Ike Madden
Ike Madden was a 33-year-old resident of Birmingham, Alabama. He worked as a laborer and was married to Francis Crockett. Madden had two children, Thelma and Clarence.
Case summary
The federal records for this case, viewable on the Civil Rights Cold Cases Records portal, are limited. The following summary was compiled primarily from other sources, including those listed at the bottom.
Incident
On March 28, 1948, Detective Lieutenant Charles L. Pierce of the Birmingham Police Department told reporters for The Birmingham News that Ike Madden had been involved in an “automobile incident” the night before. Pierce stated that Madden’s adolescent son, Clarence, was also in the car, and that he was brought to Jefferson Hillman Hospital to be treated for injuries around 11:05 p.m.
At 11:45 p.m., white officers Gordon F. Faulkner and Charles H. Conaway arrested Madden, who was Black, at the intersection of 34th Street and 32nd Avenue. Pierce told reporters that a man named J.J. Davis, who lived nearby, complained to police that Madden had chased him and his wife out of their house at knifepoint. According to Pierce, police also sought Madden “in connection with the automobile accident.” Pierce stated that Faulkner and Conaway believed Madden had been drinking.
After the arrest, Faulkner and Conaway put Madden in a police car and headed to the Davis home for further questioning. Faulkner was driving and Conaway was in the back seat with Madden. Pierce stated that Madden grabbed Faulkner as he was driving, prompting Conaway to pull Madden off Faulkner. Madden allegedly kicked Conaway in the face and tore the officer’s shirt. As Madden and Conaway continued to fight, Faulkner turned around and shot Madden three times. Pierce told reporters that Madden died almost immediately.
Birmingham Coroner Jack Hilderbrand listed Madden’s cause of death as “Pistol shot wounds of body,” which occurred “In parked auto shot while resisting arrest.”
The only federal records that exist in relation to Madden’s death are contained in the file on the police killing of Thomas Patterson in Birmingham on July 4, 1951. Madden appears first on a National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) list of “Police Slayings of Negroes in Alabama” for the year 1948.
Aftermath
Ike Madden was buried in his hometown of Leighton, Alabama.
On March 29, two days after Madden’s death, Birmingham police shot and killed John Johnson, another Black man. According to an April 2 Birmingham World article, Johnson allegedly pulled a “fountain pen pistol” on police.
In April, the Birmingham police killings of Atmos Shaw and Marion Franklin Noble, as well as that of Lott Vergas in the Birmingham suburb of Morris, prompted local activists to organize. Birmingham World Editor Emory O. Jackson reported in the April 30, 1948 edition that the local branch of the NAACP had organized a conference to “find a plan to curb police brutality and terrorism in this community.” By June, as The Birmingham News reported, the Negro Citizens Defense Committee of Birmingham drew up a list of demands to the governor and attorney general of Alabama, as well as the coroner, solicitor, and presiding judge of Birmingham, requesting investigations and inquests into the police killings that took place in 1948. Public Safety Commissioner Theophilus Eugene “Bull” Connor responded that the Police Department had already investigated each death. The results of these investigations, he said, were in accordance with the coroner’s determination that each killing was a “justifiable homicide.”
Citing newspaper articles and its own reports, the Birmingham NAACP counted 26 police killings of Black individuals in Birmingham from 1948 through mid-1951. Statewide, the number was 52.
Gordon Faulkner died in 1992 at the age of 81. Charles H. Conaway died a year later at the age of 74. Their obituaries identified them as retired Birmingham police officers.
Case summaries are compiled from information contained in different sources, including, but not limited to, investigative records, arrest reports, 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
1912 - Marriage License for Jake and Lucy Madden, 1912
1920 US Census - Madden Family
1930 US Federal Census - Madden Family
1935 - Marriage License - Ike Madden and Francis Crockett
1940 US Census - Ike Madden
1940 - Marriage License - Ike Madden and Lillie Bell Brooks
1940 - WWII Draft Registration Card - Ike Madden
1940 - Birmingham City Directory - Charles L. Pierce
1948 - Ike Madden Death Certificate
1948 - Alabama, US Deaths and Burials Index, 1881-1974 - Ike Madden
“Man Shot and Killed by Policeman Here in Resisting Arrest,” The Birmingham News, March 28, 1948
“Madden, 40, Killed by Policemen,” Birmingham World, March 30, 1948