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Sylvester Williams (Execution of)
Sylvester Williams, a young African American man, was executed on June 30, 1939, at the Tucker Prison Farm in Tucker (Jefferson County) for having allegedly murdered a young white woman. However, his confession to the murder was reportedly extracted only after torture, and his trial was marred by defense attorneys who did nothing to present his case.
According to the federal census of 1920, Sylvester Williams was born in that year to the farming family of Jim and Ada Williams, and he had two older sisters. His mother and father rented their home, located on Bearskin Cunner Road in the Williams township of Lonoke County, Arkansas. In 1929, his mother died, leaving his father to raise the three children. In the 1930 federal census, Williams was ten years old and living with his oldest sister Jimmie, aged sixteen, and her husband Alonzo Aaron, aged twenty-one and listed as a farmer, in their rented home in Jefferson County. Sylvester was attending school but was listed as being unable to read or write. A death record indicated that at the age of seventeen, Sylvester had a daughter named Hersteen by Rebecca Milton; the baby died from malnutrition at eight months of age on July 7, 1937. The family lived at the time at a rural Jefferson County address outside of Pine Bluff (Jefferson County).
On May 5, 1939, the body of a missing local young woman, Irene Taylor, was found in Old Flat Bayou near Altheimer (Jefferson County); Taylor was the daughter of the family on whose land Williams had worked. Williams; his sister-in-law, forty-five-year-old Lizzie Jones; and Jones’s thirteen-year-old daughter Gertrude were soon arrested in connection with Taylor’s death. The allegation was that Williams had snatched Taylor, who was selling candy, and forced her into the woods near an old cemetery, where he sexually assaulted and killed her. Lizzie and Gertrude were accused of aiding Williams in hiding the wire-bound, weighted body and sinking it in the shallow waters of the bayou. Williams was arrested the same day the body was found, and after the arrest, nearly 200 citizens descended on the jail calling for Williams to be turned over to them; however, Sheriff Garland Brewster had removed the prisoner for his protection.
Circuit Judge T. G. Parham set the trial date for May 25, 1939. Arnold Fink and J. M. Shaw (both white) of Pine Bluff were assigned as Williams’s defense attorneys. Sheriff Brewster said Williams had confessed to attacking and killing Taylor. However, Sylvester later stated he had been beaten so badly during the investigation that he pleaded to be hanged immediately, without trial. Because of the fear of mob violence, on May 22, Governor Carl Bailey called on the Arkansas National Guard to secure the area and control the crowds who twice marched on the jail.
Lawyers with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) handled trials of this nature across the nation, but none were called in for Williams’s case. None of Williams’s relatives were able to request aid from the local or state organization, which could have prepared petitions to prevent unfair irregularities, encouraged him to plead innocent, and secured proper legal administration of a murder trial.
After Williams pleaded guilty, an all-white jury was selected within twenty minutes. Besides Williams’s guilty confession, there was no other evidence against him presented. The two court-appointed attorneys defending Sylvester Williams called no witnesses and made no objections; neither did they enter any petitions for postponements, extensions, or appeals.
After the conclusion of the trial, newspapers reported that the jury deliberated less than one minute in convicting Williams. On the same day as the trial, Williams was sentenced in circuit court to death by electrocution. Williams’s attorneys also did not object to the hurried sentencing, which is usually done after waiting two days for that type of trial. The judge set the execution for June 30. Williams was returned to a Little Rock (Pulaski County) jail for his protection from mob action.
Governor Bailey set up four executions to be carried out in one day. The four included Bubbles Clayton and Jim X. Caruthers, who had been waiting on death row for four years, convicted in the rape of Virgie Terry (in what later became known as the Arkansas “Scottsboro” Case). The other prisoners included Joel Carson, a white man who murdered a state hospital guard, and Williams. However, Carson’s execution was postponed due to an appeal.
On June 30, 1939, Williams died by electrocution at Tucker Prison Farm. His execution came within two months of his arrest. His body was buried on the grounds in the Tucker Prison cemetery, as were others whose families were often too poor to take the bodies of their family members to other cemeteries.
For additional information:
“Assault Death Trial Set.” Commercial Appeal, May 14, 1939, p. 2.
“Bailey Orders Guard for Trial of Negro.” Commercial Appeal, May 23, 1939, p. 22.
“Crowd Fails to Find Accused Negro Again.” Commercial Appeal, May 21, 1939, p. 6.
“Death Sentence Given Negro at Pine Bluff.” Commercial Appeal, May 26, 1939, p. 7.
“Execution Date Set by Governor: Joel Carson to Die June 30 for Slaying of J. B. Keller.” Hope Star, June 3, 1939, p. 1.
“Fourth Quadruple Execution Set June 30 in Arkansas.” Commercial Appeal, June 16, 1939, p. 15.
Leus, Christian. “What Remains: Telling the Story of Irene Taylor’s Murder.” MA thesis, University of Mississippi, 2021. Online at https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/2024/ (accessed October 11, 2024).
“Pine Bluff Jury Deliberated Only 55 Seconds.” Commercial Appeal, May 28, 1939, p. 42.
“Young Negro Charged with Murder of Girl.” Commercial Appeal, May 7, 1939, p. 6.
Dora Bradley
North Little Rock, Arkansas
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