Atlanta Daily World

White Justice In Texas
The governor of Texas has at last yielded to the demands of an outraged public and intervened to commute the death sentence of a young Negro, L. C. Akins, to that of life imprisonment.
The facts show that on September 15, 1941 Akins left his work as a porter in a garage in North Dallas to go to his home across the river, where he had a crippled wife—she had lost both legs in an accident—and a child. He took a down town car, and about 8 o'clock, reached his transfer point. He secured his transfer and with a number of others walked toward the entrance of the car he wished to board. He reached the car and mounted the step. In so doing, reports say, Akins either brushed ahead of and jostled a young white woman, or her husband, who at her elbow, thought he did. The white man, Morris, was a policeman. He displayed no badge, neither was he at the time on duty. He jerked Akins from behind and a fight followed. In the struggle between the two the white policeman dropped his pistol after shooting and beating Akins. Akins in turn, snatched the gun from the ground and fired one shot. That shot killed Morris. Akins was put in jail, denied bail, tried and given a life sentence. The verdict was reversed. He was retried, given a death sentence.
The case has won nationwide attention and is destined to rank alongside of those of Angelo Herndon, Herman Powell and the Scottsboro trials. George Clifton Edwards, a white Dallas lawyer, moved by the demonstrated prejudice of the courts, charged in a signed article to the Nation, that Akins was given a death sentence solely because he is a Negro; that the grand jury specifically selected with his indictment in mind, was exclusively white, save one eighty year-old humble, "good"--Negro-member added to that the trial jury, the witnesses, the judge, court officials clearly followed the law. The lawyer's statement shows, in addition, and prosecutors were all white people. "If the survivor from such a fight were a white," declared Mr. Edwards, "it is doubtful that he would have been indicted anywhere in the state of Texas. And it is certain that he would not have been prosecuted for murder."
Friends of Akins are continuing the fight to secure his total freedom. Such a fight should be joined by all believers in civil justice and equality before the law.