Twin City Herald

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT GETS AFFIDAVIT ON KLAN THREAT IN S. C. VOTING CASE
Determined to open up an avenue through which the Federal Government can proceed to intervene in the frame-up and conviction of William Anderson, youthful president of the N. A. A. C. P. youth council in Greenville, S. C., July 24, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People sent an affidavit to the Justice Department setting forth an account of Ku Klux threats against J. C. Williams, a co-defendant of Anderson in the now famous voting case.
Anderson, who has been leading the drive to get Negroes to register for the municipal elections to be held September 12 in Greenville, S. C., was framed and arrested last July, charged with asking a white girl for a date over the telephone. The charge was officially listed as disorderly conduct. He was ordered placed under a $5,000 peace bond and sentenced to serve thirty days in jail or pay a $100 fine.
Williams, in a signed affidavit said that following his arrest August 7, he was visited in jail by one Fred V. Johnson, who pretends to be head of the local Ku Klux Klan. Johnson, according to the affidavit, told Williams that he (Williams) and Williams' lawyer were heading the drive to register Negroes to vote in Greenville. Later according to Williams, when he was tried and acquitted on August 11, but remained in jail on a second charge, Johnson threatened to "take me out of jail and kill me, if I did not tell him why the Negroes were registering in Greenville."
In a letter to Assistant Attorney General O. John Rogge, Thurgood Marshall, special counsel for the N. A. A. C. P., pointed out that the affidavit represented "specific evidence of any overt act in the violation of the laws of the United States, the type of evidence which the Justice Department has said would permit federal action."
Youth Groups Aid Defense Fund
Coincident with the action taken by the N. A. A. C. P.'s legal counsel, announcement was made by James H. Robinson, acting director of the association's youth councils that responses in the form of funds to aid defense of Anderson and the other members of the youth council, were now coming into the national office.
"We started a campaign in our youth councils two weeks ago," he said, to raise funds for the prosecution of this case. I am happy to say that despite the fact that many of our councils all over the country are not very active during the summer, definite response to our plea for funds are coming in. We have received funds from youth councils in Richmond, Va.; Baldwin, Mich.; Jackson, Miss.; and pledges from councils in Detroit, Boston, Mobile, Ala. and Jersey City, N. J. This represents the beginning of our fight to back up the Greenville, S. C., branch in this case."