Location of Lynching*:

Rural Road in southwest Lee County

*Lynching designation pending review by The Equal Justice Initiative

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Date:

November 4, 1960

 

Age:

Born in 1894, Forney Calhoun was 67 years old.

 

Brief:

Mr. Forney "Fonny" Calhoun was born April 24, 1894 to parents Bill Turner and Julia Calhoun in Macon County, AL. He also worked there for most of his life. He had three wives and was survived by multiple children.

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Mr. Calhoun was 67 years old on Friday, November 4, 1960, when he finished sharecropping work on a farm near Auburn University and headed to Notasulga with friend and family member Sar Townsend before heading home again. On the drive home, he was forced to stop the car because Leonard Hood, a white member of the Auburn University campus police force but who was not on duty, had blocked the road with his car. At this point, Hood’s friend and brother-in-law, Hershel Berry, who was also employed by Auburn University, rammed Mr. Calhoun’s car from behind.

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They pulled Mr. Calhoun from his car and began beating him. Mr. Calhoun’s friend fled on foot at this point, after which Hood and Berry forced Mr. Calhoun into Hood’s car and took him to Loachapoka before beating him again. Afterward, they went to Hood’s residence so that Hood could change into his police uniform, after which they went to the Lee County jail in Opelika and formally arrested Mr. Calhoun for drunk driving, assault, and resisting arrest. Hood claimed in his statement that he stopped Calhoun, who then resisted arrest after being stopped. According to Hood’s account, he then grabbed an unloaded shotgun from his police car to subdue Mr. Calhoun because he resisted arrest by pulling a shotgun on Hood and Berry (other reporting also said he somehow pulled Hood’s own shotgun from Hood’s car when he wasn’t in it, and this started the beating). At this time, Mr. Calhoun allegedly walked into the jail under his own power.

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The pretense of drunk driving appears to have either been completely fabricated or “supported” by symptoms due to his head injuries, and Sheriff Gene Lowe (Lee County Sheriff) noted that statements from Hood and Berry were in conflict with the accounts from The Plainsman. After the incident, Calhoun’s boss Grady Fuller served as a witness that he wasn’t drinking that day. Similarly, the Justice of the Peace that Mr. Calhoun and Townsend visited in Notasulga also testified that Mr. Calhoun was sober only minutes before being stopped and attacked by Hood and Berry.

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Despite the severity of his injuries, Mr. Calhoun was left alone in the jail overnight. He was released to his family the next day. His physical state at that point made it clear he needed emergency medical care, and they took him to a doctor in Tuskegee. Tragically, his state required critical care, and he was sent to a neurosurgeon in Phenix City, who admitted him to Cobb Memorial Hospital where he remained in critical condition and severe pain before ultimately dying on Thursday, Nov 17.

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After Mr. Calhoun’s death, Hood was questioned and told the police nothing except “I did what I had to do”. Hood was subsequently supported by Sherrif Lowe. Lowe announced that a thorough investigation was underway, although there was evidence that bringing the case to the grand jury was delayed and the charges changed repeatedly over the next several months. Hood and Berry were arrested on charges of murder and jailed Monday, Nov 21 but were released on bail soon. They paid $2,000 each for bail and were subsequently suspended from their positions at Auburn University.

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Although the case led to much outrage in the community, the grand jury didn’t hear the case until May 1961. They only approved the charges of second degree manslaughter (“unlawfully but without malice or intent to kill, killed Forney Calhoun by negligently striking him about the head with his hands or with a shotgun”), and Hood was acquitted even of that charge, albeit after an hour of deliberations. There are no transcripts of this trial and only a one-page notice remains.

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Mr. Calhoun’s family had an open casket service so that the Black community could see what had been done to him. His wife Josie, who still lived in their sharecropping home owned by Mr. Fuller, was kicked out, with construction tearing down the house before she had fully moved out. She then moved to New York. Mr. Calhoun is now buried in an unmarked grave in the Rising Star Church cemetery.

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Hood died in 1984 at 57.