3x-xx-xx ep03 The Case Of Gus Chapman aka The Georgia Slave Murders

The police reporter brings to you one of his strange stories of authentic happenings. Early in the winter of 1921, the case was brought to the attention of the Department of Justice in Atlanta, Georgia,

which for horror and cruelty is almost without parallel. On a brisk winter morning, a Negro is being questioned by an agent of that federal department. What's your name? Good Japanese sir. Well, guys, what is it that you think I ought to know?

Well sir, about six months ago I got in a fight and they arrested me. Now you come up to complain about the way they treated you in the chain gang, is that it? Oh no sir, it ain't that sir.

Well what is it then? They're finding a hundred dollars or six months old a chain gang. I didn't have the hundred dollars but a man came up to me in the courtroom and he paid pay my fine if not working out in his plantation.

He said he'd pay me thirty dollars a month and more keep. Well you let the man pay your fine and want to work on his plantation. Yes sir. Nothing illegal in that. No sir, but I went to work for the man six months ago and I never got a chance to run off till last week.

What do you mean, run off? Well, I had to run off. The man wouldn't let him go. Well, how could he keep you if you didn't want to stay? Well, he just locked his all up with the cabins in the store gate and just couldn't get away.

Lock you up in a stock cage. Well, it's a big wall that he got built around the cabins, so you can't run away in the night. Well, if he didn't put any restrictions on you, how could he keep you from running away before he'd worked out your fine?