Right now, it's time for the Way Black History Fact. In today's Way Black History Fact is sponsored by Underground Beach Club from the streets to the beach for the best in beachwear, visit Underground Bleach Beachclub dot com not Bleach Club anyway. I'm gonna share a little bit of a story. This is a story about a gentleman named Willie James Howard. This is something that happened before Emmitt Till.
We talked about Ammettill on the show. We shared our visit to the National Museum of African American History and Culture and how emotional and eye opening it was to see Emmett Till's coffin, this original coffin. You know that little tiny body. It was that part a lot. It was a lot. And if you don't know about Immet Hill, please take a moment do this for us. We're we're your brothers. We're asking us, if a favor, please research that to know we do this Way Black History Fact,
to give you context. Okay, why we are here, why we feel the way we feel, et cetera. So this came before Emmett Till. Willie James Howard was born July thirteen, nineteen twenty eight, in Live Oak, Florida, at fifteen years old. He was in the tenth grade and worked in the Van Priest five and dime store downtown. According to the story, he Willi sent Christmas cards to employees of the store the Christmas holiday. One of the employees, a popular white
girl named Cynthia, was offended by the gesture. According to the account, which has just as many variations as Emmett's story, at the bottom of the cart for Cynthia, Willy indicated an L for love. Later, Willie wrote Cynthia a letter, this time apologizing. He signed this one with a little poem I love your name, I love your voice for an sh which is sweetheart. It's abbreviation you are my
choice okay. On January Tewod nineteen forty four, Cynthia's father, Phil Goff, who saw the letter, most likely by Cynthia showing it to him, as some accounts suggest, and two of his friends, arrived at Willy's home, and the three men dragged the boy from his mother's arms. They also kidnapped his father. They drove to the Suwanee River and bound Willy James by his feet and hands and made him stand at the edge of the river, where, according to his father's testimony, he was told he could either
jump in the river or be shot. The boy jumped in and drowned. By the way, this is leaving this part out. They brought his father there and made him watch, So his father watched his son son's last moments. All right, The Swanee County sheriff ordered Ansel Brown, the local black undertaker, to retrieved the boy's body from the river and buried immediately. To cover up the incident, Fill and his friends forced Willy's father to sign a document alleging that Willy jumped
into the river on his own. Court According to their written statement, which was included in the Lanyear report, the three men admitted taking the boy from his home and tying him up on the way to the river, but they said he fell in accidentally. This conflicts with the first story that the boy jumped into the river. Either the boy jumped into the river on his own or he slipped accidentally. It was obvious the men were not
telling the truth, but there was never an arrest. After signing the document, Willy's father, also named James, picked up his family and moved to Orlando. No death certificate was ordered for his only son, and the grave was unmarked for sixty years. It is marked now. THIRDD. Marshall demanded a full investigation after hearing about Willie's case. It was picked up by Harry T. Moore of the NAACP, who
had gone to school with Lula Howard, Willie's mother. More received documented proof from Willie's parents explaining what really happened. They stated that Willy's father had been threatened and forced to sign the document. However, grand jury did not indict Golf and his friends and the prosecution was never achieved. More continued fighting through the case and in nineteen forty seven wanted to reopen it, but the Third Good Marshall
was unwilling to dedicate any more. NAAC funded. Now. I say this because I don't want people to think that Emmett Till's story was just an isolated incident happened in the vacuum. There were stories like this that happened all the time, but this one came across our desk and we're like, Wow, this is something that we didn't know. I certainly didn't know, and I felt like we should share it. With you, so thank you for listening to our way Black history fact