Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power

In this chapter, Tyson explores two miscarriages of justice that took place in North Carolina in 1957 and 1958. The first involves Perry. The night after the successful thwarting of the KKK, police arrived at Perry’s home to arrest him for performing an illegal abortion on a 25-year-old white woman named Lilly Mae Rape. Perry staunchly denied performing the abortion, believing that he was being targeted because of his status as vice president of the Monroe NAACP chapter. He was taken to the Monroe jailhouse and held on a $7,500 bail. Upon hearing of his arrest, a group of Monroe’s Black women stormed the jail with guns and kitchen knives demanding that he be released from his cell. J. Ray Shute signed Perry’s bond, and he was released to await court proceedings. After an arduous year of court proceedings, the Supreme Court rejected Perry’s appeal, and he was imprisoned on criminal charges.

The second case Tyson covers is the infamous “Kissing Case.” In late October of 1958, a seven-year-old white girl named Sissy Sutton told her mother that earlier in the day, she kissed eight-year-old Black boys David Ezell “Fuzzy” Simpson and James “Hanover” Grissom on the cheek. Upon hearing the news, Mrs.