Andy Thibault

Andy Thibault

Cool Justice
Pal Gives Prof Civil Rights Tale
By ANDY THIBAULT, Columnist
Law Tribune Newspapers
October 31, 2005

Two women became friends at a writer's workshop in Vermont. Denise Matthews, associate professor of communication at Eastern Connecticut State University in Willimantic, and Sallie Ann Harrison, a native of Greenwood, Miss., would build on that friendship for more than 20 years.

"Over the years," Matthews told me, "[Harrison] alluded to some of the events of the 60's -- but nothing in detail. It occurred to me a few years back that Sallie is one of those verbal virtuosos who speaks off the top of her head in cogent prose. I decided to interview her about her relationship to race. The two-hour interview that ensued inspired our plan that she should go back to Mississippi and see what happened to her father ..."

The result is a 54-minute documentary about the killing of Harrison's father by Greenwood, Miss. police on Aug. 2, 1966. Matthews, whose background includes production for public television stations in Connecticut, Florida and New Jersey, captures the early days of the civil rights movement through the experiences of a southern white man and his daughter who dared to stand up for racial equality.

Henry Frank Harrison, Sallie Anne's father, was a shopkeeper who employed black people as sales clerks at a time when moderation brought visits from the Ku Klux Klan and fire bombings. A Klansman, believed to be a local cop, told Sallie Ann's mother, "Better get that nigger out of my yard," after a young black man mowed her lawn.

Sallie Ann Harrison first learned of racism as a youngster when she read about the 1955 murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till, just up the Tallahatchie River from Greenwood. Till's face and body were mutilated by two white men who proudly confessed to the killing after they were acquitted by an all-white jury. Till had made the mistake of whistling at a white woman. Sallie Ann asked her father how this could happen.

"I can't answer that," Harrison said. "You'd have to ask J. Edgar Hoover." Whereupon, Sallie Ann wrote to the FBI director. He said the case was closed. "We will accept no further inquiries." Hence the title of Matthews' documentary, "Ask J. Edgar Hoover."

Harrison went on to attend her father's alma mater, Delta State College, where she participated in voter registration drives and integrated cultural events including a Ray Charles concert. It was only in 2001, after talking with Matthews, that she confronted the unanswered questions about her father's killing. By that time, she was the grandmother of two bi-racial boys. "I wondered, what am I going to tell these children about this southern white heritage. I want to tell them about my father and how different he was ... "

What if the police shooting was not an accident, as advertised and reported? Three days after the shooting, police claimed three Negro youths admitted to burglarizing the store and being in the building. No one noticed them at the time.

Police had called Henry Frank Harrison to the store about 10 on a Sunday night. Waiting for him were the police chief, the assistant chief, and four or five officers.

"There were enough people to get him to his store, to get him inside the door and another person to walk him in to where he's at the place where he is shot," Sallie Ann recalled. "Your father rushed in and the policeman mistook him for a burglar and killed him? Well, I don't know about that now. When I hear that there were seven or eight police officers ... including the chief of police and the assistant chief of police, then it sounds more like an execution than an accident."

Documentaries on the Till case led the Justice Department to re-open it in 2004 to search for numerous accomplices. It's never too late for justice. Matthews' documentary is a major step toward justice for an unsung hero of the civil rights movement.

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