Resurrection

Year ago the U. S. press carried an ugly tale: near Earle, Ark., when a picket line of sharecroppers was broken up by a mob of vigilantes, a Negro named Frank Weems had been beaten to death. Within a few days the Rev. Claude Williams, asked by the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union to preach Weems's funeral sermon, left Memphis accompanied by Willie Sue Blagden, Memphis social worker, to investigate Weems's death and gather material for his obituary. At Earle, they were seized by vigilantes. Parson Williams was given 14 thumping whacks with a mule's belly strap. Then Willie Sue Blagden got four solid clouts. Governor Futrell and the local sheriff protested that the Weems "funeral" was only propaganda, that Frank Weems was still alive, but their pooh-poohing paled beside a published photograph of Willie Sue Blagden exposing a plump thigh bearing a large black & blue mark.

Last week in Chicago, the whole Weems incident was cleared up. In the office of Lawyer Francis Heisler appeared Negro Frank Weems, alive and whole. After being beaten he had hidden for a week in a hobo "jungle," then traveled north, had finally told his story to the Workers' Defense League. The Rev. Claude Williams and Willie Sue Blagden might have suffered in vain, but safe in Chicago Frank Weems planned to sue his floggers for $25,000 damages.

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