Whites Flogged In Alabama

Press, Volume C, Issue 29514, 16 May 1961, Page 15

Whites Flogged In Alabama

(N 2 Press Association— CovyngM) SYLACAUGA (Alabama), May 15. Two white men and a white woman said they were stripped and flogged by groups of white men last night.

It was the third yesterday. Earlier two groups of negroes and whites, “freedom riding” through the south in a test of segregation laws were ambushed by angry crowds of whites armed with clubs and knives. Last night a 50-year-old couple. Mr and Mrs Marlin White were dragged from their homes in Sylacauga to an isolated area in the country and stripped and flogged by six men. Sheriff Luke Brewer said. White told Sheriff Brewer that the men said they were whipping him and his wife because they had been associating with negroes and had permitted a negro to whip their children White denied these accusations A 34-year-old, James Guthrie had said that three white men came to his house, forced him to undress and flogged him in the house, said Sheriff Brewer. Guthrie said the men told him he was whipped because he hired a negro maid to care for his two small children. Guthrie and his wife were separated, said Sheriff Brewer. The Whites and Guthrie live about two blocks apart and Brewer said they apparently did not know each other. He said he had no

incident in Alabama

clues as to whether the same whites were responsible for both beatings. The two incidents apparently took place at about the same time, he said. At a bus station in Birmingham. Alabama, violence erupted after a group of “freedom riders” arrived from Atlanta. The group who sought to break the segregation barrier left Washington 10 days ago. They split into two groups in Atlanta and took separate buses into Alabama About 300 negroes gathered in a church in Birmingham, last night to hear talks bv negroes and white persons beaten up at the Birmingham bus station. The first of the beating victims to speak was Dr. Walter Bergman, a former Michigan State University professor and a member of the Congress of Racial Equality. Dr. Bergman’s left eye was swollen and he had several small cuts on his face, which he said were the results of the attack by white men against his group on the bus (Earlier Report Page 24)