Dorothy Malcolm arose on the morning of July 25, 1946—76 years ago today—and prepared to celebrate her 20th birthday with her husband, Roger Malcolm, and their best friends George Dorsey, a U.S. Army veteran recently returned home from World War II, and his wife, Mae. By nightfall, the quartet would be dead—victims of one of the most heinous mass lynchings in Georgia history.
“Why” they were killed was typical of the Jim Crow era; on July 14th of that year, Roger Malcolm was arrested for stabbing Barnette Hester, a white male, following a dispute that led to fisticuffs between the two men. At the time, Roger Malcolm and George Dorsey worked as sharecroppers on a farm owned by J. Loy Harrison and after Malcolm was arrested, it was Harrison who drove his wife, Dorothy, and the Dorseys to the local jail to post the $600 bail.
As the two couples and Harrison, the plantation owner, drove away, their vehicle was stopped by a mob of 15 to 20 whites on the Moore's Ford Bridge along the Apalachee River near Atlanta, Georgia.
Moore’s Ford Bridge today…
Harrison later testified that as his car rolled to a halt that, "a big man who was dressed mighty proud in a double-breasted brown suit was giving the orders. He pointed to Roger and said, 'We want that n-word.' Then he pointed to George Dorsey, my n-word, and said, 'We want you, too, Charlie.’ I said, 'His name ain't Charlie, he's George.' Someone said 'Keep your damned big mouth shut. This ain't your party.'"
After Harrison, the plantation boss, was told to shut up and mind his business, Dorothy Malcolm and Mae Dorsey were removed from the vehicle and tied to a tree; soon afterwards, their husbands, Roger and George, were tied next to them and within minutes, the quartet were riddled with over 60 bullets shot at close range.
To add further insult per Jim Crow customs, the four bodies were then strung over the bridge—dangling in the oppressive Georgia summer heat and humidity for the local Blacks to remember the price for self defense, which by all accounts is what happened when Roger Malcolm fought off his original attacker, Barnette Hester, on July 14th.
Georgia's Governor Ellis Arnall offered a $10,000 reward for information—to no avail! President Harry Truman established a commission on civil rights, urged the passing of anti-lynching legislation, and the FBI's reward for information was upped to $12,500—an enormous sum during that time—to no avail!
Truman's “interference” in Southern lynch mob law was deemed so offensive down in Dixie that it is still considered one of several acts that led to a schism in the Democratic Party and the formation of the "Dixiecrats”—Southern Democrats who were bound and determined to stymie all federal efforts at Black civil rights. (Nota Bene: The racist Southern Dixiecrats of old would, within 20 years of the Moore's Ford Bridge lynching, switch to the Republican Party after Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson, a southerner himself, signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law).
A federal grand jury was convened into the Malcolm/Dorsey lynchings, but after seven days of testimony, it concluded that the hundreds of witnesses that had appeared before it could not conclusively identify any of of the murderers.
In 1999, nearly seven years of newspaper articles by the Atlanta Journal Constitution led to the establishment of the Moore's Ford Memorial Committee and the erection of a commemorative plaque near the lynching site shown below.
Last, in 2001, then Governor Roy Barnes ordered the Georgia Bureau of Investigations to reopen its case (and the FBI followed suit in 2006). To date, no one has been arrested, indicted, or imprisoned for the lynchings of the Malcolm and the Dorseys, two young couples brutally murdered 76 years ago today.
Lest we forget...
Remembering the Moore's Ford Bridge lynchings
Chuck, thank you for sharing stories like this, which of course we never learned about in school.
Great read Chuck and thanks for sharing!