Aletha Bell Carter

Case summary

Incident

Around 2:30 p.m. on Aug. 15, 1945, 17-year-old Black high schooler Aletha (also known as Letha) Bell Carter walked to her aunt’s house in Pine Island, Horry County, South Carolina to borrow some rice for supper. When she had not returned by evening, her father, James Nolon Carter, went to search for her with one of his sons.

According to a January 1946 letter from South Carolina NAACP President James Hinton to Department of Justice (DOJ) Assistant Attorney General Theron Caudle, Nolon Carter and his son found Aletha Bell just before sunset. She was deceased. Her body, Hinton wrote, had been dragged away from the road and her head placed face down in a pool of water.

Aftermath

A Black physician in Conway, Dr. Peter C. Kelly, examined Aletha Bell Carter’s body and completed her death certificate on Aug. 16. Kelly recorded Carter’s principal cause of death as drowning, but also noted “Blows about Head” and “Fracture L. jaw” as injuries. Carter’s death certificate reflects that her death was considered a homicide. According to Hinton’s letter to Caudle, a coroner’s jury determined that Carter “met death at the hands of party or parties unknown.”

Carter was buried in Myrtle Beach on Aug. 17.

John H. McCray, a Black Columbia-based journalist and editor of the Lighthouse and Informer, broke the story of Aletha Bell Carter’s killing in September. In an article that appeared in the Atlanta Daily World, McCray reported that he had spoken with Riley Carter, Aletha Bell Carter’s grandfather, as well as an unnamed woman from nearby Conway. The woman told McCray that on the afternoon of Aug. 15, an unnamed white insurance agent stopped at a home along his Pine Island route and “asked permission to wash blood from his hands, declaring he had broken a glass.”

Riley Carter told McCray that the white insurance agent was the individual he suspected of killing his granddaughter. He also shared with McCray that authorities had jailed Nolon Carter and one of his other sons after they repeatedly asked officers to arrest the suspected individual. According to McCray’s article, Riley Carter reported the killing to the NAACP in Mullins the same week he spoke with McCray.

McCray’s reporting revealed that Aletha Bell Carter had been sexually assaulted. In a Charleston Chronicle article published in 1982, 37 years after the killing, McCray disclosed that Kelly, the physician who had completed Carter’s death certificate, had called the Lighthouse and Informer office “to report he had been compelled to certify the girl’s death as accidental drowning.” McCray wrote that Kelly had “found no water in her lungs but kept quiet.”

Hinton’s January 1946 letter to Caudle revealed that Kelly provided statements to the NAACP in “strictest confidence.” Kelly provided the NAACP with details indicating that Carter had been sexually assaulted and her “left jaw and neck had been broken.” Kelly also told the NAACP that he had not found any water in Carter’s lungs.

Hinton first reached out to the DOJ on Dec. 16, 1945 to request a federal investigation into Carter’s killing. In the letter, Hinton shared that the NAACP had contacted South Carolina Gov. Ransom J. Williams six weeks earlier to ask for an impartial state investigation. They never received a reply. Hinton wrote to Caudle that “Law Enforcement Officers in South Carolina (seemingly) have broken down in this case, as nothing has been done to bring a White suspect who was employed as an Insurance Agent, to trial, or even to an arrest.”

NAACP Special Counsel Thurgood Marshall penned a letter to Hinton on Dec. 26 to ask if he believed it would be useful for him to send a letter to the South Carolina governor on behalf of NAACP headquarters. “I believe,” Marshall wrote, “we should do everything possible to get prosecution in the case through state officials as impossible as it might seem.” Hinton responded that he approved of the idea, adding, “Your letter might have its weight in this case.” Whether Marshall sent a letter to Williams is unknown.

Caudle responded to Hinton on Jan. 4, 1946, cautioning him about the limits of federal law but agreeing to “give most careful consideration to the facts and circumstances” that Hinton could provide. Hinton replied to Caudle five days later, furnishing him with all known details about the case. Caudle wrote on Jan. 22 to inform Hinton that the incident was “wholly within the jurisdiction of the state authorities.”

Reverend G. Goings Daniels of the Kingston Lake Missionary Baptist Association led fundraising efforts to advocate for the prosecution of Carter’s killer. The Atlanta Daily World reported on Feb. 22 that Reverend A.T. Graham of Myrtle Beach, “one of the oldest preachers in the state,” personally donated $100 to the fund. According to the article, there had been two new “developments” in the case. While Daniels refused to comment for the paper, Hinton disclosed that there was “veracity” to reports that the insurance agent suspect had been transferred out of Horry County on the advice of the sheriff.

It is unknown if the insurance agent or another suspect was ever charged with sexually assaulting and killing Aletha Bell Carter.

Census records reflect that in 1950, the Carter family was still living in Horry County, where Nolon Carter continued to work for the railroad. He died a year later, in 1951, at the age of 49.

Archie Bell Carter, then Archie Bell Jones Carter Bellamy, died in Myrtle Beach in 1990. She was 82 years old.

Media Gallery

Case summaries are compiled using government records and archival primary source material. These include, but are not limited to, investigative records, arrest reports, newspaper articles, court filings, census records, birth and death certificates, transcripts, and press releases. In many cases, the records contain contradictory assertions.

In addition to the incident files associated with this case, this summary relied on the following:

Sources

Archival Sources

• Claude A. Barnett Papers: The Associated Negro Press, 1918-1967; Associated Negro Press News Releases, Series B: 1945-1955; Chicago Historical Society, Chicago, Illinois
• John H. McCray Papers, University of South Carolina, South Carolina Library Repository, Columbia, South Carolina
• National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Papers: Legal File; Rape, General, 1946-47

Genealogical Records

• Population Schedule for Horry County, South Carolina, United States Federal Census, 1920, 1930, 1940, 1950
• World War II Draft Registration Cards, South Carolina, 1942
• Standard Certificate of Death, South Carolina, United States, 1945, 1951

Newspaper Articles

• Abner W. Berry, “Is Marshall’s Democracy Good Only for Export Use?” Daily World (New York, NY), March 23, 1947
• Eugene Gordon, “Byrnes’ Home District is Scene of Lynching,” Daily World (New York, NY), November 4, 1945
• “Interest in High School Girl’s Death Increases,” New Journal and Guide (Norfolk, VA), October 27, 1945
• John H. McCray, “Story of Rape, Murder by Agent Sweeps Lower State,” Atlanta Daily World, September 21, 1945
• “Man Who Molested Girl May Face NAACP Court Suit,” Atlanta Daily World, July 14, 1945
• “Myrtle Beach Minister Gives $100 to Carter Rape Case Fund,” Atlanta Daily World, February 22, 1946
• Obituary for Archie Bellamy, Sun-News (Myrtle Beach, SC), October 13, 1990
• “Pine Island Father Was Charged with Daughter’s Death,” Atlanta Daily World, November 27, 1945
• “Plot to Conceal Facts in Death of Girl Made Known,” The Black Dispatch (Oklahoma City, OK), October 13, 1945
• “Plot to Conceal Rape Case Foiled,” Baltimore Afro-American, October 13, 1945
• “Probe Rape Death of S.C. School Girl,” The Chicago Defender, October 6, 1945
• “Probe White Insurance Agent’s Assault Attempt,” The Chicago Defender, July 7, 1945
• “Raise Funds for S.C. Rape Murder Case,” The Chicago Defender, November 10, 1945
• “S. C. Governor Fails to Act on Cases Cited,” New Journal and Guide (Norfolk, VA), March 16, 1946
• “State Probe in S.C. Rape Case Demanded by N.A.A.C.P.,” The Chicago Defender, October 20, 1945
• “U.S. Justice Dept. Asked to Enter Pine Island Rape Case,” Jackson Advocate (Jackson, MS), December 22, 1945
• “U.S. Justice Dept. in on Pine Island Rape-Murder Case,” Atlanta Daily World, January 11, 1946
• “White Rapist Not Arrested,” New Pittsburgh Courier, September 29, 1945
• “White S.C. Killer, Rapist At Large,” The Chicago Defender, September 29, 1945