Did you know that Lawrenceburg was the scene of a high-profile civil rights trial?

In 1946 a fistfight between James Stephenson, a black Navy veteran, and Billy Fleming, a white store clerk, in neighboring Columbia, Tennessee escalated into a pitched urban street battle between members of the black community, a mob of angry whites, and white police officers.

After the violence ended, twenty-five black men were charged with the wounding of four white police officers. The incident and the trial made national headlines. One of the attorneys for the defense was none other than a young Thurgood Marshall, who was destined to become the first black Supreme Court Justice in American history.

Marshall argued that the defendants could not receive a fair trial in Maury County, and he won a change of venue. The trial was held in Lawrenceburg.

Marshall and the other black defense attorneys were inconvenienced by the small number of ‘colored’ hotel rooms and restaurants in Lawrence County. To compensate, they had to commute each day from Columbia, and they relied heavily on the charity of black churches in Maury County for their meals.

Although the national media lampooned Judge Joe Ingram as a backwoods buffoon and painted Lawrenceburg as a run-of-the-mill stronghold of southern racism, many were shocked when the all-white local jury acquitted 23 of the defendants. Two others were found guilty, but the charges were later dropped.