| By Caroline Wilkerson |
Sallie Nixon saw it all. She had been at home that morning when Isaiah left to vote, and she was on the veranda that evening as two white men parked their black two-door sedan in her yard.[1] From the car, Jim and Johnnie Johnson asked Sallie to have Isaiah come talk to them.[2] Sallie obliged and called for her husband, who exited their home to approach the brothers. Sallie walked back onto the veranda as the two leapt from the car, each holding a loaded gun.[3] The brothers inquired how Isaiah voted that morning. Sallie listened as Isaiah replied, “Guess I voted for Mr. Thompson.”[4] She heard the Johnsons demand that her husband get into their car, but Nixon took a step back towards the farmhouse. Jim then shot Isaiah multiple times.[5] At the sound of the first gunshot, Sallie screamed, “Fall, Isaiah, fall!”- a command to escape the line of fire. Sallie’s warning was too late.[6] Isaiah had already been shot three times, maybe four, and was gravely injured.[7] Jim and Johnnie then returned to their car and drove away. Dover Carter, a friend of Nixon, visited Nixon in the hospital the next day, whereupon Nixon told him that he was shot because he had voted.[8] The Pittsburgh Courier affirmed this in a page 1 article, writing, “Isaiah Nixon was killed because he voted.”[9]
Sallie was there, too, when Jim and Johnnie Johnson went on trial for Nixon’s murder. Sallie was in court to testify as to what she saw, and to confirm the identity of the Johnsons brothers as her husband’s killers. The act of testifying was an act of courage in and of itself. For a black woman to blame a white man for murder could have caused a lethal act of retribution.[10] Furthermore, Sallie Nixon had to tell her account of her husband’s death knowing that the two white men who killed her husband would probably go unpunished. Consequently, her testimony was a momentous event. During the trial, Jim admitted to killing Nixon, but claimed it was in self-defense since Nixon drew a knife.[11] Sallie contradicted Jim’s statement, maintaining that Nixon did not wield a knife.[12]
After a trial that lasted only two hours, a jury acquitted Jim and the prosecutor dropped charges against Johnnie. Although the Johnson brothers were freed later that day, Mrs. Nixon’s testimony was proof that she would not tolerate white-on-black violence any longer.
Sixteen days later, Sallie and Daisy Davis, Isaiah’s mother, packed up their belongings and headed to Jacksonville, Florida. All eight members of the Nixon family moved in with Daisy’s brother, John D. Collings. In a letter to The Pittsburgh Courier, Mrs. Nixon wrote, “[the children] were very glad to leave Georgia. They were so afraid up there until they were pitiful.”[13] Some articles report that Sallie moved out of fear, but her daughter recalls that Sallie left for her children’s wellbeing.[14] Furthermore, Mrs. Nixon refused to live in a state that had blatantly disregarded the evidence that had pointed to the Johnson brothers’ guilt in order to maintain white supremacy.
Once settled in their new home, Sallie immediately enrolled her children in school. Sallie refused to let anything get in the way of her children’s education and installed a sense of normalcy in their turbulent lives through education. The fact that Mrs. Nixon enrolled her children in school was remarkable; the South at the time was the most illiterate part of the United States.[15] Sallie was active in their schooling and served as a member on the PTA.[16] Because of Sallie’s influence, five of the six Nixon children graduated from college, and four continued on to obtain advanced degrees in their fields.[17] Acceptance into college was a feat for black students in the Jim Crow era, and black schools were underfunded and significantly inferior to white schools. [18] Both Sallie and Daisy would not accept Nixon’s death as an excuse for their family to break down. Instead, they did the best they could to ensure the future success of their children and family. Their resilience in the face of tragedy gave way to their offspring’s successes.
In 1959, after three white men were successfully charged and sentenced to jail for sexually assaulting three black women, John McCray, editor of the South Carolina Lighthouse and Informer, wrote in an article, “Are we now witnessing the arrival of [black] women? Are they at long last gaining the emancipation they’ve needed?”[19] All of these men were indicted because of the black women who testified against them. Emancipation for black women did not begin in 1959, however. These positive court outcomes were the result of hundreds of black women standing up for themselves and for their family’s rights to be treated as equals to white Americans. The long tradition of black women’s testimony stretched back to slavery in the United States, and only became successful in the mid 20th century. Sallie Nixon was one of the women who testified for justice for her husband but also to obtain a better future for her children. Her courageous acts followed in the legacy of black women refusing to believe that they were inferior while living in a society that dictated them as such. These women are now revered and are one reason why black bodies are equal to those of white today.
Edited by David Beasley
[1] Rudolph A. Alt, “Johnnie Johnson; Jim A. Johnson; Isaiah Nixon- Victim,” (FBI, 1949,) 142.
[2] Dorothy Williams, daughter of Sallie and Isaiah Nixon, remembers that her mother was inside in bed at this time with Isaiah Nixon Jr., which conflicts with many reports of the events; Dorothy Nixon Williams, phone interview with the author, October 2015; Rudolph A. Alt, “Johnnie Johnson; Jim A. Johnson; Isaiah Nixon- Victim,” (FBI, 1949,) 141.
[3] Williams says she remembers both brothers having guns, but most newspaper articles say that Johnnie did not have a gun. After all, Johnnie Johnson was not charged with the actual murder of Isaiah Nixon, but with being an accessory to the murder; Williams, phone interview; Thomas A. Erwin, Jr., “Johnnie Johnson; Thomas Wilkes; Claude Sharp; Jim A. Johnson; Dover V. Carter, Victim; Isaiah Nixon, Victim,” (FBI, 1948,)5;
[4] The FBI files state that Johnnie Johnson held a shotgun on Nixon while Jim Johnson asked Nixon how he voted. Nixon replied, “Guess I voted for Mr. Thompson.”
Foltz, “Johnny Johnson, Jim A. Johnson, Isaiah Nixon, Victim,” (FBI, 1948,) 3.
Rudolph A. Alt, “Johnnie Johnson; Jim A. Johnson; Isaiah Nixon- Victim,” (FBI, 1949,) 141.
[5] Some FBI files say Nixon hesitated here, giving the Johnsons enough time to shoot him, others say Nixon retreated back to the porch; Foltz, “Johnny Johnson, Jim A. Johnson, Isaiah Nixon, Victim,” (FBI, 1948,) 3; Rudolph A. Alt, “Johnnie Johnson; Jim A. Johnson; Isaiah Nixon- Victim,” (FBI, 1949,) 142; Williams said that the Johnson brothers’ idea was to severely beat up Isaiah for voting that morning and bringing other African-Americans to vote, but since Nixon refused, he was killed instead. The FBI files never discuss what the Johnsons would have done to Nixon if he had gotten into the car; Williams in phone interview, October 2015.
[6] Dorothy Nixon Williams in interviews with the Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project, October 2015.
[7] One FBI file reports that Nixon was shot only four times, but a different report states that he was shot twice in the stomach and once in the legs.
Rudolph A. Alt, “Johnnie Johnson; Jim A. Johnson; Isaiah Nixon- Victim,” (FBI, 1949,) 141; Foltz, “Johnny Johnson, Jim A. Johnson, Isaiah Nixon, Victim,” (FBI, 1948,) 3.
[8] Thomas A. Erwin, Jr., “Johnnie Johnson; Thomas Wilkes; Claude Sharp; Jim A. Johnson; Dover V. Carter, Victim; Isaiah Nixon, Victim,” (FBI, 1948,) 5.
[9] “Famous Contralto Aids Nixon Fund,” (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh Courier, 1949,) 1.
[10] Danielle L. McGuire, “‘It Was like All of Us Had Been Raped’: Sexual Violence,
Community Mobilization, and the African American Freedom Struggle,” (Journal of American History, 2004,) 906-931.
[11] Rudolph A. Alt, “Johnnie Johnson; Jim A. Johnson; Isaiah Nixon- Victim,” (FBI, 1949,) 144.
[12] Rudolph A. Alt, “Johnnie Johnson; Jim A. Johnson; Isaiah Nixon- Victim,” (FBI, 1949,) 143.
[13] A. M. Rivera Jr., “Nixon Widow Says Thanks in Letter to Courier Writer,” (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh Courier, 1948,) 4.
[14] Williams claims that Sallie left for the safety and wellbeing of her children, but an FBI report states, “Sallie Nixon and her 6 children moved to Jacksonville, Florida, to live with her relatives as she was afraid to remain in Georgia.” Williams, phone interview. Rudolph A. Alt, “Johnnie Johnson; Jim A. Johnson; Isaiah Nixon- Victim,” (FBI, 1949,) 141.
[15] Jane Dailey, “The Age of Jim Crow: A Norton Casebook in History,” (W. W. Norton & Company, 2008,) xxxvii.
[16] Williams, phone interview.
[17] Williams, phone interview.
[18] Dailey, “The Age of Jim Crow,” xxxvii.
[19] Danielle L. McGuire, “‘It Was like All of Us Had Been Raped’: Sexual Violence, Community Mobilization, and the African American Freedom Struggle,” (Journal of American History, 2004,) 906-931.
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