In 1943, Black minister Edward Green was kidnapped, tortured, and killed by white men in Alabama. No one was ever arrested.
Edward “Eddie” Green, a 23-year-old Black minister, was at his mother’s home in Millbrook, Alabama, on September 13, 1943, when he heard a knock on the front door.
In opening the door, Green likely did not anticipate that the white men at the door — presumably klansmen with possible connections to the nearby Montgomery County sheriff’s office — would kidnap, torture, and kill him that day.
Several days later, Green’s body floated to the surface of the Alabama River near the Tyler-Goodwin Bridge, and the coroner determined that it was a possible suicide by drowning.
Civil rights organizations looked into his death at the request of area residents and alerted Assistant Attorney General Tom Clark of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) about Green’s death.
However, no federal, state, or local law enforcement agencies ever investigated or arrested anyone in connection with Green’s death.
While Green never got the chance to see the Allied victory in World War II (WWII) against the Axis forces, more than 80 years later, Green is remembered in Elmore County, along with more than a million other Black veterans in WWII, for their service to the United States in ceremonies across the country on Veterans’ Day.
Edward Green: An outstanding man
Edward Green grew up with his mother, Georgia Terrell Jackson, in Millbrook, Alabama. He was the son of Vetter Green.
Another son of Vetter Green, prominent civil rights leader Fred Shuttlesworth, may not have known who Green was or ever met Green, his older half-brother, during his lifetime. Shuttlesworth founded the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights and led civil rights campaigns in Birmingham during the 1950s and 1960s.
There are conflicting government records on Green’s involvement in the U.S. Army.
According to the U.S. Army enlistment records, Edward Green enlisted in the military in March 1941 and served in the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps during WWII. The Quartermaster Corps built roads, bridges, and runways and moved fuel, ammunition, and other supplies, ensuring that supply lines remained open to support the troops fighting on the front lines during WWII.
Another record, a World War II Registration Card D.S.S. Form 1, shows that Edward Green registered for the draft in March 1943.
Green’s death certificate lists him as a veteran of World War II.
The U.S. Army assigned the vast majority of Black service members, such as Edward Green, to logistics and support units and not to combat roles. Prior to and during WWII, the U.S. military was segregated, and few Black men were permitted to serve as officers. In those rare instances, Black officers were permitted only to lead Black troops.
“Reverend Green was an outstanding man, being active in choral singing, organizing quartets, etc., and had attended a seminary in an Eastern state,” stated Corporal Harold H. Carr in a 1943 letter to Thurgood Marshall, Special Counsel to the NAACP.
“Do you know where your son is?”
Edward Green was at his mother’s home in Millbrook, Alabama, when he heard a knock on the front door.
Several white men stood at the front door, according to witnesses.
Green opened the door and stepped outside.
The men asked Green to pick cotton. He refused, possibly advising them that he was in the military and on leave only for a few days.
The men then asked to see his papers, most likely military leave papers that provided for time off for a few days. At that time, the U.S. Army granted leave for enlisted personnel for up to 14 days per year.
Green went back into the house to retrieve the papers and brought them to the men outside.
Minutes later, Green’s mother, Georgia Terrell Jackson, saw her son leave with the white men.
A witness saw the white men torture and shoot Green.
After killing Green, it appears that the men threw Green into the Alabama River.
Later on the same day, the men went back to Green’s home, and according to witnesses, they were in a Ford car with an official county license plate.
“Do you know where your son is?” asked the men of Green’s mother, Georgia Terrell Jackson, who later advised the NAACP that she did not know the men.
“No,” Jackson replied.
“He’s in the Alabama River,” said one of the white men.
A few days later, several women who were fishing saw Green’s body floating in the Alabama River near the Tyler-Goodwin Bridge. One woman secured his body with a fishing hook and pulled him to the side of the riverbank.
A few white men in a boat came by, removed Green from the bank, and transported him away, according to a report by the NAACP.
The Elmore County Coroner determined that the cause of Green’s death was drowning and listed it as a suspected suicide on Green’s death certificate.
The H.A. Loveless Undertaking Company, owned by prominent African American businessman Henry Allen Loveless, handled the funeral arrangements, according to Green’s death certificate. A company employee advised that there were no bruises or bullet holes in Green’s body, according to the NAACP’s report.
On Monday, September 20, 1943, Reverend Owens officiated funeral services at Springfield Baptist Church in Millbrook, Alabama.
Green’s family buried him in McKeithen Cemetery. There is no headstone marking Green’s grave.
At some point during that week, sheriff’s deputies from nearby Montgomery County went to see Green’s mother. They returned to her the military papers that Green had given to the white men who took him away, according to witnesses.
At that time, George Adkin “Addie” Mosely served as the sheriff of Montgomery, Alabama. First elected in 1938, Mosley served four terms as sheriff until 1955.
WWI Veteran contacts the ACLU & NAACP
“This is to inform you that there have been rumors of lynching and killing Negroes in Wetumpka, Ala., because they would not pick cotton at $1.00. At Millbrook, Reverend Edward Green was killed by five white men and thrown in the river because he would not pick cotton,” stated William George Porter, a Black postal carrier and World War I veteran, in a letter to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) two days after Green’s funeral. “The colored people are terror-stricken in this part of Alabama.”
Without Porter’s letter, the ACLU would not likely have known about Green’s death, as it was not reported by local newspapers at that time.
Porter sent an identical letter to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
In the ACLU’s response to Porter’s letter, on September 28, 1943, ACLU Secretary Winifred Raushenbush, for the Committee Against Race Discrimination in the War Effort (CARD), wrote to Victor Rotnem of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Section about Green’s murder.
“We have received a letter from Montgomery, Ala., containing the following charges: Terrorization of Negroes in Wetumpka, Alabama, because of refusal to pick cotton at a low price; the killing of Rev. Edward Green in Millbrook by white men because of his refusal to pick cotton,” wrote Raushenbush. “This is to inquire whether your Department knows anything of the facts in these cases or whether you can check up to see if there are any foundations for the charges made.”
Assistant Attorney General Tom C. Clark of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Department of Justice penned a reply to Raushenbush at the ACLU.
“This will acknowledge your letter of September 28, 1943, in which you inquire as to whether the Department has received any information concerning terrorization activities against Negroes in Wetumpka, Millbrook, and Montgomery, Alabama,” wrote Clark to Raushenbush. “No such information or reports have been received here to date insofar as is known at this writing.”
Clark concludes his letter to Raushenbus, stating that, “If you desire to furnish any specific allegations or complaints concerning the occurrences referred to, prompt consideration will be given if it appears that there is any violation of Federal criminal statutes.”
Active duty serviceman raises concerns, NAACP investigates
Around the same time, a woman living in Millbrook, Alabama, contacted her sister, Lottie Mae Long Carr, and brother-in-law, Corporal Harold Handy Carr, Jr., to tell them about Green’s kidnapping and murder.
As a service member in the U.S. Army Air Force at the 90th Mess Squadron at the Jefferson Barracks located just south of St. Louis, Missouri, Carr wrote to Thurgood Marshall, Special Counsel to the NAACP.
“I write you this letter fearlessly and with the hope that it may accomplish something. Even if it brings complications to myself and others, I do feel that right will always triumph over wrong,” wrote Carr. “I am hoping that something will be done to comfort the mother of this young man and his relatives and that they won’t feel that they sacrificed a son in vain.”
In response to Carr’s letter, Marshall contacted the Montgomery, Alabama, NAACP President, Thomas Taylor Allen, to request that he investigate.
Over the following weeks, Allen investigated Green’s death. At the end of October 1943, Allen reported back to Marshall with the details of the investigation.
Marshall then wrote back to Corporal Carr and enclosed a copy of Allen’s investigation, stating that, “I doubt if much can be done from this end in view of the fact that the body did not show any signs of violence. However, our Branch will do whatever can be done.”
After receiving the information on Allen’s investigation, Corporal Carr wrote again to Marshall at the end of November.
“I realize what the NAACP is up against in seeking the utmost cooperation of our people, for I have lived in those parts,” wrote Carr. “I witnessed incidents while serving in the capacity of an instructor in the public schools of Alabama that forces me to enter the fight with all the vigor I can muster.”
Carr called into question the coroner’s conclusion that Green drowned and recommended that Marshall ask prominent attorney Arthur Shores to assist on the investigation.
No U.S. DOJ investigation
Despite President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 8802 in June 1941 to ban discrimination in the armed forces, Black service members continued to face harsh treatment by white officers and enlisted service members, as well as civilians, such as in Green’s case.
In correspondence with the DOJ’s Assistant Attorney General Tom C. Clark, Thurgood Marshall shared his frustrations at the treatment of Black service members and the lack of prosecutions.
“There have been numerous killings of Negro soldiers by civilians and civilian police. There have been many more instances of severe beatings of Negro soldiers in certain areas in the South,” wrote Marshall in a May 5, 1944, letter to Clark. “We are not aware of a single instance of prosecution or of any steps being taken by the Federal Government to either punish the guilty parties or to prevent the recurrence of these crimes against the uniform of the United States Army.”
Clark’s reply to Marshall indicated the DOJ’s support for pending legislation to protect service members. Clark’s letter did not include a specific rebuttal to Marshall’s criticism of the DOJ’s lack of prosecutions of the murders of Black military service members.
The Double V Campaign
In reviewing the records of the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board, the NAACP’s newly digitized records, and the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project’s Burnham-Nobles Archive, it is evident that veterans, active duty service members, and civil rights organizations such as the ACLU and the NAACP were concerned about the harsh treatment and lynchings of Black service members such as Edward Green.
They were joined in their concerns by James Thompson, 26, who wrote a letter-to-the-editor to the Black-owned newspaper, The Pittsburgh Courier, published on January 31, 1942, that questioned why African Americans should participate in the war effort.
“If this V sign means that to those now engaged in this great conflict, then let us colored Americans adopt the double VV for a double victory,” wrote Thompson. “The first V for victory over our enemies from without, the second V for victory over our enemies from within.”
In response, The Pittsburgh Courier launched the Double V campaign to push for victory abroad against the Axis forces and victory at home against racism and segregation. Across the country, African-Americans wore a pin with two V’s on their lapels to signify support for the campaign. After his letter was published, Thompson enlisted in the military and served throughout the duration of the war.
After WWII, Black veterans came home and continued to push for civil rights, leading efforts across the Deep South.
In 1948, President Truman issued Executive Order 9981 to desegregate the military and require equality of treatment and opportunity to all military members regardless of race, color, religion, or national origin, and created a commission to implement the order.
Release of Green’s records
The Civil Rights Cold Case Records Collection Act of 2019 (Public Law No: 115-426) created the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board, and since 2024, the board has released thousands of pages of government records, including Green’s, and made them available online at: https://www.coldcaserecords.gov/.
“After all this time, we might not solve every one of these cold cases, but my hope is that our efforts will, at the very least, help us find some long overdue healing and understanding of the truth,” said former U.S. Senator Doug Jones (D-AL) in his floor statement in 2018 when he introduced the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Collection Act.
Board Co-Chair Hank Klibanoff, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Emory University professor, and founder of the Georgia Cold Case Project and Buried Truths podcast, says that these records are “adding to what can be known about these cases.”
With these newly released government records and the digitization of the NAACP’s files, Klibanoff says that “We can come closer to approximating a robust record of what happened in the case.”
Elmore County NAACP honors Edward Green, Black veterans
“There were many cases during that time where people had some knowledge of the situation but chose not to speak, not because they didn’t want to, but out of fear,” said President Bobby Mays of the Elmore County NAACP Branch 5026 in a telephone interview in November, 2025 about Green’s murder. “Those kinds of things took a mountain load of courage to speak out.”
At that time, many Black people in the area lived on property owned by white people and were threatened with eviction for saying anything, Mays said.
In those instances, such as the death of Edward Green, “the NAACP serves a very, very vital role,” said Mays. “We are the watchdog.”
Mays will honor Green and other Black veterans at the Elmore County NAACP’s Veterans’ Day Brunch on Saturday, November 15th at 9:00 am at Wallsboro Community Center in Wetumpka.
“There is no question that had it not been for the NAACP, we would not know Green’s story,” said Mays.
