Sheriffs North and South
MARGOLIS, RICHARD J.
States of the Union SHERIFFS NORTH AND SOUTH BY RICHARD J. MARGOLIS "Then the Sheriff turned away with a sore and troubled heart, and sadly he rued his fine show of retainers, for he saw that . ....
...Alas, his efforts proved fruitless...
...Last spring, during a scuffle at an all-black dance, two men shot into the crowd and killed an elderly man...
...The vote was close--2,078 for Hulett, 1,868 for Julian--but it was large enough to sweep in the black candidates for coroner and circuit court clerk who were running with Hulett on the ndpa ticket...
...Since the sheriff is empowered to clear away abandoned automobiles and dead cows, Goslee pledged to lead a countywide anti-litter campaign...
...Hulett's most powerful opponents clearly were poverty, apathy and fear...
...In the intervening 1,500 years the job has seldom been a call to greatness--John Wayne may be an exception--but as every black American knows, it has remained largely a wasp preserve...
...My biggest problem," he now says, "was to convince my friends that I wouldn't be killed if they elected me...
...but black voters do not necessarily vote...
...We've got to stop letting the white folks be our crutch...
...Senator, and state Democrats prayed he was wearing long coattails...
...A few days after the election, I called Hulett to find out what had happened...
...Years ago, as a cub police reporter in Chicago, I telephoned my city editor and gave him the details of a sensational rape story...
...By election eve Hulett was convinced he would win...
...One can hardly blame Sheriff Julian...
...Goslee lost the election by 55,000 votes...
...The office of sheriff is probably the oldest law-enforcement institution in the Western world...
...The notion that crimes committed against blacks are too trivial to bother about is neither new nor strictly Southern...
...We won," he said...
...Don't waste my time with cheap stories...
...But Goslee, a retired publisher of political science textbooks, was counting on a strenuous campaign, and perhaps a general Democratic tide, to pull him through...
...Meanwhile, back in Connecticut, Harvey Goslee was fighting billboards...
...they are mainly process-servers, and they get a fee for every process they serve...
...Both Hulett and Goslee were pursuing an ancient and (sometimes) honorable profession...
...Two years ago Hulett merged his Black Panthers with the New Democratic Party of Alabama (ndpa...
...Indeed, the day after the election there were roadblocks all over the county and State Police were arresting dozens of blacks for fictitious driving violations...
...Goslee also managed to develop some issues...
...The sheriffs responsibilities in Connecticut had been whittled down to such relatively minor tasks as transporting prisoners from place to place, protecting juries from corruption and disposing of abandoned automobiles...
...Duffey lost, too, and he had no coattails...
...from The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood The election this year was to be the one that would stamp out Crime In The Streets...
...Hulett traveled thousands of miles up and down the county--knocking on shack doors, hiking through the fields to chat with farmworkers--trying to drum up support...
...That's a colored section," he growled...
...Previdi appoints 45 deputies...
...In 1965 Klanners there gunned down Mrs...
...Viola Gregg Liuzzi...
...The idea quickly traveled north, and lost its ideology en route...
...But in Lowndes the Black Panthers remained nonviolent, pragmatic and essentially political...
...Hulett is a 42-year-old civil rights worker and construction man, a quiet, professional militant who has few political illusions...
...Black registered voters there heavily outnumber white voters (about 4,000 to 2,-000...
...It was against this backdrop of despair and gore that John Hulett announced his candidacy...
...He is alleged to have muttered that before he departs, "they'll know who their sheriff is...
...Julian, however, continues to "do his thing...
...It was the same with the Sheriff of Nottingham after King Richard upset the established social arrangements by befriending Robin Hood: "As for the Sheriff, he knew not what to say nor where to look when he saw Robin Hood in such high favor with the King, while all his heart was filled with gall because of the vexation that lay upon him...
...His campaign consisted almost entirely of billboard advertising around the county...
...I tried to keep track of their respective campaigns...
...A prayer-poem, reputed to have been spoken by black slaves in Georgia, contains the lines: . . . And let the blessin' stay wid its until we comes to die And goes to keep our Christmas wid dem sheriffs in de sky...
...The sheriff said it was a most mystifying crime...
...He campaigned everywhere--at the Danbury Fair, at horse shows in Darien and Greenwich, at shopping centers and garden clubs, even at town hall weddings...
...In the South, sheriffs loom large and threatening, like old Saxon gods...
...Goslee hoped to inject prestige into the office with his slogan, "The sheriff's job is as big as the man who holds it...
...Instead of a Democratic tide, there was a Republican tidal wave...
...In 1966, while Stokeley Carmichael was shouting Black Power throughout the South, Hulett organized the original Black Panther party...
...Lowndes County is one of the 10 poorest counties in America...
...Shot him down like a rabbit," a black neighbor recalls...
...It was under the ndpa banner that he ran for sheriff...
...They were afraid the white folks would know how they voted," he says...
...His second biggest problem was to convince blacks that the ballot was secret...
...Sheriff John B. Julian, the man Hulett ran against, pressed no charges and made no arrests...
...They figured they were doing me a favor by staying away from the polls...
...We got the votes," he kept saying...
...Goslee's big challenge was to stir up public interest in an office that seemed lackluster, to say the least...
...Lowndes County--or "bloody Lowndes," as the blacks sometimes call it--is the very model of law and order: Blacks obey the law and whites give the orders...
...Two years ago a white man killed a Negro hunting on the white man's property...
...States of the Union SHERIFFS NORTH AND SOUTH BY RICHARD J. MARGOLIS "Then the Sheriff turned away with a sore and troubled heart, and sadly he rued his fine show of retainers, for he saw that . . . he had so many men about him and yet could not enforce the laws...
...Sheriff Julian did not even bother to investigate...
...Come out from behind those billboards," Goslee kept saying to a presumed Previdi...
...The cagebird has been released...
...Hulett says he will appoint two deputies--one black, one white--and that he will uphold the law with fine impartiality...
...They didn't want to take that chance...
...He was impressed, until I told him the victim's address...
...The Reverend Joseph Duffey, that remarkable maverick of reform, was running for U.S...
...Billboards are expensive, but since the sheriff's office is a source of patronage, campaign funds are always available...
...It was invented in the fifth century by the Saxons and Angles, businesslike invaders of England who established "shire-reeves" there for the sake of law and order...
...In Fairfield County, Goslee ran 13,000 votes ahead of Duffey...
...So, given the no-nonsense, no-knock mood of many voters, I was both pleased and alarmed to hear that two of my more sensible friends had decided to run for sheriff (in two very different counties...
...The deputies pay for the billboards...
...A friend chimed in, "It's a new day in Lowndes County...
...The other friend I worried about was John Hulett, a black man running for sheriff on an all-black ticket in Lowndes County, Alabama (population: 15,000...
...One of the candidates was my fellow townsman, Harvey Goslee, a white-haired, craggy-faced Yankee who hoped to dislodge the Republican sheriff of Fairfield County, Connecticut (population: 720,000...
...a civil rights worker from Detroit...
...I saw them being pummeled," he says in disbelief...
...Crimes against blacks in Lowndes County are generally ignored...
...Fairfield County is not exactly a Democratic stronghold: it is one of the 10 richest counties in America...
...I'll be the new sheriff in January...
...But the man who held it, Sheriff John P. Previdi, remained invisible...
...He also called for teenage drug education, better-trained sheriff's deputies and bail reform...
...In one town, Goslee found himself passing out literature to startled women at a reducing salon...
Vol. 53 • November 1970 • No. 23
