NEGROES BREAK STORE WINDOWS in Tuskegee Student Demonstration in Downtown Area TUSKEGEE, Ala. (AP) _ About 70 young Negroes took part in a demonstration which police broke up when the demonstrators began breaking windows of downtown businesses early today. Alton B. Taylor, city public safety director, said the demonstration began about 1 or 1:30 a.m. and was broken up about 4 a.m. He said there were no reports of injuries and no arrests -- "as yet." Taylor declined to speculate on the cause of the demonstration but a civil rights leader at Tuskegee Institute who asked that his name be withheld, said the Negroes - most of them students -- were protesting the verdict of a murder trial in Opelika, 30 miles away. In that trial a white service station attendant was acquitted Thursday of murder in the shooting of a Tuskegee Institute student, Samuel Younge, Jr., 21. Following the trial, several young Negroes ran down the steps of the Lee County Courthouse, shouting: "The hell with Alabama."
Attended School Some of the Negroes had attended school with Younge before he was shot last Jan. 3. The jury deliberated 70 minutes before acquitting Marvin L. Segrest, 69, of Shorter, Ala., on a second-degree murder indictment. A college-age Negro girl sprang from her seat in the courtroom and started hastily toward a rear door, when she heard the verdict. A sheriff's deputy ordered her back until Judge L.J. Tyner had adjourned court. Then, as the young woman walked down the stairs with a small group of companions, they broke info a loud, chant. But the brief demonstration subsided and the Negroes returned to Tuskegee, 30 miles west of Opelika. Younge was killed and Segrest was indicted in Tuskegee. But the trial was moved to Opelika because the white man's attorney said the defendant could not get a fair trial in an atmosphere of racial unrest, in his own county. Segrest, on the witness stand Thursday, said Younge had harassed him again and again over a period of about four months; that the Negro came to the service station on the night of Jan. 3 and asked "Where the g- -d-- is the g-d-- restroom around here?" Points to Room. After he pointed to the ladies rest room on one side of the station and to the men's on the other, Segrest said Younge told him, "I'm not going to use any g- d-- segregated restroom." Segrest said he tried to explain to Younge the restrooms were segregated only by sex. When the Negro continued protesting, Segrest said, he ordered Younge off the property and he left with the threat to come back "and get you." Segrest said Younge started back toward the station a short time later and he (Segrest) fired a pistol shot into the pavement "to bluff him." Segrest said he fired a second shot "into the air." The second bullet struck Younge in the left eye, killing him. Segrest's story conflicted with testimony from some eye witnesses. They said Younge was walking or running away from the service station when both shots were fired. The defendant said the Negro was walking toward him - The Bridgeport Post, Bridgeport, Connecticutt, December 9, 1966, p 37. |
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