Reporting: Trouble in Notasulga

Whenever race trouble erupts in the South, newsmen are about as welcome as segregated schools. Tempers can flare at the mere presence of reporters, who are there to record an example of Southern inhospitality. Last week in the little Alabama farm town of Notasulga, local hostility turned into violence—with an ironic twist. The victim was a Southern er: Vernon Merritt III, 23, a freelance photographer from Birmingham. His attackers were officers of the law.

What earned Merritt his beating in Notasulga might in another locale have come under the heading of journalistic enterprise. He simply slipped aboard the school bus bearing the first Negro students to try to enter Macon County High School. He figured he could photograph the story from the youngsters’ point of view. But law authorities had already gathered in force to prevent the token integration, and some of them had been tipped that a photographer was on the bus.

When the bus arrived, Dallas County Sheriff Jim Clark leaped aboard, armed with a billy and an electric cattle prod. He jammed the billy in Merritt’s belly, and he applied the prod to the photographer’s neck. With the aid of a deputy, he threw Merritt off the bus, there prodded him some more as he lay on the ground. All this was caught on film by Merritt’s unmolested colleague, Cameraman Ed Jones of the Birmingham News. Merritt’s equipment—$800 worth—was smashed with such enthusiasm that the six Negro pupils, who stayed inside, thought they had heard pistol shots.

Photographer Merritt was released with the order to “walk the hell out of here”; last man to shove him along was Alabama Public Safety Director Al Lingo. When Governor George Wallace heard what had happened he told Lingo that “this sort of thing must not be allowed to happen,” and he called Merritt in to shake his hand warmly. “They all expressed dismay,” said Merritt, “but it seemed to me there was something insincere about it.” He was right. The next day Wallace gave the newspapers his version of the incident: Merritt, the Governor claimed, had resisted the sheriff, would not get off the bus willingly.