The Legal Legacy of Lemuel Penn
![handle is hein.journals/howlj25 and id is 477 raw text is: The Legal Legacy of Lemuel Penn
MICHAL R. BELKNAP*
For a Black man in the America of 1964, Lemuel Penn had it
made. He was Director of Adult and Vocational Education for the
District of Columbia Public Schools, held two college degrees, and
was soon to receive a PH.D. from New York University. He and his
wife had a combined annual income of $18,000 and owned a $30,000
home. In addition, Lemuel Penn was a lieutenant colonel in the
army reserve.'
It was military duty which put him on a Northeast Georgia
highway just before dawn on July 11, 1964. Unfortunately for Penn,
at that time and in that place, all that he had achieved was of no
significance. All that mattered that morning was that Lemuel Penn
was Black; his color cost him his life.
On the night of July 10 he and two other Black officers, having
completed two weeks of training at Ft. Benning, near Columbus,
Georgia, set out by car for their homes in Washington. Aware of
how difficult it would be to find lodging in a region which had not
yet surrendered to the proscription of Jim Crow public accommoda-
tions by the recently-enacted Civil Rights Act of 1964,2 they had de-
cided to drive straight through. Thus, 4:45 A.M. found them rolling
through the predawn fog on a state highway just outside the small
Northeast Georgia community of Colbert. Suddenly another car
emerged from the mists behind them and pulled alongside. There
was a roar, two muzzle flashes pierced the darkness, and a load of
buckshot slammed into Lemuel Penn's head. The Black man who
had it made died instantly. Like so many of his race, he became a
victim of the Ku Klux Klan.'
* Visiting Professor of Law, University of Houston.
1. Huie, Murder.- The Klan on Trial, Saturday Evening Post, June 19, 1965, at 86, 87.
2. Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000a-2000h(6) (1976).
3. Record at 401-13, Myers v. United States, 377 F.2d 412 (1967) [hereinafter cited as
Record]; N.Y. Times, July 12, 1964, at 1, col. 6, and 54, col. 2. For a popular account of the
Penn case by an Atlanta journalist see W. SHIPP, MURDER AT BROAD RIVER BRIMDoE (1981).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/howlj25&div=27&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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The Legal Legacy of Lemuel Penn
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