FBI Investigated Ga. Gov in Old Lynching

Coroner W.T Brown places a sheet over the body of one of four African American mob victims in a funeral home at Monroe, Ga., in a July 26, 1946 file photo. Newly released files from the lynching of two black couples more than 60 years ago contain a disturbing revelation: The FBI investigated suspicions that a three-term governor of Georgia sanctioned the murders to sway rural white voters during a tough election campaign. (AP Photo, File) (Associated Press)

In fact, Talmadge's challenger, James V. Carmichael, actually received the most popular votes but lost the election because of Talmadge's strong support in rural areas.

Today, Talmage is remembered with a statue on the grounds of the Capitol. His name is also on the steel bridge spanning Savannah's harbor.

"I don't think my grandfather's involved in any lynching," said Herman Talmadge Jr., who said he was 4 at the time. "If y'all are that far off, I feel sorry for you."

The investigation of Talmadge began in the months before his death in December 1946 and it appears he was never interviewed. The allegation of his possible involvement was not included in the FBI's official report, but was sent to Hoover in a letter "as it may be of some possible future interest."

The lynchings of Roger and Dorothy Malcom, and George and Mae Murray Dorsey on July 25, 1946, came eight days after the election and followed weeks of simmering tensions.

There were rumors that George Dorsey, an Army veteran, had secretly been dating a white woman _ a taboo in the segregated South. And the town's white establishment was enraged with Roger Malcom, who was imprisoned after stabbing white farmer Barney Hester.

Malcom was waiting in jail when white farmer Loy Harrison paid $600 to bail him out.

Harrison said he was driving Malcom, his wife and the other couple home, when he was ambushed by a white mob that surrounded his car near the Moore's Ford Bridge. As many as 30 people converged on the vehicle and pulled out the two couples, dragged them down a nearby trail and tied them to trees.

Then the mob fired three volleys of bullets at the couples, leaving their dead bodies slumped behind in the dirt. One of the victims, Dorothy Malcom, was seven months' pregnant.

An outraged President Truman dispatched FBI agents to Monroe, about 45 miles east of Atlanta. But the local community _ both white and black _ clammed up.

White farmers were described by the FBI as "extremely clannish, not well educated and highly sensitive to 'outside' criticism." Harrison, for one, told police he couldn't identify any of the participants.

Black families, who often sharecropped on white farms, were "frightened and even terrified" when approached by FBI agents. One farmer fled into a cotton field and had to be chased down, eventually telling an investigator he had been warned not to talk.