The Reverend Sheriff

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The Reverend Sheriff
 
Sheriff “Big Bill”1 Lee and Chief Cecil Rhodes2
Made the law as they rode the roads.
They drag Black men from their beds,
Became legends for busting heads.
Everyone knew what they did was not right.
Black folks were too scared to put up a fight.
The state and nation were set in their ways.
Deep in the “Heart of Dixie”3 were dark days.
 
No black sought office in this part of the state4.
The Democratic Party had an all white slate.
To break the county’s racist political ban,
The NDPA5 was formed to take a stand.
The Eagle Party thought it could win.
At least, that was the strategy of John Cashin.6
The Reverend Sheriff’s time had finally come.
He would become the Sheriff without a gun.
 
Tom Gilmore was a Godly Black Man
Whom God lifted up down in Forkland.7
The Word of God was his way to work
To protect Greene County from harm and hurt.
The election was as close as it could be.8
Greene County got rid of Big Bill Lee.
The Reverend Sheriff’s time had finally come.
Tom Gilmore was the Sheriff without a gun.
 
 
1.         Sheriff “Big” Bill Lee was the long time white Sheriff of Greene County, Alabama. 
2.         Cecil Rhodes was the police chief of Eutaw, Alabama—the county seat of Greene County.
3.         “Heart of Dixie” is the nick name for the state of Alabama.
4.         Greene County is located in the western part of Alabama Black Belt.
5.         NDPA is the acronym for National Democratic Party of Alabama.
6.         John Cashin is the Huntsville dentist who organized the NDPA.
7.         Forkland is a political hotbed in the southern part of Greene County, near the Marengo County line that was home of Thomas Gilmore.
8.         The 1970 election in Greene County which took a Supreme Court decision to place the names of the Black candidates on the ballot. Gilomre became the second elected African American sheriff in the country.  Lucius Amerson was the first.