While the first icy political blasts of the Cold War were being felt among the ruins of Europe in 1946, hot lead was flying a lot closer to home. The last certifiable armed engagement between citizens and their government on American soil, the gun battle that took place on the night of Aug. 1-2, 1946, and that came to be known as the Battle of Athens, was more than a shoot-out between factions in a small Southern town. It was a violent but decisive clash of two social and political cultures, between the past and the future of rural, state, and ultimately the federal government, and a reconfirmation of the deeply ingrained ideal that Americans can assert themselves against tyranny, even when it was taking place in their own backyard.
For a year, the young men of Athens and other towns in McMinn County—a hilly, verdant patch of southeastern Tennessee—had been returning from World War II. The war had taken most of them, farm boys for the most part, more than a few miles from home for the first time. But letters had kept them apprised of news from home. And increasingly, that news was not good.
E.H. “Boss” Crump was the epitome of the Southern political kingpin. Crump, the mayor of Memphis, was the boss of the Shelby County political machine, the seat of much of Tennessee’s wealth and patronage. It might have been at the other end of the state, but Crump’s operation had tendrils everywhere. He controlled regional governments through graft and patronage, rewarding cronies with political appointments, one of which was that of county sheriff, a post that earned low wages but raked in thousands of dollars protecting moonshiners’ stills, collecting polling taxes, skimming speed trap fines and other revenues, and running county jails like for-profit enterprises.
Sheriff Pat Mansfield was one of Crump’s beneficiaries, as firmly in Crump’s grasp as Tennessee state Sen. Paul Cantrell, Mansfield’s predecessor as sheriff from 1936 to 1942 and scion of a wealthy family that had long dominated McMinn County politics and commerce. In 1946 Cantrell once again sought the sheriff’s office. Given the McMinn County electoral process—which included ballot stuffing and the inclusion of deceased voters on the rolls—of the time it seemed like the race was in the bag.
But disgust with the status quo had been building for some time; the Justice Department in Washington had ignored complaints of election fraud from McMinn County voters in 1940, 1942, and 1944. And in 1946 the returning veterans of Athens, who had spent the previous four years fighting despotism in other parts of the world, decided it was time for a change.
Earlier that year, some among the estimated 3,000 returning area GIs challenged the machine, offering a nonpartisan slate of ex-soldiers and promising reform.
On Aug. 1, primary election day, both sides positioned poll watchers at voting locations. Sheriff Mansfield’s men, accustomed to running the show, refused the reform slate’s request to check ballot boxes. About 200 “deputies” intimidatingly surrounded the ballot stations. That morning, ex-GI poll watcher Walter Ellis was arrested in the courthouse corridor where voting was taking place and held without charge or bond at the nearby county jail. At about 3 p.m., Tom Gillespie, a black area resident, was told he could not vote. When Gillespie persisted, deputies began to beat him and an enraged deputy then shot Gillespie, wounding him. McMinn County’s politics had suddenly gone from ballots to bullets.
Events moved quickly: The deputies detained several GI poll watchers at the courthouse; a crowd gathered on the other side of the street and surged toward the polling area; two soldiers, threatened with deputies’ brass knuckles and blackjacks, escaped by smashing a plate glass window; and the deputies drew into a tight formation around the polling station and pulled their weapons.
Mansfield and about 50 of his deputies took the ballot boxes and retreated to the county jail. Meanwhile, several former GIs, applying tactical and logistical experience from the war, began to forage for weapons while others rallied additional support. As the sun began to set, they retrieved rifles from a local armory and the now-armed contingent approached the jail.
Firing started, and two ex-GIs were wounded. The former soldiers began to return fire at the jail. One of those inside the temporary fortress also was severely wounded.
Sporadic fire continued past midnight, with the longest sustained firefight lasting 45 minutes. The battle attracted attention beyond the limits of Athens and veterans from nearby Etowah joined in. Reporters arrived on the scene. Tennessee Gov. Jim Nance McCord mobilized the state National Guard, though they never left their barracks.
As dawn approached, the battle reached its climax when GIs tossed several sticks of dynamite at the jail, damaging its porch. This makeshift artillery brought the deputies to their senses and they surrendered almost immediately.
With some townspeople calling for their blood, the GIs corralled the deputies for several hours for their own safety before turning them loose. GIs patrolled the city for several days after the battle to keep order.
The Battle of Athens drew commentary from around the country. The New York Times was critical of the GIs. But Eleanor Roosevelt, the president’s widow and a nationally syndicated columnist, saw it differently, commenting, “We in the U.S.A. . . . have had a rude awakening . . .
If a political machine does not allow the people free expression, then freedom-loving people lose their faith in the machinery under which their government functions . . . We may deplore the use of force but we must also recognize the lesson which this incident points for us all.”
GI candidates carried five Tennessee counties precincts, and Knox Henry was elected sheriff of McMinn County. A new police force was formed; newly elected county officials accepted a $5,000 pay limit. Reform soon spread to counties statewide.
The reform movement’s momentum helped Rep. Estes Kefauver win one of Tennessee’s Senate seats in 1948. Kefauver, along with Albert Gore Sr.—who was elected to the Senate from Tennessee four years later—helped lead the moderate wing of the Southern Democrats and initiate huge changes in the social and political fabric of the South.
Libertarian and gun-advocacy groups have held the events in Athens, Tenn., in high esteem, a 20th-century enactment of the sentiment “Don’t Tread on Me.” But the lesson for any American is easily parsed: The right to self-governance emanates from the governed, not those who govern.
source:
The Battle of Athens The History Club
http://www.constitution.org/mil/tn/batathen_press.htm
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