Hastening history’s judgment: The Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board releases records from 1945 killing of Alabama grandmother
The federal Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board today announced the release of FBI and Department of Justice records surrounding the 1945 death of Hattie DeBardelaben, a 46-year-old Black mother and grandmother, who was beaten to death by law enforcement authorities. The release of these records – which comprise 69 pages and are viewable on the website of the National Archives and Records Administration – represents the first public disclosure of records under the scope of the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Collection Act of 2018.
“The name Hattie DeBardelaben may be unfamiliar to most people, but her death at the hands of law enforcement officers in 1945 was sadly typical of the violence – and even lethality – that many Black Americans suffered in the Jim Crow South,” said Review Board co-chair Margaret Burnham. “Although her death was investigated by federal agents at the time, the perpetrators were never held accountable. However, we hope that the release of these records after all these years provides some answers to her descendants, while also illuminating a dark chapter in our nation’s history.”
During the civil rights era, many civil rights-related crimes were investigated by authorities, but often the investigations did not result in arrests or prosecutions. DeBardelaben had been washing clothes in the backyard of her family home in Autauga County, Alabama, on March 23, 1945, when four law enforcement officers drove up – one sheriff’s deputy and three federal liquor inspectors – and announced they were looking for illegal whiskey. They asked to search her home and she complied, though they produced no warrant. When one of the officers struck her nephew, James Collier, she demanded they stop. But then the officer, joined by another, began beating her instead. She fell against the pot of boiling water. The officers escorted her to their car, placing her and her 15-year-old son Edward under arrest. DeBardelaben died in the back seat of the car, enroute to the local jail, her son next to her. In the weeks after her death, the FBI conducted an investigation at the urging of the NAACP. Gov. Chauncey Sparks referred the case to Solicitor Winston Huddleston for investigation, but a state grand jury declined to
indict.
“As the records show, the information uncovered by the FBI investigation was turned over to local prosecutors, and a state grand jury was convened,” Burnham said. “But as was too often the case involving the death of a Black person at the hands of white men, no one was ever indicted. Still, while the perpetrators may have escaped judgment in a court of law, the judgment of history has no expiration date.”
The Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board is examining the records of hundreds of cases like DeBardelaben’s, as part of its mandate under the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Collection Act to expedite the release of the records from unresolved cold cases from 1940 through 1979. Once the Board authorizes their release, the records will be available digitally on a dedicated portal maintained by the National Archives and Records Administration, where they can be viewed by anyone – including historians, researchers, journalists, and descendants of the victims. Today’s announcement is the first of what will be many more as the Review Board’s work accelerates.
About the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board
The Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board was created as part of the Cold Case Records Collection Act of 2018, which was introduced by then-U.S. Senator Doug Jones of Alabama, a former federal prosecutor. The bill won overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress and was signed into law by then-President Donald Trump in 2019. President Biden appointed, and the U.S. Senate approved, the four current board members, who were sworn in in early 2023. The members are co-chairs Margaret Burnham and Hank Klibanoff, and Gabrielle M. Dudley and Dr. Brenda Stevenson. For their full biographies, go here. To learn more about the Review Board, visit our website at www.coldcaserecords.gov and follow the Board on X at x.com/coldcasesboard. For media inquiries, please email Steve Fennessy, communications manager for the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board, at steve.fennessy@coldcaserecords.gov.