--- description: "For beating his wife," Charles A. Poole, Detroit WPA worker who did not beat his wife, was shot and killed last May by members of an insignificant secret society which had delusions of... title: CRIME: Black Lesson image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [U.S.](/section/us/) # CRIME: Black Lesson by [TIME](/author/time/) Oct 19, 1936 5:00 AM CUT by [TIME](/author/time/) Oct 19, 1936 5:00 AM CUT “For beating his wife,” Charles A. Poole, Detroit WPA worker who did not beat his wife, was shot and killed last May by members of an insignificant secret society which had delusions of vigilante grandeur (TIME, June 1 & 8). Last week twelve members of this shoddy “Black Legion” stood up in Detroit court to be sentenced for their shoddy crime. Eight, guilty of murder, got life sentences; four, guilty of second degree murder, got three and one-half to 20 years. CRIME: Black Lesson ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6756027/crime-black-lesson/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6756027/crime-black-lesson/"},"headline":"CRIME: Black Lesson","datePublished":"1936-10-19T05:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-28T16:03:01.049Z","description":"\"For beating his wife,\" Charles A. Poole, Detroit WPA worker who did not beat his wife, was shot and killed last May by members of an insignificant secret society which had delusions of...","url":"https://time.com/archive/6756027/crime-black-lesson/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME","url":"https://time.com/author/time/"}],"articleSection":"U.S.","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/6756027/crime-black-lesson/","name":"CRIME: Black Lesson"}}]}] ```