Kissing Case

The Kissing Case is an incident relevant to the African-American Civil Rights Movement.

In 1958 in Monroe, North Carolina, two African American boys, seven-year-old David "Fuzzy" Simpson and nine-year-old James Hanover Thompson, were arrested for violating the state's Anti-miscegenation laws. They had participated in a kissing game with a white girl during which the girl kissed Thompson on the cheek. The girl subsequently told her mother, the girl's father and neighbors armed themselves with shotguns and went looking for the boys and their parents. That evening, James Hanover and Fuzzy were arrested on the charge of rape. The young children were detained for six days without access to their parents or legal council, during which they were handcuffed and beaten in a lower-level cell of the police station. A few days later a juvenile court judge found them guilty and sentenced them to indefinite terms in reform school. The boys, who were again denied legal counsel, were told they might get out when they were 21 years old.

Despite pressure from civil rights leader Robert F. Williams, the local chapter of the NAACP, former first lady/civil rights activist Eleanor Roosevelt and New York attorney Conrad Lynn, the local and state government at first refused to back down; Governor Luther H. Hodges and attorney general Malcolm Seawell opposed Williams' writ to review the detention of the boys. Williams called well-known Black civil rights lawyer Conrad Lynn, who came down from New York to take the case. The mothers of the two boys were not allowed to see their children for weeks.

Joyce Egginton, a journalist from England, got permission to visit the boys and took their mothers along. Egginton smuggled a camera in and took a picture of the mothers hugging their children. Egginton's story of the case and photo were printed throughout Europe and Asia, the London Observer ran a photograph of the children's reunion with their mothers under the headline "Why?", and the United States Information Agency reported receiving more than 12,000 letters regarding the case.

An international committee was formed in Europe to defend James and Fuzzy. There were huge demonstrations in Paris, Rome and Vienna and in Rotterdam, the U.S. Embassy was stoned. This was an international embarrassment for the U.S. government. In February, officials asked the boys' mothers to sign a waiver with the assurance that their children would be released. The mothers refused to sign the waiver, which would have been an admission of guilt. Two days later, after three months in detention, James and Fuzzy were released without conditions or explanation.

References

• Kennedy, Randall. Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity, and Adoption. New York: Vintage, 2004.
• Nelson, Truman. People With Strength in Monroe, North Carolina. Privately printed, 1958. online text
• Tyson, Timothy. "Robert F. Williams, NAACP: Warrior and Rebel." The New Crisis December 1997/January 1998.
• Eleanor Papers Project. Eleanor Roosevelt: 1953-1962 online text 2011.
• Revolutionary Worker Online In Memory of Robert F. Williams: A Voice for Armed Self-Defense and Black Liberation online text RW #882, November 17, 1996

External links

• 'The Kissing Case' And The Lives It Shattered 2011-04-29 at NPR