Pod Insights Civics 101 The Supreme Court's Criminal Trial About this episode In 1906, the Supreme Court stayed a man's execution. That same day, his town murdered him. Then SCOTUS held it's first and only criminal trial for those who had allowed it to happen. This is the story of a wrongful conviction that was only the beginning of injustice and the students who learned that story in June of 2024. It's also the story of what happens when you realize your government is closer than you think.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 Hannah McCarthy? A quick note before this episode begins. We will be talking without many details about racist and sexual violence in the context of an historic Supreme Court case in this episode. Please take care of yourself and/or your kids before choosing to listen.
0:22 Hannah McCarthy? Hey, Nick.
0:22 Nick Capodice? Hey, Hannah.
0:24 Hannah McCarthy? Right off the bat here, I need to let you, not you, Nick, but the person who is listening to this right now, know that I sometimes struggle to find hope. Hope about understanding this nation, participating in this nation, accessing this nation. I'm always looking for it, and I know it's there somewhere, but I don't always see it.
0:52 Nick Capodice? Even though that's what we do on a daily basis, like, try to understand, try to participate, try to access.
1:01 Hannah McCarthy? It might be because that's what we do on a daily basis, right? Like, all day, every day, trying to wrap our hearts and minds around this country. And even when I do grasp it myself, I'm always wondering, do other people? Does that mean something to them? Does that help them, strengthen them? Or does America feel out of reach?
1:29 Nick Capodice? I am with you there, Hannah. I do understand that, because the more I learn about this country and its systems, the more secure I feel, honestly. Or maybe the more I feel I have some say in what goes on here. There's something to that whole "knowledge is power" thing. And you do wonder, Hannah, do other people feel the same way? Do they care?
1:51 Hannah McCarthy? So, when something shakes those cobwebs off of my trembling heart and reminds me how many people out there really care and really do try to understand and help others to understand too, because that is one of the points of being alive in the United States. It's just really something, Nick. And today, I want you to meet some of the people who are clearing off those cobwebs.
2:22 Speaker 02 I'm Curtis Collier. I'm one of the district judges here in Eastern District, Tennessee.
2:28 Speaker 03 Well, my name is Alicia Jackson, and I'm a professor at Covenant College, Lookout Mountain, Georgia.
2:33 Speaker 04 My name is Michael Lynn Finacy. I'm a junior at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga. I'm a history major and an Africana Studies minor.
2:40 Speaker 05 I'm Michelle D. Deardorff, the Adolf S. Ox Professor of Government at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
2:47 Speaker 03 Hi, I'm Bella Craig. I was a student mentor in the Chattanooga Hometown Program, and I'm a current student at U T C.
2:54 Speaker 06 My name is Taylor Nelson. I am a senior political science major with a focus in public law. My name is Travis McDonough, and most people call me Judge McDonough, so that'll be fine.
3:04 Speaker 07 I am Miles Farr. I am from the city of Chattanooga in Tennessee. I am currently a senior in a high school.
3:13 Speaker 03 My name is Mackenzie Gula. I am a senior at Chattanooga Christian School, 17 years old, and I had the incredible opportunity of participating with Supreme Court in my hometowns this summer.
3:25 Nick Capodice? Wow, okay.
3:27 Hannah McCarthy? I know. Lots of new voices. Don't worry if you didn't catch all that. Everyone is here to tell us the same story in one way or another.
3:36 Nick Capodice? Wait, did that last person, Mackenzie, did she say "in my hometowns this summer"? Like hometowns plural?
3:43 Hannah McCarthy? Yep, and that is what we are talking about. That and a lot more. This is Civics 101. I'm Hannah McCarthy here with Nick Capodice. And for two weeks in June of 2024, in a program called Hometowns, this group learned and taught the story of Ed Johnson, Chattanooga, Tennessee, the federal judiciary, and why we need to know what happened here.
4:15 Speaker 02 The summer, we added just fantastic program. We brought in 20 kids. We gave kids a chance to see and work on a really interesting case that developed here in Eastern District, Tennessee.
4:28 Hannah McCarthy? This is Judge Curtis Collier.
4:30 Speaker 02 A little bit over 100 years ago. And that case wound up in the United States Supreme Court. They were not only present, they were on top of it. In fact, at the end of the day, they would not leave. At the end of the two weeks, I think they stood around another 30 minutes and hours. So talking, ensuring their perspective and experience and asking questions.
4:52 Hannah McCarthy? So 10th, 11th, and 12th graders apply for this program. If they're selected, they learn about a case that made its way from their hometown to the Supreme Court. The program started in 2023 in St. Louis, Missouri with Hazelwood v. Coolmire.
5:09 Nick Capodice? Hazelwood v. Coolmire. I know that one. It's students' speech in schools. We have a whole episode about that case.
5:15 Hannah McCarthy? We do. I knew you would be excited. There are lots more hometowns planned for the future, by the way. This whole thing is created by the Supreme Court Historical Society, and we'll be putting a link to that on our website and in the show notes. But for today, it's Chattanooga, and it's US v. Ship.
5:34 Nick Capodice? US v. Ship.
5:36 Hannah McCarthy? You've never heard of it.
5:38 Nick Capodice? I haven't. I'm sorry.
5:39 Hannah McCarthy? You are not alone.
5:41 Speaker 02 This case is is a little out of the ordinary because it'd been forgotten. Here at Chattanooga, people did not talk about it. It was not in anyone's real memory. A few people knew something happened, but the whole story was hard to put together. I got interested in it almost as an apprentice. I was doing some research on one of the black lawyers who became involved in the case. And after the research, I discovered he was involved in a Supreme Court decision. And for a black man back then being involved in a Supreme Court decision was surprising. So I located a Supreme Court decision, and his name was mentioned there. And then this case came up that I'd never heard of.
6:21 Speaker 02 Now, a few years after that, a book was written by a newspaper reporter and a local lawyer here, and they told the story in more detail. And since then, we've learned a lot more about the case and also a lot more about the figures involved. This case is not really discussed that much in law schools and law students will say, "I should have been taught this."
6:42 Speaker 03 Judge Collier knows so much and he's been in Chattanooga so long.
6:46 Hannah McCarthy? Bella Craig, a college student and mentor in the hometowns program.
6:50 Speaker 03 He is like sort of the unofficial historian of this case and it was so amazing just to be get his legal expertise and his like historical expertise. It was incredible. Being able to walk around my hometown and like view it in this completely different light. I'm in so many areas I've visited so frequently. I had heard about the Ed Johnson case before just because it's so important to Chattanooga and there was a memorial recently built to honor Ed Johnson at the end of Walnut Street Bridge. I did not know about the case and I had walked on the Walnut Street Walking Bridge many times without understanding the significance of it and what had occurred there.
7:26 Hannah McCarthy? Mackenzie Gula, high school senior.
7:29 Speaker 03 I think there are a lot of aspects of this case that brought to light to me a lot of important connections that maybe necessarily aren't applying the case to modern day circumstances, but rather parts that we looked at that hit very deeply. One of those was we would take field trips to certain historic sites that were involved in the case such as the Nevada Taylor where she got off her bus stop. What was really interesting for me was the street that she got off at her bus at was right across from my school. It was like amazing and a little bit chilling. I mean, the details of the case are very tragic. So, you know, it was, it was upsetting in a lot of ways, but of course,
8:12 Speaker 03 like the Supreme Court Historical Society, their staff and also my professors and the local judges, like they were all super accommodating, like about mental health and things like that. There were regular check-ins, which is great, especially since this was with high schoolers.
8:25 Hannah McCarthy? A reminder again that we are going to be talking about instances of sexual and racist violence. So for those listeners who wish to opt out, this would be the time.
8:40 Speaker 05 And then right down the road from my school is the cemetery that she lived in and where she was raped outside of. And then head further down that street, you have where Ed Johnson lived. Everything felt very close and I hadn't realized that.
8:53 Speaker 03 We visited the cemetery that Nevada Taylor's family kept.
8:58 Speaker 03 Her father was in charge of tending the cemetery there. I've visited that area before and I visited even that cemetery, I had passed it before. But we were standing in the middle of the cemetery where Sheriff Ship is buried. And there are others involved with the case who are also buried there. And also, it was the site, she was walking home when she was assaulted, when she was raped. And so, we were standing so close to the area where that happened. We were sitting in the middle of the graveyard. And I'm, I'm an atheist, but it's like, I felt a lot of just sorrow and just knowing what, what took place there. And luckily, my professor was there and she checked on me. She was like, "Are you doing okay?" I was like, "Not currently, but I will be okay."
9:40 Speaker 03 Yeah, and just, and it wasn't just the assault, it was everything that happened after. And everything that led to the lynching of Ed Johnson. That really hit me.
9:48 Speaker 05 One of the places we went and looked at was an African-American graveyard from 1906. And stepping out of the bus and looking across the street, it was just a slip of land that was very poorly taken care of. And had we not been told what it was, we wouldn't know what it was. There was a lot of stones, not ornamentally placed at all, plants overgrown, branches on the ground and right along the line of where this graveyard ended, there were brand-new-built homes that were just very extravagant. And so that was heartbreaking because looking at the cemetery, you have no idea what it is. And the people living in the homes right next to it may not even know what it is themselves.
10:32 Speaker 05 And so, that was heartbreaking to look at. It caused me to definitely take a step back. And in Chattanooga, there's a lot of preservation of historical places. There's a lot going on that's definitely stuff to be grateful for, a lot of Civil War sites or the Ed Johnson Memorial.
10:49 Speaker 06 By the bridge. But there's also a lot of history that's going unnoticed and that's fading.
10:54 Hannah McCarthy? So this is the case. Or the case that started the case.
11:00 Speaker 06 So the case itself was about Nevada Taylor. She was a young girl. Who was raped on her way home and she had blacked out when a man came up behind her and put a belt around her neck. And later on, the doctor came to her home and confirmed she had been raped. And the sheriff got involved. However, she could not see. It was dark. It was late at night. She did not know the man who attacked her. And the sheriff kept insisting on her giving a racial profile for the man. And she was like, I don't know. It was late at night. It was dark. Maybe if I had to guess, it was an African American man. And the sheriff took that and ran with it and posted a reward to whoever could identify him.
11:45 Speaker 06 And of course, as soon as you post a reward, someone's going to come in and say something. And Ed Johnson was unfortunately that name that was brought up. So that kind of sealed his fate right there.
11:55 Speaker 05 A young woman is attacked and raped. She's walking home from work. And she doesn't know who does it. He's behind her. It's dark.
12:02 Hannah McCarthy? Michelle Deardorff, government professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
12:07 Speaker 05 And there's this sense that they have to find someone who's done. And who did it. And for reasons that aren't entirely clear. They land on Ed Johnson.
12:20 Speaker 05 The story doesn't make sense. It's not clear how he could be the one who did it. Because he was observed being at this local bar.
12:28 Speaker 06 And then the sheriff definitely worked towards the downfall of Ed Johnson.
12:31 Speaker 05 They needed to find someone who did this to put the fears to rest. And as it's reconstructed now from the evidence, it becomes pretty clear. That they found a witness who was willing to lie. There was no one white who recognized him as being where his alibi says he was. All the people who can say he was there were African American. And so it goes to court. And when it goes to court. They're under pressure to solve this quickly because they don't want mob rule. And the fear is if someone's not convicted by the law quickly, the mob will take over. And they don't want that in this new progressive, healthy, happy town of Chattanooga. And so they're going to push it through and they're going to push a conviction through.
13:17 Speaker 06 There were German.
13:17 Speaker 05 Their names were posted in the public paper. So obviously that's going to cause them to feel fearful about if, what are people going to think? If I say he's not guilty, obviously that puts pressure on the jurors. As well as the jurors, there was one who threatened Ed Johnson's life in the middle of a trial. And that juror was not excused. So there's a lot of injustice happening with the trial itself. Ultimately, Ed Johnson is found guilty. And following that, pardons and styles step in as attorneys to represent Ed Johnson and appeal the case. Eventually, a stay of execution is granted by the Supreme Court. So there's some hope there.
13:55 Hannah McCarthy? All right, we're going to step in here for a moment. I am mostly leaving this story up to the people who know it best. But when we began, I told you that this was a story about Ed Johnson and a story about a Supreme Court case called USV ship. There is so much going on here, so I do want to check in to make sure that you don't miss it. Ed Johnson, a young black man in his mid twenties, was wrongfully convicted of the rape of Nevada Taylor in 1906. And he was sentenced to execution.
14:28 Speaker 05 Two white attorneys were appointed to represent him, but they were under tremendous pressure not to. Family pressure, personal pressure, community pressure. They even tried to explain and write an editorial in the paper as to why they do this, because that's what law requires. That they didn't want to take this case, but they were assigned it and they would do their job. Um, but they really don't do their job.
14:56 Speaker 05 And so he goes to court, he's alone, he's the only, they shut down the court. So the only people who were there are lawyers, judges, lots and lots of police officers and Ed Johnson. Decisions made pretty quickly. He's found guilty almost immediately.
15:12 Hannah McCarthy? His white, court-appointed lawyers opted not to appeal his case. So two black lawyers in Chattanooga, Noah Pardon and Stiles Hutchins, stepped in to petition the federal court system.
15:26 Nick Capodice? Petition it how, though?
15:28 Hannah McCarthy? They petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus, which literally means that you have the body. But super basically, it means asking the court to review the imprisonment or detainment of a person and decide if it's legal. In this case, Pardon and Hutchins claimed that Ed Johnson's trial deprived him of his constitutional rights.
15:53 Nick Capodice? Right, so these two lawyers said essentially that Ed Johnson was not properly convicted and his imprisonment, and I assume his death sentence, was wrong.
16:03 Hannah McCarthy? But the appeals court said, "Sorry, federal courts do not intervene in state criminal proceedings."
16:10 Nick Capodice? Wait, is that true?
16:11 Hannah McCarthy? Oh, we're gonna get there. So this is 1906, Nick. There's still a lot of stuff to happen in the federal judiciary. Also, by the way, these two black lawyers had initially declined to take Ed Johnson's case, and for good reason. They feared for their careers and their lives if they intervened. So stepping in at this stage was a huge risk, and they did it anyway. So a federal district judge says, "Sorry, we don't do that." But he also says, "But hey, why don't you ask the governor to delay the execution so that you can appeal my decision?"
16:49 Nick Capodice? The world of law is such an interesting place, Hannah. No, you can't have this, but hey, why don't you ask someone else to think about it?
16:57 Hannah McCarthy? So Pardon and Hutchins do that. They ask the governor to delay the execution pending appeal. And the governor says, "Okay, fine, 10 days." And Pardon is like, "I can work with that."
17:12 Hannah McCarthy? I'm going to use this delay to talk to the circuit judge for Tennessee. Do you know who that was, Nick?
17:18 Nick Capodice? You know I do not know, Hannah.
17:20 Hannah McCarthy? It was Justice John Marshall Harlan of the United States Supreme Court.
17:26 Nick Capodice? I do know him. I know Justice Harlan. He's the lone dissenter in Plessy v. Ferguson. So if he was on the Supreme Court when this happened, that means that this is from the riding-circuit days, right? When justices would travel the country to hold court in different states, right?
17:43 Hannah McCarthy? That's exactly right. So Pardon goes to Washington DC, and with the help of a black Supreme Court lawyer in DC, he gets a meeting with Justice Harlan. This is at a time when very few black lawyers had ever appeared before the Supreme Court. Harlan tells Pardon, "Okay, the Supreme Court will hear this appeal. I also grant you a stay of execution."
18:08 Nick Capodice? Okay, so Harlan is basically saying, "Actually, the federal courts can intervene in a state criminal proceeding."
18:16 Hannah McCarthy? Well, this is one of the questions at hand. And remember, the Supreme Court case is about Ship. Ship is the sheriff. It is not called Ed Johnson v. the state of Tennessee, because this is what happened next, the very same day that Harlan issued a stay on Ed Johnson's execution.
18:41 Hannah McCarthy? I'm going to take us back to Mackenzie Gula.
18:45 Speaker 05 But then, right after that, a lynch mob broke into the jail, which definitely was set up to very easily occur because the sheriff had let go of all of the other people working in the jail, except for a very, very old security guard, and left it very open, very accessible for the lynch mob to get in, find Ed Johnson. They had him on the second floor alone with another woman, so he was very identifiable.
19:12 Speaker 03 And the lynch mob dragged him out of the jail cell, all the way to the Walnut Street Walking Bridge, where he was lynched. And then he fell out of his rope, and they walked up and shot a gun to his head. So that was the case of Ed Johnson.
19:26 Hannah McCarthy? Ed Johnson's final words were, "God bless you all. I am innocent." It was 94 years before the state of Tennessee affirmed that he was, in fact, innocent.
19:43 Speaker 04 One of my early memories of being an associate here in town was actually going to the hearing at which Ed Johnson was pronounced innocent by a former criminal judge.
19:57 Hannah McCarthy? Chief District Judge Travis McDonough.
19:59 Speaker 04 And it's such an impactful story, and such a, you know, sad story, and a story that says a lot about our history, that, you know, once you learn about it, you tend not to forget about it.
20:11 Nick Capodice? So what did happen in the end? How did the Ed Johnson case become the Ship case?
20:16 Hannah McCarthy? Here's Michelle Dierdorf.
20:17 Speaker 05 They say you cannot execute this man until we're able to take a careful look at this case. And the execute, you know, the mob comes anyways. There's clear evidence that they were aided and abetted by the sheriff and his men. And then the court has to decide if they're going to actually intervene. And so they bring investigators, they call trial, yeah.
20:39 Hannah McCarthy? And Mackenzie Gula again.
20:41 Speaker 03 The Supreme Court stepped in, did its first ever and only criminal court trial, and eventually sentenced Sheriff Ship to go to jail.
20:52 Nick Capodice? Wait, hold on, Hannah. The Supreme Court actually held a criminal trial? Is that something that they do? I thought this is something that they did not do.
21:01 Hannah McCarthy? They did it, like Mackenzie says, though, first and only time. Ship and others went to prison, though only briefly. But the Supreme Court didn't fully answer the question of federal intervention in state criminal proceedings.
21:17 Speaker 05 This case seems to me, with US versus Ship, this moment where we could actually reconsider our understanding of the 14th Amendment and what it had the capacity to do. But yet, it doesn't. US versus Ship just sits there.
21:36 Speaker 05 Judge Collier makes a fascinating kind of argument of the ways in which he sees this case kind of showing up where the courts decide to implement their own decisions. And he thinks this is particularly around Brown and these kinds of cases. And then that's possible. But when it comes to criminal law, it just sits there.
21:57 Speaker 02 It took a while to do it.
21:59 Hannah McCarthy? Judge Curtis Collier.
22:00 Speaker 02 The Supreme Court took this case to look at that issue. And because their judge was murdered, the Supreme Court did not answer the question. The question came up again about 10 years later in a case out of Marietta, Georgia, involving a Jewish man named Leo Frank. And they addressed the issue then, they fully addressed the issue, but they decided that Frank's facts did not allow them to run their decision. And then about 10 years after that, a case arose not far from my hometown in Eastlake, Arkansas, where they addressed the issue and they said, yes, if a state trial that has the form of a fair trial, but in reality is not a fair trial, then the federal courts have a role and the United States Constitution comes into play.
22:45 Speaker 05 I mean, I teach con law. I'd never really taught this case because it doesn't get referenced much again. So I do now because we're here. It seems students need to understand it because they live here. But for a system based on precedent, this case being so remarkable seems to have a very shallow footprint when it comes to precedent.
23:09 Speaker 04 What is important about it is that it was the Supreme Court acknowledging that the federal courts had a role to play after some terrible things had happened in a state criminal prosecution. That augured in decades and decades of federal courts reviewing some of the worst injustices that had happened in state courts. That has evolved and, but at the time that it happened, it was a somewhat unique occurrence. And it opened the eyes of federal court practitioners that this was another way to seek justice for those that
23:54 Speaker 04 had perhaps been denied justice in state criminal litigation.
23:58 Hannah McCarthy? We're gonna take a quick break. And when we're back, I'm getting to the point, which is hope.
24:07 Nick Capodice? You know, Hannah, I was honestly starting to wonder. But before that break, quick reminder that Hannah and I have a book with a breakdown of many landmark Supreme Court cases and a ton of other stuff. It's called A User's Guide to Democracy: How America Works. It is fun, it's for everyone, it makes a really good gift. In fact, it just keeps on giving. You can find it wherever books are sold, and we got a link to it right down there in the show notes.
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26:06 Nick Capodice? Have any of you out there ever Googled your own name? Like, actually done it? You'll find your address, your phone number, maybe even that police report from the time you went to see Rain Man in the movie theater, but you were underage? Maybe that one's just me. But here's the thing. There are companies called data brokers whose entire business model is collecting your personal information and selling it to advertisers, to strangers, sometimes to people running scams. And once your data's out there, it just keeps circulating. That is where Incogni comes in. Incogni contacts data brokers on your behalf and sends them removal requests over and over, so your info doesn't just pop right back up. You set it up once, and they keep working in the background.
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27:15 Hannah McCarthy? We're back. We're talking about a case, a place, a program, and the people who were changed by it. By the way, just so you know, if you or someone you know might be interested in this program, the Supreme Court Historical Society's Hometowns Program, which is free, we will have a link to it in our show notes and on our website. Now, I want to jump back in with someone who can give us a fuller picture of Chattanooga at the beginning of the 20th century.
27:42 Speaker 03 Well, my name is Alicia Jackson, and I'm a professor at Covenant College, Lookout Mountain, Georgia, and teach and research extensively on African-American history and primarily with a strong interest in Reconstruction period, late 19th century, and extending into the early 20th century.
28:04 Speaker 03 My role was primarily to give an overview of African American life before the Civil War, Chattanooga's role in it, and then also talk about what happened during the Civil War, after the war, and also give a broader context about the Reconstruction period. And really help to define for the students what Reconstruction is.
28:26 Nick Capodice? We have a whole series on Reconstruction that would make a good supplement to this episode, by the way.
28:31 Hannah McCarthy? I think it would, especially when we think about the false narrative that has been spun about the Black community when it comes to the post-Reconstruction era. How is it that the justice system so utterly failed a young, innocent Black man? Years and years of purposeful undermining by his white neighbors.
28:52 Speaker 03 And so that is what you see happen is that, especially if you think about a place like Chattanooga, where you have Black political leadership, Black economic development, and in many ways challenging that idea about this complicit Black individual who's just going to do whatever the white person wants him to do, just serve the white community, the magical Negro, or that Mammy kind of caricature, then they're a threat. And so I think that is so embedded in the culture, especially during the late 1800s, that Reconstruction period and beyond, that I think the atmosphere was ripe to go after someone like Ed Johnson.
29:35 Speaker 03 So it's not only is it the idea about this economic competition, but also, don't you know Black men have this proclivity? I mean, you see this in the secession proponents. They're talking about, you know, that Black men are going to start wanting to marry, you know, white women and all that. So there is sort of a really beginning of that, but when you see Black individuals having political power... Economic power and challenging the system. That's even more why you're going to see, again, I think this is not a huge backlash. Chattanooga has a lot of racially tense history.
30:12 Hannah McCarthy? Bella Craig again, a mentor in the hometowns program.
30:15 Speaker 03 The north side of Chattanooga used to be a predominantly black area and now it's completely flipped on its head. I think keeping in mind like the history of who used to live in these areas and not that that isn't taking place. There's a lot of preservation, maybe not enough preservation in my own opinion. So I think telling these stories, having a community around saying, you can make it. I'm here for you, you know, sort of having that embracement and that embracing of that. I think in many ways it's such a detriment, particularly to the black community, but I would say to the broader community as well. But I just think these stories have to be told and that's part of them was one of my missions. And the work I do is to make sure that these are collected and preserved and shared.
31:00 Speaker 03 I feel like preservation is something we should focus on a lot more, just not only just the history of black Chattanoogaans as like a mass. But like there are specific, so many memorable figures in this story. Who did so much to like aid the pursuit of justice, even if it was flawed, not on their end, but on the system's end. I just, I just really think it's important. I don't want, I don't want people to walk away thinking that people just passively and tacitly accepted what happened or that the black community has ever done that. There are ways that many people, maybe not visible to the broader community, where people challenged what was going on.
31:45 Speaker 03 And so, as I mentioned at the beginning, whether it be enslaved individuals getting their freedom, running away to Chattanooga, that's what they did. Whether it be black individuals creating their own hospitals because they can't be served at the white hospital. Training nurses, particularly thinking about Emma Wheeler, you know, training nurses to be able to provide care for the black community. Or GW Franklin providing services for the dead. Because white undertakers wouldn't handle black bodies. But in turn, investing in their communities and becoming individuals who are trying to,
32:28 Speaker 03 in many, in their ways, challenge what's going on. I think that's, I think, an important story to tell. I don't, what happened to Ed Johnson is horrendous, and I think in no way should be lessened. But to understand that people didn't just accept this. They found ways to challenge what was going on. I walk across Walnut Street Bridge like every weekend. It's amazing. It's a beautiful place. And two people have died there. There were two men lynched there. Um, it wasn't just Ed Johnson. There was a man before him. And so, in sake of preservation, memory in the form of like everyday, you know, acknowledgement, I think is huge. But memory also in the form of, our city's very proactive.
33:12 Speaker 03 Civically, we have so much involvement in politics, I feel like. And maybe that's just my perception, but there's a lot we can do.
33:20 Hannah McCarthy? We're going to take a quick break. When we're back, a much-needed reminder, at least for me, of why we're here and what we can do.
33:31 Nick Capodice? Haven't you out there ever Googled your own name? Like, actually done it? You'll find your address, your phone number, maybe even that police report from the time you went to see Rain Man in the movie theater, but you were underage? Maybe that one's just me. But here's the thing. There are companies called data brokers, whose entire business model is collecting your personal information and selling it to advertisers, to strangers, sometimes to people running scams. And once your data's out there, it just keeps circulating. That is where Incogni comes in. Incogni contacts data brokers on your behalf and sends them removal requests over and over, so your info doesn't just pop right back up. You set it up once, and they keep working in the background.
34:16 Nick Capodice? You can even track the progress on a dashboard. And for our listeners, we have an exclusive 60% off an annual Incogni plan. Just go to incogni.com/civics or use the code civics at checkout. There's a link in the episode description. Remember, they can't harm you if they can't find you.
34:43 Hannah McCarthy? We're back. And, well, this is what I learned reporting about the Hometowns Program.
34:52 Hannah McCarthy? So I told you at the beginning of this episode that researching for it and interviewing people for it gave me this sense that people really do care, whether they're in charge or not, judges, teachers, students. And they don't just care, they're actively involved in this country. And they want that for others. It's something that became clear pretty much in every conversation that I had about the Hometowns Program. I went into this thinking, I would learn about this thing and I would share it with you, pretty straightforward.
35:31 Hannah McCarthy? But I came out of it realizing that it doesn't much help a soul to wonder if anybody is there, if anybody cares.
35:48 Hannah McCarthy? Because they are, and they do, and they are trying to get us to listen.
35:54 Speaker 07 That even a city that was considered progressive at the time would still allow such atrocities to occur in both, both inside and outside the courtroom. It did, of course, instill a sense of disappointment, but I still believe that that's important, that I and my colleagues learned about all of that so we could hopefully do better in the future.
36:18 Hannah McCarthy? Miles Farr, high school senior. I can't tell you how many students across the racial spectrum who are like, I can't believe I didn't learn this. I can't believe I didn't learn this. Why didn't I learn this?
36:32 Speaker 04 I know a lot of them were like, very surprised by like, you know, what happens in the case.
36:38 Hannah McCarthy? Michael Allen Fennessey, a college student at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and a mentor in the Hometowns Program.
36:45 Speaker 04 And how, what you would think of justice, or how our justice system works today, was definitely not happening then. So many obvious like flaws. And so those are things that they couldn't completely wrap their head around because they were like, wait, wait, wait, I've been, I've been taught about these values that our country, you know, supports and pushes, but that's not what's happening here.
37:07 Speaker 06 And so I guess it takes a bit to like, understand the complicatedness of it. And like I was saying earlier about how our system just continues to build off of itself. And so it takes really awful cases like these for people to uh build up and make that change that needs to be changed.
37:24 Speaker 07 Well, of course, it's easier to look back on things. It always is. It's easier to look back at atrocities without, say, both the rage felt across Chattanooga at the a- actual case of Ed Johnson and the attempted lynchings and such. However, it was also the fact that I believe my colleagues in the program were not the voice of our generation, but were certainly voices of our generation. We in the program both want to make a difference and some of us even could be making a difference as we speak.
37:59 Speaker 06 A lot of people are averse to history. I feel like a lot of times I tell people that I'm a history major, they just talk about how much they hated their history subject or or history in school, or they hated their history teacher. Um, which really sucks because I love history and I I really wish other people could see why it's so important. And so with programs like this, you take it outside of that classroom environment um that people may not be so prone to like, listen or understand or really get why what they're talking about is so important. And with this, like, it was optional and it was a very fun program, it was very engaging. You know, we went and toured the sites that we talked about. And so doing it like this, it makes it feel more real. It makes the history feel more alive, I feel.
38:40 Speaker 06 Um, especially like they also were like engaging with lawyers and judges who could speak on the legal system and why exactly this case should not have happened the way it did. So this way, it was, it was a really, it was a great way to make it feel real. And I think it's so important that not everybody knows that that it wasn't always like this.
39:02 Hannah McCarthy? Taylor Nelson, college student, mentor in the hometowns program, and a legal assistant.
39:08 Speaker 06 Those rights weren't always there. So the shift in the early 20th century, that gave criminal defendants more rights. I didn't even know that there were so little rights for criminal defendants.
39:22 Speaker 02 People understand that maybe mistakes were made, or maybe this shouldn't happen again in the future. And so then there's legislation or judicial processes to fix it. And so it's really interesting to think about history like that, in terms of like mistakes being fixed.
39:36 Speaker 07 I see Chattanooga as both a relatively progressive city, and I believe Chattanooga is doing better. But it is important to remember, in my opinion, that we were not always like this. We were not always perfect. We still aren't perfect. But it's important to know why we have to do better and why we have to make sure nothing like it ever happens again.
40:00 Speaker 02 Another thing that is important for people to understand is that we don't have robots making up our court system.
40:06 Hannah McCarthy? Judge Curtis Collier again.
40:08 Speaker 02 We have human beings. We have men and women who are fallible. And they're prone to make mistakes just like everybody else is prone to make mistakes. The system, though, is designed to suck and gas. Then that's why courts appeal. That's why we have a Supreme Court. But if you look at infallibility and perfection in federal courts, you're looking at raw plates. You won't find it there.
40:36 Speaker 02 And sometimes to make mistakes out of biases, prejudices, man, animosities, sometimes make mistakes for other reasons. And having the ability to go to federal court to have a conviction looked at is very important.
40:52 Speaker 06 The biggest thing I recommend for people is, especially in the judicial system, is go and watch. There's nothing stopping you from going and observing a proceeding. Nobody's going to get mad at you.
41:05 Nick Capodice? Can I hop in here with a quick anecdote about this Hannah?
41:07 Hannah McCarthy? Yeah, go ahead.
41:08 Nick Capodice? So this is one of the greatest things that my government teacher taught me in college. One day he said to us, "Go to the courthouse, ask for the clerk of court's office. They have a list of cases being heard that day and you can watch any trial." And I did. I did. I watched the trial and I was shocked that I could do it.
41:29 Hannah McCarthy? Yeah, I mean, the Sixth Amendment says, quote, "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial." And you, you right here listening, are the public.
41:45 Speaker 06 You're allowed to be there. I think that experience for the students kind of opened their eyes. You know, this is what happens from what I'm taught in government class. You know, there's so much more to this. And I think also shedding some light on some of the negative aspects of American government, kind of like, you know, the Ed Johnson case, very, very awful handling of that case by the judiciary, at least the local judiciary, kind of sheds some light on, oh, this is the history that gives us the rights that we have today. And I think, you know, schools can tend to, you know, shy away from those darker histories. But I think they're important because, you know, the age old, if we don't study history,
42:28 Speaker 06 we're doomed to repeat it. And I think that's so true. And I think that the students really did come away with the, oh, this really somber thing happened. But it was so important for our institutions and for our furtherance of rights that we have now.
42:45 Speaker 02 The federal courts belong to we, the people. We, the people, own the courts. We, the people, either directly or indirectly, control the courts. And because you own the courts, you have an obligation to make sure the courts are operating efficiently, effectively, and the way you want them to operate. How do you carry out that responsibility? You carry out that responsibility by being more involved. Reach out to your local federal court. Uh, come and visit the federal court, talk to the judges and educate your family members, your coworkers and your friends and associates about what the federal courts do and why they're important in our society.
43:25 Speaker 06 You know, if you don't protect the civil rights and liberties of people who, you know, may or may not have as much knowledge of them, then who's gonna be next?
43:36 Speaker 07 Essentially, it is our not only duty but responsibility and right to make a better society for both ourselves, our neighbors and our descendants. And to anyone who thinks that we can just put it off or that we can't do anything about it, I say that not only do I think you're right, but also feel sad that you think that.
43:59 Speaker 06 I understand that this thing is negative and at the same time, understand that I have the ability to change it. I think people who kind of live in cynicism really take away from the civic duty that, you know, all American citizens have.
44:16 Speaker 07 We need to make sure that the changes we want to happen are not only made nationwide and statewide, but even down to the city, neighborhood and even house. In the end, we, we just need to make sure that within each generation, we improve life for the next generation.
44:35 Speaker 06 And I think that a lot of people always have this idea that, oh, it'll never be me until it's you, until it's your brother, until it's your family member, until it's your friend. And then, you know, you wanna help them so bad, but you just don't know. And I think sometimes it does take that situation for people to kind of be aware of, oh, well, now I don't know what to do to help my friend who's in this legal predicament. Well, now I need to educate myself. And I think maybe kind of bringing this awareness towards the concept of it could be you who's wrongfully convicted. It could be anybody and I'm not trying to like be scary or anything, but I think it is important to understand if you don't know your rights, you can't advocate for yourself.
45:17 Speaker 06 And I think advocating for yourself as a citizen is the most important thing you can do. It's the most active thing you can do for yourself.
45:29 Nick Capodice? Hannah, when you texted me that you were crying as you were going over the interview transcripts, is this kind of what you meant?
45:37 Hannah McCarthy? Full disclosure, does not always have to disclose every single detail, Nick, but yeah, this is what I meant. There is so much cynicism, there's so much dread, so much misinformation, so much unknown in this nation, especially, I feel, lately. But when a group of students and educators and judges say, "Actually, there is a real and true path to understanding and participating in and preserving this democracy," it was an important reminder to me of the myriad good hands that our nation and our rights
46:22 Hannah McCarthy? rest in. So, yeah, I guess I'm holding out hope.
46:28 Nick Capodice? I'll join you.
46:51 Hannah McCarthy? This episode was produced by me, Hannah McCarthy, with Nick Capodice. Christina Phillips is our senior producer, Rebecca Lavoie is our executive producer. Music in this episode by Timothy Infinite, VV Campos, Adeline Paek, 12, Particle House, and Chris Sabriski. You can learn everything you want to know about the Supreme Court Historical Society's Hometown Program by going to their website, supremecourthistory.org, or by clicking the link in our show notes. Civics 101 is a production of NHPR, New Hampshire Public Radio.
47:37 Speaker 02 US democracy is being held together by duct tape. But what if the solution isn't more tape, but a fundamentally different design? Check out More Like Us, the new podcast for more equitable democracy, the award-winning racial justice organization focused on election reform, hosted by me, Colin Cole. Each episode, More Like Us provides smart, accessible conversations at the intersection of policy, culture, and democracy. Hear from the people reimagining our political future without the jargon or the lecture. So follow More Like Us wherever you get your podcasts.
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