40 years after arrest, H.K. Matthews wonders why more hasn’t changed
- February 24, 2015
- / Joe Vinson
- / community-dashboard
On the night of Feb. 24, 1975, two months after a black motorist was killed by an Escambia County sheriff’s deputy during a traffic stop, simmering tensions between black protesters and the Sheriff’s Office boiled over.
About 50 people were arrested that night, and two of them — Revs. H.K. Matthews and B.J. Brooks — were charged with felony extortion, kicking off a legal tug-of-war that ultimately concluded with the direct intervention of two Florida governors.
Matthews, 87, now lives in Brewton, but was in Pensacola Saturday to speak about the 1965 “Bloody Sunday” march in Selma, Ala., where he was beaten by Alabama state troopers 50 years ago this March.
“I was blessed enough to be in the first march where the beatings took place,” he told the crowd. “I bear on my knee bruises that will live with me as long as I live.”
“But I’m still here,” he added, joking, “and I’m not ashamed of it, because I know I look good for my age.”
He had forgotten that this week was also the 40th anniversary of the protest where he was arrested.
“It’s hard to imagine — 40 years ago, 40 years ago,” he said wistfully.
“I look back on that night, and it wasn’t a pleasant night, but it also wasn’t an unexpected turn of events.”
[caption id="attachment_18237" align="aligncenter" width="850"]
Demonstrators stand outside the Escambia County jail in February 1975.[/caption]
Escambia Deputy Jim Edson[/caption]
During one demonstration, Matthews accused a deputy named Jim Edson of making a racist remark. Seeing a demonstrator with a sign that said Blackwell was “gone but not forgotten,” Edson allegedly said, “Boy, you carrying the wrong sign. I forgot the nigger the next day.”
That enflamed the demonstrators more, and they demanded that Edson be fired, too. One of the chants regularly used by the crowd was, “Two, four, six, eight, who shall we incarcerate,” followed by a list of names that usually included Raines, Untreiner, Edson and Gov. Askew.
“We knew that they would soon get tired of us, because we were drawing too much attention to the unjust system in this county,” Matthews said. “And so that particular night, 40 years ago, their patience had worn as thin as it could without them making a move.”
Sure enough, the crowd was soon given an ultimatum: disperse within two minutes, or face arrest.
“After about a minute and 20 seconds or so, they waded into us with billy whip clubs and started beating people,” Matthews recalled.
Randy Hammer, now president and CEO of Studer Communications, was then a writer for the Pensacola News Journal. He had agreed to give the newspaper’s police reporter, whose car was not working, a ride to the protest. After dropping him off near the building and parking his car, Hammer was walking to join him when chaos broke loose.
“All of a sudden, I see somebody bolt out of the doors of the sheriff’s department, and the next thing I know, people started screaming and turning around and running right past me,” said Hammer, who remembered “standing there with my arms against my legs” as the crowd of hundreds flowed around him.
“I particularly remember the faces of young women, teenage women, screaming and terrified,” he added. “It was pandemonium.”
Around 50 African Americans were arrested that night, all charged with misdemeanor trespassing and unlawful assembly. Matthews and Brooks were also charged with felony extortion, the idea being that the demonstrations were an unlawful method of pressuring Untreiner to fire Raines and Edson.
“That was a statute that had never been used,” said Matthews. “A writer from the St. Petersburg Times said that sounded like something that was plucked from a book by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.”
Attorney Barry Beroset, who in 1975 was an assistant state attorney prosecuting Matthews and Brooks[/caption]
“That was the last criminal case I tried as a prosecutor,” recalled Beroset in an interview Monday. He too found it hard to believe that four decades had passed, but remembered taking safety precautions after vandals smashed the windows of several people connected to the trial, including a black prosecutor named Nathaniel Dedmond.
“My son was an infant at the time, and I remember saying, ‘I better move his crib away from the window,’” Beroset said. “It was an interesting time.”
At the crux of the trial was the accusation that Matthews and Brooks had changed the words of the chant to say “who shall we assassinate,” thus constituting a threat against Untreiner and the others named.
“It all went back to the interpretation,” Beroset said. “Extortion means you threatened to have someone do something they would not lawfully do.”
Six years earlier, in the case of a draft protester who made a threatening comment about President Johnson, the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that “emotionally charged rhetoric … did not transcend the bounds of protected speech.” Only “true” threats were outside the protection of the First Amendment, so prosecutors had to convince a jury that the threat of violence was genuine.
Several deputies testified that members of the crowd had brandished crude weapons during the demonstrations — golf clubs and steak knives, for example — but Hammer did not recall seeing any weapons on the night of the arrests.
“I didn’t see anybody with any weapon whatsoever — none,” Hammer said. “If I had seen somebody with a gun or a club, I probably would have gone in the other direction, but I didn’t see any of that.”
The key piece of evidence was an audio recording made by Deputy Dan Collins in which Matthews could reportedly be heard leading the “assassinate” chant.
Defense attorney Ed Duffee objected to the admission of the recording on the grounds that it had been recorded on Feb. 20 — four nights prior to the arrests — but was overruled by Judge Kirke Beall.
“When we went to trial and they played the shotgun [microphone] recording in court, I said, ‘Phew! That exonerates me!’” Matthews said. “Because it clearly showed that we were saying ’who shall we incarcerate,’ and it also showed that it was not my voice leading the chant.”
In fact, the only witness Duffee called for the defense was Rev. J.L. Savage, who testified that he had led the chants at the protests, not Matthews or Brooks.
Despite this, the all-white, six-person jury quickly returned a verdict of guilty. Brooks was given five years’ probation, during which time he was not to participate in any demonstrations, while Matthews was sentenced to five years in prison. To justify the discrepancy, Judge Beall read from a pre-sentencing investigation of Matthews that listed several traffic infractions and a 1956 citation for drunkenness.
“They were determined, regardless what they had to trump up, they were going to get me,” remembered Matthews.
[caption id="attachment_18238" align="aligncenter" width="850"]
Rev. H.K. Matthews recalls his experiences at the "Bloody Sunday" march at a function hosted by the Escambia County Democratic Women's Club on Feb. 21, 2015.[/caption]
Demonstrators stand outside the Escambia County jail in February 1975.[/caption]
Blackwell killing and response
Wendel Blackwell was a 23-year-old black motorist who was pulled over by Escambia Deputy Doug Raines on Dec. 20, 1974, following a high-speed pursuit. After claiming to see an erratic Blackwell reach for a firearm, Raines shot him in the head, killing him. Sheriff Royal Untreiner refused to suspend Raines during the subsequent investigation, and a month later, a grand jury declined to indict Raines, ruling the killing a justifiable homicide. Many in the black community, unsatisfied that justice had been done, asked Untreiner to fire Raines. They also met with Gov. Reubin Askew, a former Pensacolian, demanding that Raines be removed. When those efforts proved unsuccessful, they organized protests. “The community was galvanized,” Matthews remembered. “We felt that the killing of Blackwell was not justifiable homicide, but that it was murder.” Each night after the grand jury announcement, a group would meet at Greater Mount Lily Baptist Church for a mass meeting, then go to the jail to protest. The crowds had been growing each night. [caption id="attachment_18248" align="alignright" width="300"] Escambia Deputy Jim Edson[/caption]
During one demonstration, Matthews accused a deputy named Jim Edson of making a racist remark. Seeing a demonstrator with a sign that said Blackwell was “gone but not forgotten,” Edson allegedly said, “Boy, you carrying the wrong sign. I forgot the nigger the next day.”
That enflamed the demonstrators more, and they demanded that Edson be fired, too. One of the chants regularly used by the crowd was, “Two, four, six, eight, who shall we incarcerate,” followed by a list of names that usually included Raines, Untreiner, Edson and Gov. Askew.
“We knew that they would soon get tired of us, because we were drawing too much attention to the unjust system in this county,” Matthews said. “And so that particular night, 40 years ago, their patience had worn as thin as it could without them making a move.”
Sure enough, the crowd was soon given an ultimatum: disperse within two minutes, or face arrest.
“After about a minute and 20 seconds or so, they waded into us with billy whip clubs and started beating people,” Matthews recalled.
Randy Hammer, now president and CEO of Studer Communications, was then a writer for the Pensacola News Journal. He had agreed to give the newspaper’s police reporter, whose car was not working, a ride to the protest. After dropping him off near the building and parking his car, Hammer was walking to join him when chaos broke loose.
“All of a sudden, I see somebody bolt out of the doors of the sheriff’s department, and the next thing I know, people started screaming and turning around and running right past me,” said Hammer, who remembered “standing there with my arms against my legs” as the crowd of hundreds flowed around him.
“I particularly remember the faces of young women, teenage women, screaming and terrified,” he added. “It was pandemonium.”
Around 50 African Americans were arrested that night, all charged with misdemeanor trespassing and unlawful assembly. Matthews and Brooks were also charged with felony extortion, the idea being that the demonstrations were an unlawful method of pressuring Untreiner to fire Raines and Edson.
“That was a statute that had never been used,” said Matthews. “A writer from the St. Petersburg Times said that sounded like something that was plucked from a book by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.”
“Who shall we assassinate?”
Matthews and Brooks were tried in June 1975. Prosecuting the case was Barry Beroset, then an assistant state attorney who started his criminal defense firm, Beroset and Keene, later that year. [caption id="attachment_18246" align="alignright" width="300"]
Attorney Barry Beroset, who in 1975 was an assistant state attorney prosecuting Matthews and Brooks[/caption]
“That was the last criminal case I tried as a prosecutor,” recalled Beroset in an interview Monday. He too found it hard to believe that four decades had passed, but remembered taking safety precautions after vandals smashed the windows of several people connected to the trial, including a black prosecutor named Nathaniel Dedmond.
“My son was an infant at the time, and I remember saying, ‘I better move his crib away from the window,’” Beroset said. “It was an interesting time.”
At the crux of the trial was the accusation that Matthews and Brooks had changed the words of the chant to say “who shall we assassinate,” thus constituting a threat against Untreiner and the others named.
“It all went back to the interpretation,” Beroset said. “Extortion means you threatened to have someone do something they would not lawfully do.”
Six years earlier, in the case of a draft protester who made a threatening comment about President Johnson, the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that “emotionally charged rhetoric … did not transcend the bounds of protected speech.” Only “true” threats were outside the protection of the First Amendment, so prosecutors had to convince a jury that the threat of violence was genuine.
Several deputies testified that members of the crowd had brandished crude weapons during the demonstrations — golf clubs and steak knives, for example — but Hammer did not recall seeing any weapons on the night of the arrests.
“I didn’t see anybody with any weapon whatsoever — none,” Hammer said. “If I had seen somebody with a gun or a club, I probably would have gone in the other direction, but I didn’t see any of that.”
The key piece of evidence was an audio recording made by Deputy Dan Collins in which Matthews could reportedly be heard leading the “assassinate” chant.
Defense attorney Ed Duffee objected to the admission of the recording on the grounds that it had been recorded on Feb. 20 — four nights prior to the arrests — but was overruled by Judge Kirke Beall.
“When we went to trial and they played the shotgun [microphone] recording in court, I said, ‘Phew! That exonerates me!’” Matthews said. “Because it clearly showed that we were saying ’who shall we incarcerate,’ and it also showed that it was not my voice leading the chant.”
In fact, the only witness Duffee called for the defense was Rev. J.L. Savage, who testified that he had led the chants at the protests, not Matthews or Brooks.
Despite this, the all-white, six-person jury quickly returned a verdict of guilty. Brooks was given five years’ probation, during which time he was not to participate in any demonstrations, while Matthews was sentenced to five years in prison. To justify the discrepancy, Judge Beall read from a pre-sentencing investigation of Matthews that listed several traffic infractions and a 1956 citation for drunkenness.
“They were determined, regardless what they had to trump up, they were going to get me,” remembered Matthews.
[caption id="attachment_18238" align="aligncenter" width="850"] Rev. H.K. Matthews recalls his experiences at the "Bloody Sunday" march at a function hosted by the Escambia County Democratic Women's Club on Feb. 21, 2015.[/caption]
Legacy and echoes
Matthews appealed his conviction, but it was upheld by both the First Circuit Court of Appeals and the Florida Supreme Court. That’s when Gov. Askew stepped in. He called Matthews’ conviction “bad law” and compared it to the persecution of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. With the unanimous support of his cabinet, Askew commuted Matthews’ sentence in Dec. 1978. He had written letters to Escambia County officials asking if they objected to the commutation, and most — including Beroset — did not. Matthews, who served a total of 63 days of his five-year sentence, appreciated that. “Barry Beroset, I considered him a friend,” Matthews said. “I really didn’t consider him an enemy. I considered him on my side.” Two years after the commutation, on Sept. 12, 1980, Gov. Bob Graham granted Matthews a full pardon. Matthews moved away from the Pensacola area, but has remained a visible figure of the civil rights movement here. He felt vindicated when several people involved in the Blackwell case were disgraced by subsequent scandals; Edson, for example, was later convicted on several counts of misappropriating county-owned property. “Somebody said that when Jim Edson was in the nursing home, they asked him, ‘do you know Rev. Matthews?’” he recalled. “He looked up and he said, ‘I love Rev. Matthews.’” “What I’m saying is, take a seat and watch God make your enemies your footstools.” Asked about the Blackwell killing and black America’s relationship with law enforcement, he was less optimistic. “I think it’s gotten worse,” he said. During his remarks about Selma, Matthews had alluded to the recent string of black men and children killed by law enforcement officers: Michael Brown, Eric Garner, John Crawford, Tamir Rice and others. “We’re still living in an era where a wallet in the hands of a white man looks like a wallet, but a wallet in the hands of a black man looks like a weapon,” he said. “Some policemen feel like they have a license to gun folk down, because they don’t feel there will be any consequences.” He said he was initially hopeful that the election of President Barack Obama had marked a real milestone for racial progress, but now believes that it has instead stoked the fires of racism in some people. “They treat him with such contempt,” he said. “And where things used to be subtle, they’re now brazen and out in the open.” Matthews says he is often asked why he talks so negatively about America. In response, he likes to use the metaphor of a pilot who brags about all the great features and amenities of an airplane, from the food to the reading materials to the in-flight movies. “And after the pilot has talked about all the good things on the plane, he would pause and say, ‘But there is only one thing wrong on this plane, and that is: the landing gear does not work,’” Matthews said. “I am sure that every last one of us in here tonight would forget about all of the good things that the pilot had said about the plane and concentrate on the fact that the landing gear is not working.” “Well, America is a good country, but the landing gear is not working.”Recent Posts
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