Defense of Odell Waller
Murray describes her work with the Workers' Defense League towards the defense of Odell Waller, an African American sharecropper sentenced to death for the murder of his landlord during the early 1940s. In addition to describing the case in vivid detail, Murray identifies her experiences with the Waller case as especially pivotal in her decision to pursue a career in law. The case also brought her into contact with Leon Ransom of Howard University, who eventually arranged for her to attend the law school on full scholarship.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Pauli Murray, February 13, 1976. Interview G-0044. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
O.K., now
let's move on to the other incident, because this is one that
I have read about so often in the newspapers and in the Workers Defense
League files and it is one that I'm sure posterity will be
interested in and that is the case of Odell Waller, the black
sharecropper. Now, if you could briefly give us the facts of the case
and then tell us how you participated in the Workers Defense League
prior to your going to law school.
- PAULI MURRAY:
-
Odell Waller was a sharecropper. Oscar Davis was a farmer who was his
landlord. Oscar Davis, being not really a planter, but also himself a
relatively small, grubby farmer. They had a dispute over a wheat crop.
Apparently the division was supposed to be Odell and his mother worked the wheat crop and when the division would
be made, one-fourth of every four bags, or however they did the bag,
would go to Odell Waller and his family. In some ways, this was
apparently not carried out and Odell, who had been away looking for work
came back to have it out with his landlord. I think that his mother must
have written him and said that they had put all the wheat into Mr.
Davis's barn instead of giving them their one-quarter. So,
Odell goes over to Davis to have it out. Unfortunately, I think that he
takes a rifle along with him. I think that it was a rifle. In the
argument, Odell's story is that Davis puts his hands in his
pocket and Odell thinks that he is going to pull out a gun and so, he
shoots first in what he believes to be self-defense. Davis is eventually
taken to the hospital, seems to be all right, getting along all right,
and then he dies of a collapsed lung. Odell has escaped to Ohio, in due
course he is apprehended in Ohio and a Workers Defense League lawyer in
Ohio unsuccessfully fights to keep him from being extradited to
Virginia. This lawyer reports to the national board of the Workers
Defense League, on which I am sitting that summer, and says,
"We have this case which is going back to Virginia and
we've lost the fight to keep him from being extradited. Will
you follow up on the case?" All summer, we
…and this is my first experience on the board …all
summer we are wrestling with this case of this sharecropper who has been
extradited and going back to Virginia. We somehow don't seem
to really come to any decisive point of action, but it keeps being on
the agenda. I'm giving you my impressions. The next thing
that we know, the trial has been held and the man has been convicted and
sentenced to die.
- GENNA RAE MCNEIL:
-
And it's first degree murder.
- PAULI MURRAY:
-
Yes, it's first degree murder. This case has been kicking around all summer before our committee or board or
whatnot and I'm sitting as a member of that board and
immediately feel a personal responsibility for not having done
something.
- GENNA RAE MCNEIL:
-
Now, as board member, are you field secretary at the same time or were
you field secretary after?
- PAULI MURRAY:
-
No, I was field secretary after.
- GENNA RAE MCNEIL:
-
O.K.
- PAULI MURRAY:
-
Also, I identified, because six months earlier, I had been arrested in
Virginia. Remember that this case happens in the summer of 1940 and it
was in…well, three months earlier, it was in March, 1940 that
I have my Waterloo. So, there are all these emotional pulls and
identifications. When the Workers Defense League asks me if I will go
down and investigate and see what I can come up with, then I go down to
investigate and my quest leads me from southwest Virginia where Odell
Waller lived to Richmond, to the death house, only to discover that if I
am not a lawyer, I can't interview him in the death house.
So, all of this is tying up. Eventually, I was able, eventually on the
second trip down, I got permission to interview him. Then, I think that
it is on a second trip that I go down to try to raise some funds among
the local ministers.
- GENNA RAE MCNEIL:
-
And his mother is also engaged in this?
- PAULI MURRAY:
-
Yes, his mother is engaged in this. I think that it is in Richmond that I
want to come before, or ask permission to come before the local
ministers alliance, the Negro ministers alliance, only to discover that
Dr. Leon Ransom, who is Professor of Constitutional Law and Criminal Law
at Howard University, also …I think that it is Ransom and
maybe Thurgood Marshall, I'm not sure …I think it
may be the two of them …are coming
before the alliance that day and first, obviously, to make an appeal for
four young Negro boys who have been convicted or are on trial for rape.
This was a real cause celebre. So much has happened,
there is just one thing after another, that they give me five minutes.
They almost say, "What do you want? We
don't really have time for you, but we will give you five
minutes to say what you have to say." I get up to speak and
maybe for the first time in my life, I get out two words and then I just
burst into tears and stand there and just utterly collapse in tears
trying to tell the story of this young sharecropper. I won't
tell you how embarassing it was to me, but it was like a miracle. It
brought forth, after these men had already shelled out for Thurgood and
Leon Ransom and whatnot, it brought forth twenty-three dollars and in
those days, for an unknown case and an unknown person and on the heels
of this cause celebre, this was almost unheard of. So,
this began both my identification with the case and a two year struggle.
But meanwhile, back at the hotel, Thurgood, I guess …I think
that Thurgood was on that trip …anyway, Dr. Ransom was there
and Dr. Ransom was acting dean of the law school and I just kind of, you
know, rapping back and forth, said, "Well look, if
I'm going to be messing around with these cases, I might as
well study law." He said, "Come on, we'd
love to have you." I said, "Give me a fellowship and I
will." He says, "O.K., I'll give you a
fellowship." It was in that kind of banter back and forth that
sure enough, he went back and sent me the papers. I filled them out,
almost forgetting about them and went on my way, working on the Odell
Waller case, spent the summer writing and planning to write a book, to
write what later became Proud Shoes, and toward the
end of the summer, out of the clear blue, I got a letter from Ransom
stating that, "You have been admitted to law school and awarded
a scholarship."
- GENNA RAE MCNEIL:
-
Would you mention one thing before we leave Waller and move to Howard Law
School, and that is, the poll tax and the jury …
- PAULI MURRAY:
-
O.K. Our defense, our appellate, that is, our appeal to try to get
Waller's case reversed, was based upon the fact that he was
convicted by an all poll tax jury. The jury lists being based upon the
voting lists and the voting lists being based upon the payment of a poll
tax, which was cumulative for at least three years. Since I think that
it was about a dollar and a half a year, it would mean that a person who
didn't pay his poll tax for three years had to pay four
dollars and fifty cents and this was almost prohibitive for
sharecroppers. So, you had a poll tax jury which, for all practical
purposes, was a planters jury. Our contention was that such a jury was a
denial of equal protection and of course, that the poll tax
…this was calling into question the constitutionality of the
poll tax. In due course, that argument became the law of the land. I
think that it was the Harper case some years later
(1966) and so, the Virginia poll tax was struck down as
unconstitutional. In Waller's case, unfortunately, he was
represented by an inexperienced but very well intentioned lawyer. And
while the instincts of the lawyer were correct, and that is, an attempt
to show that Waller had been convicted by a poll tax jury, he had not
put in the record evidence, the kind of foundational evidence that would
permit him to raise the constitutional question before the Supreme
Court. So, purely on the basis of procedural limitations, we could not
get the Supreme Court to take the case, because in scanning the record,
they could not find the basis upon which to raise the question.
- GENNA RAE MCNEIL:
-
Right. We know that a federal question must be raised before the Supreme
Court.
- PAULI MURRAY:
-
Right. And I kept saying to myself as this happened, and I'm
in there pitching, not as a lawyer, but as a special field secretary
raising funds, working with the lawyers and that kind of thing, and I
kept saying to myself, "If we lose this man's life,
I must study law." And we lost his life.