Mourners file past the open caskets of World War II veteran George Dorsey and his sister, Dorothy Malcom, at Mount Perry Baptist Church in Bishop on July 28, 1946. THE ATLANTA JOURNAL CONSTITUTION
It never should have been a mystery, let alone one that’s lingered nearly 69 years.
This week, reports that the FBI had interviewed an elderly Monroe man linked to the shootings of two black couples at Moore's Ford Bridge on the Walton/Oconee county line raised hopes that at least some of the men responsible for one of the nation's most heinous lynchings would finally be brought to justice.
Charlie Peppers, 86, told The Guardian newspaper that two FBI agents had interviewed him recently about the murders. He insisted he was not involved, telling the paper, “I didn’t even know where Moore’s Ford was.”
The FBI won’t say whether it interviewed Peppers about what transpired that summer day on the banks of the Apalachee River though Special Agent Stephen Emmett did confirm that the investigation remains open. Attempts by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution to reach Peppers were unsuccessful.
The lynchings were national news in 1946, and when the public learned that two of the victims, Dorothy Malcom and Mae Murray Dorsey, were women, and another, George Dorsey, a World War II veteran, they demanded justice, swift and severe.
President Harry Truman promptly dispatched 20 FBI agents to Walton County, and even though they would identify 55 suspects no one was indicted due to a lack of physical evidence.
White residents protected the killers while black residents, fearing reprisal, kept quiet.
While that code of silence has eroded it hasn’t totally disappeared, said Robbie Schwartz, managing editor of The Walton Tribune.
“This is still a very emotional issue for people here,” he said. “I think most people wish it would just go away because they don’t think it’ll ever be solved, not now.”
The odds are stacked against any signficant closure, with time the most pressing challenge.
Age recently caught up with Walton civil rights activist Robert Howard, known as the spiritual leader of the Moore’s Ford movement. The former director of the local branch of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference is now homebound due to an onset of dementia.
It was Howard who struck up a relationship with Peppers' nephew, Wayne Watson, three years ago. Watson eventually told him what he would tell a group of civil rights leaders, including then-NAACP President Ben Jealous, in 2013.
“All through my life, I heard them talk about [the lynchings],” said Watson, naming his uncle and several other local men, at least five of whom were still alive at the time. “I’m tired of it, when you go through life, and you’re living with lies.”
Here’s what is known about that lynchings. On July 25, 1946, the Dorseys and Dorothy Malcom accompanied a white bootlegger and landowner, Loy Harrison, to the Walton County jail where he paid $600 to bond out Roger Malcom. Eleven days earlier, Malcom had stabbed a white farmer he suspected was having an affair with his wife.
Less than an hour after leaving the jail the group encountered up to two dozen vigilantes at the Moore’s Ford Bridge. Harrison told investigators the Malcoms and Dorseys were dragged from his car, tied to trees and shot about 60 times.
Rumors had swirled for years about just who was responsible. Watson's account was recorded by Jealous and sent to the Justice Department. It's unknown whether the FBI interviewed anyone besides Peppers, who would have been a teenager in 1946.
It’s also unclear whether Watson, now 57, is telling the truth.
“I don’t put a lot of credence in what he said,” said Schwartz, who knows Watson. “He used to come into my office spouting all kind of government conspiracies. I have to wonder if he’s 100 percent there.”
Some of the individuals implicated would have been younger than 10 years old at the time, said Schwartz.
But State Rep. Tyrone Brooks (D-Atlanta), who was present for Watson’s interview, said he found him to be credible. Brooks, dispatched by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to Walton County just before his assassination, hopes the renewed attention to the case will buttress his calls for a congressional hearing.
“Every week it seems more and more information is coming out,” Brooks said. “Let’s get everyone associated with this before the Judiciary Committee and push for answers before it’s too late. The clock is ticking fast.”
Even if all that happens, a prosecution based on mostly heresay would be difficult to mount. Compounding the challenge is the absence of grand jury testimony related to the investigation.
“It is apparent that if there were such transcripts,” U.S. Attorney George Peterson wrote in a recent federal court filing, “they have been either lost or destroyed at some unknown time in the past.”
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