Every Day Is Special: September 15 - Leesburg Stockade Girls Released!

September 15 - Leesburg Stockade Girls Released!

Posted on September 15, 2020

Have you ever heard of the Leesburg Stockade Girls?

Or maybe the Stolen Girls?

In Americus, Georgia, in 1963, a group of African American civil rights protesters marched from a church to a movie theater. They were peacefully protesting segregation - protesting the fact that some places of business did not allow black people to enter, buy, eat, etc. In this case, the movie theater did not allow black people to buy tickets and watch a movie.

In 1963! This is not exactly ancient history. Kennedy was president, I was almost nine years old, and the Beatles were about to "invade" America.

Marching along with the rest of the protesters, a group of 15 to 33 African American girls extended their peaceful protest by trying to buy movie tickets.

And they were arrested!

The girls, who ranged in age from 12 to 15 years old, were not kept in juvenile detention, nor even in a jail there in Americus. No, they were hauled off to a different town, more than 26 miles away, and then to yet another town about 18 miles away - that would be Leesburg, Georgia. There they were imprisoned in the Lee County Public Works building, which was called the Leesburg Stockade.

And there they were kept - without charges! - for 45 days.

We are talking 45 days with just one toilet - a toilet that wasn't working!

And 45 days with just concrete floors to sleep on.

We're talking 45 days with the only water source being drips from the shower! And really yuck food.

Days and days of being threatened with murder. At one point, a rattlesnake was thrown into their makeshift prison!

Taking a view at what it was like from the girls' families point of view: 45 days of not being able to help their children! About 30 days of not even knowing where their daughters were being kept (let alone how badly they were being kept!).

Finally, a janitor somehow got the word out of where the arrested-but-not-charged girls were being held - and a Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee photographer crept up to the stockade was able to snap their photo. The photo was published in the SNCC newspaper, and then African American newspapers across the country picked up the story of the unlawful arrests and squalid conditions.

Apparently pressure from outsiders finally caused the Georgia law enforcement officers to release the girls, on this date in 1963. The girls never faced charges for "illegally" trying to buy movie tickets, but the people who did the illegal imprisonment and neglectful mistreatment of innocent children ALSO never faced charges. And, - get this! - the "Leesburg Stockade Girls" were actually charged a fee for "use" of the Stockade facilities!

W.O.W.!