“Well, we’ll see about that. There’s a meeting tomorrow night—a secret one. We’re putting together a nonpartisan ticket to run against them in the five races up for election in August.”
“What kind of nonpartisan ticket?” asked Bill.
“An all-GI ticket. You know Knox Henry? Fought in the North African campaign.”
“?’Course I do,” Bill said. “Everyone knows Knox.”
“Good,” Jim Buttram replied, “because he’s going to be our new sheriff.”
July 3, 1946
It was past midnight when the phone rang at the Whites’ farmhouse. It woke Bill on the first ring, and he bounded toward the kitchen, hoping to catch it before it woke his parents.
“Hello,” he said, slightly out of breath, not so much from the run to the kitchen but from being startled by the unexpected noise in the night.
There was silence on the other end.
“Hello?” he asked. “Hello!” he tried again, angrier. “Who the hell is this?”
The silence continued until Bill hung up. He started walking back toward his bedroom, but before he had made three steps, the phone rang again.
“Now listen, here, you son of a bitch,” Bill said into the receiver, before he was cut off by a deep, purposely disguised voice on the other end of the line.
“No, Bill.” A pause. “You listen here.” The speaker was going out of his way to enunciate every syllable, talking so slowly it sounded like a recording being played at three-quarters speed.
“You have a nice family and a nice future,” the voice continued. “It would be a shame if something happened to them.”
It all clicked together in Bill’s brain the second that last word oozed out of the caller’s mouth: the campaign. Cantrell’s machine was ramping up.
“Stay. Away. From tomorrow’s rally.”
Bill slammed down the phone. He returned to bed and stared at the ceiling, thinking about the voice. But he did not for a moment, that night or any other, think about quitting the campaign.
July 4, 1946
Flags flew from every shop surrounding the green lawn of the town square, and the white courthouse at the end of the block was covered in patriotic bunting. As soon as the sun set, fireworks lit up the night sky.
Bill White was excited, although he wasn’t exactly enjoying the fireworks. Ever since the Pacific, he flinched at loud noises, and tonight he had an additional reason to feel nervous. This farmer’s son, who had known nothing of politics when he left for war, was about to make his first public speech.
After the fireworks’ grand finale—accompanied by a small local brass band playing “When Johnny Comes Marching Home”—Bill walked to the front of the county courthouse. Standing behind the microphone, he said, “And now it’s time for the real fireworks!”
The crowd of more than a thousand supporters politely applauded as the young war hero looked out over the densely packed town square. The bankers and lawyers wore ties. The farmers and mechanics wore overalls. And behind them, in the distance, stood deputy sheriffs in broad-brimmed hats with folded arms and arrogant glares.
“You know, folks, there’s an election coming up August first. And I reckon we seen a lot of elections ’round here. And every damn one of ’em’s been stolen right out from under us!”
Paul Cantrell had been “elected” sheriff in 1936, when just enough mysterious votes had materialized at the last minute to give him the victory. He had been reelected through similar election-day shenanigans in 1938 and 1940, and, after being elected to the state senate in 1942 and 1944, he had decided to run for sheriff again this year, after it became apparent just how angry the county was with Cantrell’s crony, Sheriff Pat Mansfield.
The crowd clapped in agreement. Bill reminded himself to keep his language in check. He didn’t want to embarrass the political ticket hosting the rally.
“But this election is gonna be different.” He told the crowd the story of a secret meeting of veterans in March in the basement of a Studebaker dealership. He explained how they had decided to run a nonpartisan ticket of GIs, including Knox Henry, against Cantrell’s Democrats and of how word had been spread throughout the county’s three thousand GIs, risking the wrath of the Cantrell machine.
“It ain’t been easy,” he continued. “I’ve gotten them phone calls in the middle of the night. Threatenin’ me. Threatenin’ my folks.” Heads nodded among men, women, and even children who had received the same calls.
“I’ve opened my mail. Seen them nasty postcards. Tryin’ to intimidate us.” The crowd murmured its agreement.
“Those sons-a-bitches even arrested a boy who was puttin’ up a Knox sign on that tree right over there,” he bellowed, pointing toward one of the many maple trees lining the town square, “even though they would have just torn the sign right down anyway!” There was more nodding and clapping.
“Well, I say the hell with all of ’em!” Bill shouted, pointing his thumb over his shoulder like an umpire calling a runner out. “We went over there to fight for American freedom. But when we came back to Athens, it was like Nazi Germany right here in Tennessee!”
Now the applause really began to build. There were three thousand veterans in McMinn County, and many of them were in the audience, growing angrier with every word Bill said.
“Our county is controlled by a damn bunch of Gestapo thugs, beatin’ up GIs! Drunk as skunks most of the time!” The crowd’s applause continued to grow louder, as did Bill.
“And then there’s our very own Hitler, Mr. Paul Cantrell!”
The group roared even louder at the first mention of Cantrell’s name, and by now the cheering was almost louder than the words coming from the loudspeaker by Bill’s side.
“He’s so used to money and power. That’s all he cares about. And I say it’s high time we clean out the kickbacks, and the phony arrests! I say it’s high time we throw these gangsters right out of office, once and for all!”
There would be other speakers that night, many of them more eloquent than Bill White. But all of them—candidates and supporters, young and old, rich and poor—ended with the same promise: We will not allow another stolen election! Your vote will be counted as cast!
From the back of the town square, at every repetition of the GIs’ promise of a fair election, Windy Wise smirked. He knew all the tricks: how to put phony ballots for the Cantrell ticket in the ballot box before the first vote was ever cast; how to intimidate voters with armed guards; and, most important, how to take the ballot boxes from the key precincts to the county jail, a place where only Cantrell supporters could watch the counting. The square, redbrick building on White Street had been built to keep law-breaking people in. But on Election Day, it served as the perfect place to keep law-abiding people out.
July 25, 1946
“Dear Director Hoover,” the letter from the people of Athens began. “We are writing to request FBI observers to ensure an honest and fair election on August 1.
“Every recent election has been stolen by ward-heelers, ringsters, and the boss of the county, Mr. Paul Cantrell. They and their supporters have flagrantly voted minors, voted more than once, bought votes, stuffed ballot boxes, blocked poll watchers, and excluded opponents from buildings where the votes were counted.
“We complained of fraud in 1940, 1942, and 1944, but the Department of Justice never responded. We challenged elections in court, but the local judges are part of the Cantrell machine. This year, we are hoping you will take action ahead of time, before it is too late.”
One hundred fifty-nine GIs signed the petition.
A similar plea was sent to both the attorney general of the United States and the governor of Tennessee.
Bill White, well aware of the governor’s loyalties and the federal government’s indifference, did not expect to receive a response.
Election Day: August 1, 1946
8:20 A.M.
Downtown Athens was only about nine square blocks, but that was plenty big enough for the city’s seven thousand residents, many of whom farmed and lived on the outskirts of town. In the town center, things seemed to come in twos: two banks, two movie theaters, two Methodist churches. And in the summer, the city was always green—green bushes in front of local stores, green trees along the streets, green grass on the town square.
As Bill White walked toward the town square he passed the marquee for the Athens Theater, which advertised a Gary Cooper western called Along Came Jones. He’d been too busy with the election to watch any movies recently, but he put it on his to-do list. After today, his schedule would change.
After today, he told himself, a lot of things will change.
Bill passed Woolworth’s and caught up with his friend Fred Boone, who delivered orders for Athens Hardware. “Big day,” said Bill.
“Absolutely,” Fred replied. “I’ll sure be glad when it’s over. For two weeks, I’ve been running all over the county.” He stopped walking. His voice became a little quieter. “Everybody’s stockin’ up on ammo, Bill. Shotgun shells. Rifle cartridges. Even some bullets for pistols. People can’t get enough.”
He added, laughing, “One feller told me, ‘Got some big huntin’ to do—some big huntin’.’ But nobody’s foolin’ nobody. I don’t have to tell you. You of all people know best. You GIs are expectin’ trouble from Cantrell today, aren’t ya?”
Bill’s eyes narrowed. There was nothing he wanted more than a peaceful, fair election, but he doubted it was possible with Cantrell involved.
“Stay tuned,” said Bill, before walking ahead, aware that no one from the government had bothered to respond to their petitions for neutral election monitors.
When Bill came to the corner of Washington and Jackson streets, his hopes and fears for the day were both confirmed simultaneously. To his left was a line of voters stretching for half a block out of the Eleventh Precinct—the City Waterworks. The polls were not even open yet, but Athens was a town of early risers. Bill looked at the white-haired old-timers, the farmers in blue denim, and the mothers holding the hands of their children, and he knew at least two out of every three were there to vote for the Knox Henry/GI ticket. There weren’t many secrets in a town as small as Athens, and the GIs knew who their friends were.
They also knew who their enemies were, and when Bill looked to his right, he saw a pack of forty out-of-towners marching toward the Waterworks, swaggering with every step. Most of them carried a rifle or shotgun, and all of them had obvious bulges in their coats where sidearms were holstered. They were silent, but their faces—especially their eyes—did plenty of talking. These were cold men—cold and cocky. They were the last battalion to arrive, the final troops in the two-hundred-man army Paul Cantrell was assembling to intimidate voters. Their purpose, Bill knew from previous elections, was to block the view of election monitors, and, most important, keep GI supporters out of the jail, where key ballot boxes could be “counted” in secret.
Bill stared at the oncoming horde and thought, I reckon it looked somethin’ like this, in all them little towns, when the Nazis first arrived.
But Bill wasn’t scared. He and his fellow GIs had something the unarmed townspeople of Europe never did. There’s more of us than them, said Bill to himself.
And we’ve got more guns.
3:00 P.M.
Tom Gillespie walked by Windy Wise and up to the ballot box at the City Waterworks. He was a quiet man, a hardworking farmer who had lived most of his life in Athens. There were many southern towns where a man with Tom Gillespie’s skin color wouldn’t be allowed near a ballot box, but Athens was different. It had always played by its own rules—like siding with the Union during the Civil War and declaring war on Spain in 1898, two weeks before Congress did. And even though white supremacy ran deep in Athens, it wasn’t pervasive enough to keep Tom Gillespie from voting. But things were different this year.
Windy Wise watched Gillespie with a growing fear. He wasn’t scared of Gillespie necessarily, but of the GI supporters he represented. Wise was hot—there was no air-conditioning on this steamy August day—and tired. The tension had been rising throughout the day right along with the temperature. GI election monitors had already been beaten and arrested and the whole city felt like a tinderbox. Wise started developing a fierce headache when he began to worry that the quantity and enthusiasm of GI supporters was going to make stealing this election far trickier than expected.
Just as Gillespie was about to place his ballot in the box, the deputy sheriff grabbed his wrist and snatched the paper from his hand.
“You can’t vote,” Wise said. He sounded relatively calm, despite his growing fears.
“He can too!” shouted a GI supporter, who knew Gillespie was on their side.
For a moment everyone froze. The silence was finally broken when Tom Gillespie quietly asked Wise, “Why’s that, Mr. Wise?”
The “Mr.” part of his question was calculated. Blacks did not ask whites “why” very often in the American South, and Athens wasn’t progressive enough for Tom Gillespie to do so without showing as much deference as possible.
“Boy,” said Wise, his volume increasing, “you can’t vote here today!”
Gillespie opened his mouth to protest, but Windy Wise had heard enough. He reached into his pocket, slipped brass knuckles onto his right hand, and slammed his fist into the left cheekbone of Tom Gillespie’s face.
Gillespie fell to the ground, his face bleeding from where the metal on Wise’s knuckles had cut through flesh and chipped away bone. Suddenly his head jerked back, propelled by the force of Windy Wise’s boot, which sent Gillespie rolling out the door.
The stunned crowd outside the Waterworks, which had been gathering by the hundreds in the streets all afternoon, assumed Gillespie would remain on the ground, or at least outside the polling station. But Tom Gillespie had worked hard for the respectability he’d earned over a lifetime. He believed he deserved the right to vote for the men his conscience compelled him to support. He wasn’t finished fighting for that right.
It had been shocking when Gillespie talked back to a white man—especially to a Cantrell man. But what he did next was even more stunning. The proud, bleeding farmer stood up, wiped the dust off his denim overalls, and walked back into the Waterworks.
And that’s when Windy Wise grabbed his pistol and shot the defiant, would-be voter who was walking past him right in the back.
7:00 P.M.
All day, vast crowds had gathered in downtown Athens, hoping to show the Cantrell machine that this election would not be stolen while they sat idly by. Many were GIs, but some were simply supporters and patriotic Americans who believed in clean government and honest elections. Others were people who had been shaken down by the Cantrell machine over the years and were sick and tired of it.
The largest of the crowds gathered outside a local garage and tire shop called the Essankay, across the street from the GIs’ campaign headquarters. It was this crowd, which included Bill White, that Jim Buttram, the GIs’ campaign manager, reported to on the events of the day.
“Early this morning, at the courthouse precinct, Walter Ellis asked to look inside a ballot box before the voting began, just to make sure it was empty,” said Buttram, standing on an oversized tire. “Now, that was Walt’s right under Tennessee law, but Cantrell’s boys beat him up and arrested him. He’s still locked up in the county jail.”
Bill White liked Buttram, the tall grocer with the big jaw, who was wounded twice in a war that took him all the way from Tunisia, to Sicily, to Normandy. Buttram had a just-the-facts style to his speaking that Bill appreciated.
“Throughout the day, we’ve seen repeat voters for them,” Buttram continued. “And intimidated voters for us. And I don’t have to tell you what happened at the Eleventh to Tom Gillespie. He’s recovering from his bullet wound at Foree’s clinic now.”