Johnny Queen
Age 65
A disabled Black man who shined shoes for a living
Fayette, Mississippi
August 8, 1965
As a child, Johnny Queen lost the use of his legs after a fall from a roof. As an adult, he used his hands and arms to get around and made money by shining shoes on Main Street in Fayette, Mississippi. Queen was well known around town. According to both a Department of Justice memo and NPR reporting on the case, residents made a sport of riling him up to hear his “famous cursing streaks.”
On August 8, 1965, just two days after President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law, Queen was on the front deck of an ice house in Fayette, when Jasper Burchfield, an off-duty, part-time elected constable, drove up with his family in his car.
According to the DOJ and NPR reporting, Burchfield heard Queen curse as he approached the shop and told Queen to stop cursing around his family. There are varying accounts of what happened after that. Burchfield maintained that Queen fired a gun at him but missed. Others say that Queen never fired a gun or that the gun jammed.
Then, by his own telling, Burchfield got his pistol from his car and shot Queen four times, with one shot striking him in the forehead. Queen died at the scene.
Initial Investigation
According to a DOJ memo, a coroner’s jury was convened within hours of the shooting and came to a one-sentence conclusion: “Johnny Queen, came to his death by reason to-wit: Four gunshot wounds (.38 S & W special pistol) fired by J.W. Burchfield, in our opinions, in self-defense.” The memo, citing reporting from the Concordia Sentinel, said no witnesses were called at the coroner’s inquest, but a small gun that belonged to the victim was shown to the jurors.
The following day, a justice of the peace held a preliminary hearing. Two employees of the ice house testified, as well as Burchfield’s family members who were in the car at the time of the shooting. The justice of the peace similarly found that the shooting was “justifiable homicide.”
While an FBI agent did go to Fayette to learn more about the case in 1965, the bureau declined to launch a formal investigation.
Till Act Status
The FBI reopened the case in 2006. As part of that investigation, the FBI reinterviewed Burchfield, who was still alive and reiterated largely the same story he told in 1965. The FBI also reviewed news articles from the time of the killing, as well as more recent and extensive reporting by the journalist Stanley Nelson of the Concordia Sentinel. The FBI sought documents from the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, Jefferson County Circuit Clerk’s Office, Fayette Police Department and the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office but were told no files regarding the killing still existed.
The DOJ’s memo also makes note of Burchfield’s alleged ties to the Ku Klux Klan. He was interviewed by the FBI in 1965 about a bombing in nearby Natchez the previous year. In that 1965 interview, the DOJ memo stated that Burchfield, “made derogatory comments about ‘Jews’ and the ‘n—– situation.’” Burchfield was also named in a 1966 House Un-American Activities Committee report as a member of the Klan, although he has consistently denied membership or any ties to the KKK.
In 2013, the DOJ again closed the case, citing “no surviving eyewitnesses that contradict the subject’s claim of self-defense.” The memo closing the case further noted that statutes of limitations would prevent prosecution.
Case Status closed
Closed 07/26/2013
Themes
- Closed Cases
- Closed with Living Subject
- Men
About the Project
This multiplatform investigation draws upon more than two years of reporting, thousands of documents and dozens of first-hand interviews. FRONTLINE spoke to family and friends of the victims, and witnesses, some of whom had never been interviewed; current and former Justice Department officials and FBI agents, state and local law enforcement; lawmakers, civil-rights leaders and investigative journalists, to explore the Department of Justice’s reopening of civil rights-era cold cases under the 2008 Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act.
In addition to an examination of the federal effort, the project features the first comprehensive, interactive list of all those whose cases were reopened by the Department of Justice. Today, the list stands at 151 names. Among the victims: voting rights advocates, veterans, Louisville’s first female prosecutor, business owners, mothers, fathers, and children.
The project consists of a web-based interactive experience, serialized podcast, a touring augmented-reality exhibit, documentary and companion education curriculum for high schools and universities.
A project like Un(re)solved would not be possible without the historic and contemporary contributions of universities, civil rights groups, and the press, particularly the Black press, who have ensured the ongoing public record of racist violence in the United States. To pay homage to these groups, the web interactive begins with a quote from journalist, activist and researcher Ida B. Wells, one of the first to document with precision the horrors of racial terror in America. “The way to right wrongs,” she wrote, “is to turn the light of truth upon them.”
At the outset of the project, FRONTLINE forged a relationship with Northeastern University’s Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project (CRRJ), bringing them on as an academic partner. Launched in 2007 by Distinguished Law Professor Margaret Burnham, CRRJ is a mission-driven program of interdisciplinary teaching, research and policy analysis on race, history, and criminal justice. Their work has expanded beyond the names on the Justice Department’s list, archiving documents in over 1,000 cases of racially motivated homicides.
With support from the CRRJ, FRONTLINE reporters gathered what could be known about the individuals on the list, conducting interviews with family, friends and witnesses, delving into newspaper archives and gathering documentation including headstone applications, draft cards and archival photographs.
At the heart of the project has been a drive to center the voices of the families of those on the list. FRONTLINE partnered with StoryCorps to record nearly two dozen oral histories with victims’ next of kin, which are featured both in the web-based interactive and traveling AR exhibit. These oral histories will also be archived in the National Library of Congress.
To lead the creative vision for the web experience and installation, FRONTLINE partnered with Ado Ato Pictures, a premier mixed reality studio founded by artist, filmmaker, and technologist Tamara Shogaolu.
Shogaolu rooted the visuals in the powerful symbolism of trees. In the United States, trees evoke the ideal of liberty, but also speak to an oppressive history of racially motivated violence. In Persian myth, trees are humanity’s ancestors, while in Toraja, Indonesia, they serve as sacred burial sites.
“I was really inspired by looking at the role of the tree as a symbol in American history” Shogaolu said. “It’s been looked at as a symbol of freedom, we look at it as a connector between generations, and also there’s the association of trees with racial terror.” When designing the creative vision for Un(re)solved Shogaolu wondered whether she might be able to reclaim the symbol of the tree. “As a person of color, we’re often terrified of being in isolated places in the woods. And I thought it was kind of crazy that there are natural environments that instinctually give great fear because of this connection with racial terror and I wanted to reclaim that — to turn these into beautiful spaces.”
Un(re)solved weaves imagery of trees, which also recall family ties, into patterns and textures from the American tradition of quilting. Among enslaved African Americans forbidden to read or write, quilts provided an important space to document family stories. Today, quilting remains a creative outlet rich with story and tradition for many American communities.
We invite you to enter this forest of quilted memories — a testimony to the lives of these individuals, and the multi-generational impact of their untimely, unjust loss.
(Credits to come)