“Your ancestors will turn over in their graves [if Milam and Bryant] are found guilty and I’m sure every last Anglo-Saxon one of you has the courage to free these men in the face of that [outside] pressure.” The jury deliberated sixty-seven minutes and then set them free. “Well,” said Clarence Strider to reporters. “I hope the Chicago niggers and the NAACP are happy.” It would have been a quicker decision, said the foreman, if we hadn’t stopped to drink a bottle of pop. Later it was said that the jury deliberately prolonged its decision at the request of sheriff-elect Harry Dogan, in order to
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