system. Colvin was one of four women named in the case ultimately taken to the courts, which achieved the end of bus segregation on city buses. Reeves had claimed during his trial and appeals that he was forced to sit in the Alabama electric chair, known as ''
Yellow Mama Yellow Mama is the electric chair of the United States state of Alabama. It was used for executions from 1927 to 2002. First installed at Kilby Correctional Facility, Kilby State Prison near Montgomery, Alabama, the chair acquired its yellow color ...
,'' for a night until he confessed to the crime. The State held Reeves on death row after his conviction until after he reached the age of 21, considered the minimum age for execution. He was put to death on March 28, 1958, in the same chair used to extract his confession years before. Considered a victim of racism and injustice, Reeves attracted sympathy from his arrest. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (
NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is an American civil rights organization formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du&nbs ...
) provided funds to pay for his defense in an effort to protect the youth. Protests had arisen about his sentence, and followed his execution. Days after his execution, on Easter morning leaders of the national protest, including Rev.
Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister, civil and political rights, civil rights activist and political philosopher who was a leader of the civil rights move ...
, led a prayer pilgrimage to the grounds of the Alabama state capitol in Montgomery."1958: Jeremiah Reeves, Montgomery Boycott Inspiration"
Blog: Executedtoday.com, 28 March 2014, accessed 30 July 2014
On that occasion, King said,


References



* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20080421072131/http://www.doc.state.al.us/execution.asp "Jeremiah Reeves" Inmates Executed in Alabama


External links


Treading the Tightrope of Jim Crow; Montgomery NAACP.
''The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks.'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Reeves, Jeremiah 1935 births 1958 deaths 20th-century executions of American people American jazz drummers American male drummers American people executed for rape Executed African-American people Juvenile offenders executed by the United States 20th-century African-American musicians 20th-century American male musicians People executed by Alabama by electric chair 20th-century American drummers