Bullets and Bollets: Isaiah Nixon Case

On September 8,1948, twenty-eight-year-old black male, Isaiah Nixon was murdered by two white men in front of his family at his house. His wife, Sallie Nixon was twenty-five, and just had given birth to a baby, a couple of weeks before this. He had six kids in total. His daughter, Dorothy Nixon Williams was only six-year-old at the time when she and her siblings watched two man kill their dad. Isaiah didnt know the two men that shot and killed him, but later was identified as Jim A.

Johnson and Johnnie Johnson who were white males.

Hours before the shooting, Isaiah went and voted in Georgias democratic primary election, which wasnt out of the ordinary. The only problem was the color of his skin, which happen to be black and because he was black he was shot three times in front of his family on the land he owned by two white man. Race was a big factor in the murder of Isaiah Nixon.

The White males who shoot Isaiah were the Johnson brothers and they were quickly arrested and charged. J.A. Johnson with murder and Johnny Johnson with accessory to murder, they were indicted by a grand jury but were found not guilty at the trail. Johnson brothers confused that they did shoot Nixon, but that oringal went to his house to offer him a job and that the shoots were in self-defense. Then on November 5, the jury talk for forty-five minutes and decided that J. A. Johnson was not guilty and therefore his brother Johnny Johnson was also not guilty.

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The Nixon case didnt top there, the Pittsburgh Courier launched an campaign seeking justice for Isaiahs wife, Sallie Nixon. Her and her six childern, were forced to flee town after the murder, they were living with Isaiahs Mother in Jacksonville, Florida sharing a two bedroom house with one other family. On September 13, NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall sent a telegram to the Governor of Georgia, M. E. Thompson, urging him to use the states full authority in prosecuting the guilty parties.

Marshall appealed to the Governor about the wider impact of the crime, asserting that this type of intimidation aimed at preventing other American citizens from exercising their constitutional rights threatened to make our constitution a farce if left unpunished. The Governor replied informing Marshall that he understood the matter was being pushed vigorously by authorities in the judicial circuit where the alleged murder took place.