Nothing but the dead and dying back in my little town
I grew up in a small town. Two lynchings may have occurred near where I lived.
TW: racism, possible suicide or murder
Boy, did I want to write about Barbie this week.
I found it utterly delightful and think Margot Robbie and America Ferrera should be nominated for Best Actress and Supporting Actress. But something else has come up, and I need to write about it. It's tugging at my skirt, saying, "Come on! Write about me!" So I will.
Jason Aldean has been popping up in my Substacks, and news feeds the past week. I'll be honest; all I knew about Aldean was that he sang Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down” on Saturday Night Live as a tribute to Petty (who died that week) and the victims of the 2017 Las Vegas Shooting. But CMT removed his "Try That in a Small Town" video from their rotation list. Why? Oh, lots of reasons.
Here are the lyrics:
Sucker punch somebody on a sidewalk
Carjack an old lady at a red light
Pull a gun on the owner of a liquor store
Ya think it's cool, well, act a fool if ya like
Cuss out a cop, spit in his face
Stomp on the flag and light it up
Yeah, ya think you're tough
Well, try that in a small town
See how far ya make it down the road
Around here, we take care of our own
You cross that line; it won't take long
For you to find out, I recommend you don't
Try that in a small town
Got a gun that my granddad gave me
They say one day they're gonna round up
Well, that shit might fly in the city, good luck
Try that in a small town
See how far ya make it down the road
Around here, we take care of our own
You cross that line, it won't take long
For you to find out, I recommend you don't
Try that in a small town
Full of good ol' boys, raised up right
If you're looking for a fight
Try that in a small town
Try that in a small town
Try that in a small town
See how far ya make it down the road
Around here, we take care of our own
You cross that line, it won't take long
For you to find out, I recommend you don't
Try that in a small town
Try that in a small town
Ooh-ooh
Try that in a small town
Aldean filmed the video in front of a courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee, where a lynching occurred in 1933. He also originally used footage from Black Lives Matters protests, which was edited out.
Oddly, I can't entirely agree with CMT's actions. After writing about Norman Lear last week, it would be hypocritical for me to say the video shouldn’t be shown. I think the video should be seen with pop-ups talking about the lynching and protests, giving the viewer historical information. Almost all my life, I've lived in small towns or smallish towns. They aren't like what Aldean sings about. Granted, I lived in the metro Bay Area in California, where San Francisco was half an hour away. Growing up, my hometown Pleasant Hill had 21,000 people but felt small. Nearby in Concord, an incident that doesn't agree with Aldean's version of small towns occurred. People are still debating if it was a lynching or a suicide.
On Friday, November 2, 1985, Timothy Lee had drinks after work in San Francisco. He took BART late that night, heading towards his home in Berkeley, where he fell asleep. When he woke up, he was at the Concord station, at the time, the last station of the Concord-Daly City route. It was the last train of the night. It was around 1:15 in the morning, and he was stuck. He called a roommate and a friend but couldn't find a ride. The friend’s mother called the payphone Timothy was calling from but received no answer. Several hours, Lee was found hanging from an olive tree near BART. He was twenty-three years old. He was also black, Native American, and gay.
The Concord Police ruled Lee's death a suicide. His sister Tammy said no. He had so much to live for (he recently received a scholarship to study fashion in Milan); also, they had been super close since the death of their mother twelve years before, sharing a house in Berkeley. Tammy and their stepmother Elizabeth thought Timothy was lynched. The police’s reasoning was he wasn’t doing well academically, there was no proof he was going to Italy, and Timothy and Tammy’s roommate said Timothy had been depressed, and being stranded in Concord was the final straw.
But many things didn’t add up: Why was the strap used for the noose destroyed by the police? What were the marks on his skin the police said were ant bites but looked like burn marks to Tammy? Why would Timothy misspell his own name in the supposed suicide note? Why did a neighbor close to BART hear screaming around the time Timothy was stranded? The question that nags me is this one: The time of death they listed for Timothy was around six in the morning-a five-hour gap from when he was stranded to the supposed time of death. On weekends, BART starts up again around six in the morning. If Timothy were in the tree, ready to die, wouldn’t seeing the BART train at the platform give him hope that it might be a new day and to keep going?
Other people were interviewed: Although he wasn't doing well academically, his co-workers said he was always upbeat and happy at work. Timothy was also familiar with Concord: the FBI file reported he would go to Chick’s Donuts or Denny’s with a friend on the weekends. Something else was troubling: A hate crime also occurred the same night nearby, where two men in KKK robes (they later said they were dressed up for a Halloween party) stabbed two African American men. I want to ask Aldean where were his good old boys that night. Why wasn't someone there to save Timothy Lee? Or did the good old boys want to get this outsider out of Concord?
I don't blame the Concord Police back then; they were doing their best with what they had at the time. This was when The Cosby Show was the number-one show in the country. Jesse Jackson ran for president the year before. I thought it was suicide too. Lynchings simply didn't happen in Northern California. We had Summer Solstice drum circles and Synanon mass weddings near Mt. Tam, but no lynchings. Lynchings happened in the South, thousands of miles away, not in my small town.
Seven months after Timothy's death in June 1986, a woman named Jacquelyn Peters was found dead in Lafayette, twenty minutes away from Concord. Like Timothy, she was found hanging from a tree, and her death was ruled a suicide. One local business owner remarked to the Daily News of Los Angeles, "It was perfect in 1940 when there were no Negroes here." The then mayor of Lafayette admitted there was racism, then said (again to the Daily News), "There's a Negro family on the hill above my house and another half-Negro family just three doors down." By 1986, the word negro was definitely retired to describe African Americans.
While a note was found written by Peters, NAACP advocate Theordie Ashley said it didn't make sense: "Women just don't hang themselves in public like this," Ashley said. ''They put on make-up, write a note and do it in the confines of their home." Also, Jacquelyn was very upset about Timothy's death and had been a target of racist remarks by neighbors. Again I want to ask Aldean: where were his good old boys?
Full disclosure: I lived in Lafayette for nine years. I loved the town, and my dream for years was to get a good book deal, buy a house and move back to Lafayette. I then saw the comments made when Jacquelyn Peters died. I also found a map that included Lafayette as a sundown town where minorities wouldn't be welcomed. Most likely, they would be driven out.
In a statement, Aldean wrote (grammar mistakes included): "When u grow up in a small town, it's that unspoken rule of 'we all have each other's backs, and we look out for each other.' It feels like that sense of community and respect has gotten lost somewhere along the way."
He has a point. But even if you grew up in small towns, if you don't look like them, find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time, or disagree with them, sometimes people find themselves in a place of grave danger. The day I revised this newsletter, President Biden and Vice President Harris gave a speech about Emmett Till, a young man lynched in the fifties. President Biden signed a bill making several locations a national monument for Emmett and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley.
What did Emmett do that good old boys think he deserved to be lynched?
Whistling at a white woman.
If life had been fair, July 25th would’ve been his 82nd birthday. A statue representing him was erected near where he died in Mississippi nine months ago.
There’s a petition for the Concord Police to reopen Timothy’s case. You can sign it here.
Tell them Timothy and Emmett sent you.
I promise, next week I'll write about Barbie.
love,
Jennifer
I can always count on you to have a take on something I’m interested in. I just heard about the Jason Aldean song and had many thoughts. I never grew up in a small town but my husband did and we just visited near where he grew up in Montana. People were friendly, it’s true. But also true I saw no people of color and no Pride stickers or flags. My husband was a bookish nerd at a time when that wasn’t valued and he took it for granted he would leave. Those small-town values seem to only apply if you’re White, cisgender, heterosexual and conservative.
Thank you for your post. I have my own Racism story connected to Contra Costa County, I have endured murders of clients, customers, employees and family.
My life is constantly threaten which I suspect are connected to the many investigations currently underway in the Bay Area. What many do not know is the investigations started in the 2000's and yes most arrests of officers are connected to the larger Northern California region.
I will attend the Timothy Lee walk as I still live in the area. I have been beaten many times, multitime arson victim over 40 years, been in shootings, witnesses shootings plus five family members murdered in 2014.
I am currently homeless,dealing with medical that is almost over and dealing with the county on a 1990 witness murder that cost me over 2 million. -
My losses are in the tens of millions and today a total of 25 cases near or linked to me exist.
Warm Regards,
Pete Bennett
925-357-0723
pete @ petebennett.net