Reflections on John S. Williams
Clip: Season 1 | 4m 46sVideo has Closed Captions
Descendant Susan Burnore talks about learning the history of her great-grandfather.
Descendant Susan Burnore talks with her cousin Kate about learning the history of her great-grandfather John S. Williams.
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Major funding for Slavery by Another Name is provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, The Coca-Cola Company and the CPB/PBS Diversity and Innovation Fund. Additional...
Reflections on John S. Williams
Clip: Season 1 | 4m 46sVideo has Closed Captions
Descendant Susan Burnore talks with her cousin Kate about learning the history of her great-grandfather John S. Williams.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship- So, when did you first hear the story about John S. Williams?
I know it was brought up again with these books, but was, was it something that you had heard your whole life growing up?
- Actually, yes.
I had heard it my whole life, but of course, a completely different version from what turned out to be the truth.
It's kind of a pun that it was a whitewash that my grandmother and my mother and father had all told me just a little bit about him, because of course he had died long before I was born.
But when I ask about my great-grandfather and any of those people, they told the story that he had been one of many wealthy white landowners back at the turn of the century, through the twenties and that they worked prisoners on the farm And that it was a very common practice that it was a way for prisoners to earn some money for when they got out of prison.
And they told the story that one night, a lot of the prisoners tried to escape and that he, and a lot of the other plantation owners got together and went to catch them.
And while they were tracking them down, some of them were murdered or some of them were killed.
They wouldn't have said that it was murder.
- Right.
- Even though a lot of the, the men in that rural Jasper and Newton county were responsible.
John S. Williams had taken the blame for it because he had a lot of sons that could continue to take care of the farm if he went to jail.
So it was painted like he was almost a hero that he did something that, of course he was just tracking these men down because they were escapees.
But somehow the story got mixed up and someone had to be a scapegoat for these men's deaths.
What really did happen is that there were quite a few basically slaves on the plantation.
He working with his black foreman who was under his control, murdered 11 of them, because there was a hint of an investigation by what became the FBI into Peonage.
And I think you had made that point.
He was more afraid of.
- The local government.
Because murder was a state crime, whereas Peonage was a federal crime.
And he was such a, he was wealthy.
He was well known in the community.
He was a leader and he wasn't afraid of the local law enforcement.
He, he would rather commit murder than a federal because once the FBI showed up, that's when he started getting worried.
Whereas, he eventually ended up a life in prison.
- And from a society standpoint, it's shocking that peonage, which is slavery.
It carried a penalty of two to $5,000 still.
He was sure that, that he wouldn't get convicted of murder because it was a white man's word against a black man.
- It was historically the first time a white man was convicted of murder of a black man.
And more importantly, his jury was a jury of his peers.
You know, his neighbors, his friends, and they were all white.
And they believed the testimony of Clyde Manning, a black man who was his overseer, who assisted in many of the murders.
- Even though it was a really big case.
It was covered by the New York times.
And the governor was involved.
The governor of Georgia was involved and even the president to a certain extent, but still the incidents of Peonage did continue to happen.
It seems like that that would have been so shocking that everyone would have changed on a family basis on an individual basis.
The Williams family really did pay hugely for this particular incident, especially for the murders and ultimately for the slavery itself, because they lost everything.
They lost the plantation, all of their holdings.
John S. Williams had 12 children, all of them, except my grandmother left the state of Georgia.
It totally destroyed all of their lives.
Slavery by Another Name Preview
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Preview: S1 | 30s | Learn how post-Civil War practices and laws created a new form of slavery in the South. (30s)
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Preview: S1 | 1m 16s | Learn how a de facto slavery system persisted for Black Southerners after the Civil War. (1m 16s)
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Clip: S1 | 1m 48s | Audible clip from book (1m 48s)
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Clip: S1 | 2m 10s | Historian James Grossman talks about the legacy of supremacy. (2m 10s)
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Clip: S1 | 2m 56s | Historian James Grossman explains why black Southerners left the South. (2m 56s)
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Clip: S1 | 1m 50s | Douglas A. Blackmon and historian Khalil Muhammad explain the Southern economy. (1m 50s)
White Supremacists and Government
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Clip: S1 | 2m 3s | Historian Mary Ellen Curtin explains positions of power and white supremacists. (2m 3s)
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Clip: S1 | 1m 33s | Historian Khalil Muhammad explains the convict leasing period. (1m 33s)
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Clip: S1 | 2m 25s | Historian Pete Daniel breaks down peonage and debt servitude. (2m 25s)
What are the Reconstruction Amendments?
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Clip: S1 | 1m 16s | Historian Risa Goluboff explains the thirteenth, fourteenth & fifteenth amendments. (1m 16s)
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Clip: S1 | 2m 7s | Historian Mary Ellen Curtin breaks down the emergence of sharecropping. (2m 7s)
The Significance of the Ku Klux Klan
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Clip: S1 | 1m 39s | Historian Mary Ellen Curtin explains the significance of the Klan. (1m 39s)
The Significance of the Chain Gang
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Clip: S1 | 1m 38s | Historian Talitha LeFlouria explains the chain gang systems significance in the South. (1m 38s)
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Clip: S1 | 2m 3s | Author Douglas A. Blackmon explains the sharecropping and how it was a form of slavery. (2m 3s)
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Clip: S1 | 1m 55s | Douglas A. Blackmon describes the crushing effects of Plessy v. Ferguson. (1m 55s)
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Clip: S1 | 2m 1s | Author Douglas A. Blackmon tells the ruling of Judge Jones and the panic it caused. (2m 1s)
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Clip: S1 | 2m 4s | Historian Risa Goluboff describes the rise of political progressivism. (2m 4s)
The Rise and Fall of Reconstruction
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Clip: S1 | 2m 37s | Historian Risa Goluboff talks about the rise and fall of Reconstruction. (2m 37s)
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Clip: S1 | 1m 13s | Historian Khalil Muhammad explains race relations and slavery after Reconstruction. (1m 13s)
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Clip: S1 | 2m 24s | Douglas A. Blackmon's daughter Colette asks for advice to becoming a writer. (2m 24s)
Reflections on White Supremacy
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Clip: S1 | 7s | Descendant Barbara Belisle shares stories of racism and the KKK she experienced. (7s)
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Clip: S1 | 1m 28s | Descendant Rod Frazer talks about how his ancestor W.D. McCurdy. (1m 28s)
Reflections on the Ku Klux Klan
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Clip: S1 | 1m 27s | Descendant Barbara Belisle remembers visits from the KKK from her childhood. (1m 27s)
Reflections on the Great Migration
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Clip: S1 | 1m 32s | Descendant Bernard Kinsey talks about his pride at being part of the Great Migration. (1m 32s)
Reflections on the Company Town of Westfield
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Clip: S1 | 3m 9s | UW Clemons explains the company town built by US Steel in the 1900s for its workers. (3m 9s)
Reflections on the Chain Gang System
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Clip: S1 | 1m 21s | Descendant Bernard Kinsey expresses his reactions to the chain gang system and its effect. (1m 21s)
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Clip: S1 | 4m 27s | Sam Pollard talks about the importance of storytelling and the influence it's had on him. (4m 27s)
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Clip: S1 | 2m 18s | U.W. Clemons talked about his grandparents and parents and their lives of sharecropping. (2m 18s)
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Clip: S1 | 1m 49s | Vanessa Cottenham shares her memories of segregation in Montevallo, AL. (1m 49s)
Reflections on Robert Franklin
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Clip: S1 | 5m 4s | Descendant Dr. Robert Corley reacts to his ancestor Robert Franklin arresting John Davis. (5m 4s)
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Clip: S1 | 1m 46s | Descendant Tonya Groomes reflects on how this re-enslavement has effected so many people. (1m 46s)
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Clip: S1 | 2m 17s | Descendant Dr. Robert Corley on his interest in race relations a convict leasing. (2m 17s)
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Clip: S1 | 1m 26s | Descendant Kate Willis describes peonage and how it worked. (1m 26s)
Reflections on Learning Family History
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Clip: S1 | 1m 2s | Descendant Cristina Comber on why she thinks her family doesn't talk about their history. (1m 2s)
Reflections on Learning About Family Legacies
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Clip: S1 | 4m 46s | Descendant Kate Willis talks about why exploring family stories is important. (4m 46s)
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Clip: S1 | 2m 48s | Descendant Rod Frazer remembers the types of labor on WD McCurdy's plantation. (2m 48s)
Now PlayingReflections on John S. Williams
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Clip: S1 | 4m 46s | Descendant Susan Burnore talks about learning the history of her great-grandfather. (4m 46s)
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Clip: S1 | 3m 6s | Descendant Tonya Groomes talks to her dad about his experiences growing up in the South. (3m 6s)
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Clip: S1 | 4m 8s | Sharon Malone talks about her sister Vivian Malone integrating the University of Alabama. (4m 8s)
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Clip: S1 | 2m 46s | Descendant Rod Frazer reacts to his ancestor's role in convict leasing. (2m 46s)
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Clip: S1 | 2m 23s | Descendant Dr. Robert Corley talks about the hidden history of forced labor. (2m 23s)
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Clip: S1 | 4m 36s | Douglas A. Blackmon's son Michael asks what got him interested in this topic. (4m 36s)
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Clip: S1 | 1m 2s | Descendant Tonya Groomes talks about her role as family historian. (1m 2s)
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Clip: S1 | 1m 2s | Descendant Cristina Comer explains her family's history. (1m 2s)
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Clip: S1 | 1m 27s | Descendant Tonya Groomes reflects on how slaves must have felt at the end of the Civil War (1m 27s)
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Clip: S1 | 2m 25s | Sam Pollard discusses his dream project: exploring different cultures through their music. (2m 25s)
Reflections on Convict Leasing
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Clip: S1 | 1m 2s | Descendant Bernard Kinsey reacts to convict labor. (1m 2s)
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Clip: S1 | 3m 20s | Descendant Dr. Robert Corley describes convict leasing is part of Birmingham’s history. (3m 20s)
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Major funding for Slavery by Another Name is provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, The Coca-Cola Company and the CPB/PBS Diversity and Innovation Fund. Additional...