EDITORIAL: Joanne Little: American Goes on Trial, Freedomways, 1975

Editors, The Black Agenda Review

30 Aug 2023

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To mark the last days of Black August, we reprint below Freedomways’ 1975 editorial about Joanne Little, a Black woman indicted for killing her white prison guard and would-be rapist.

On August 27, 1974, Joan (often spelled and pronounced as “Jo-Anne”) Little, a twenty-two year old Black woman, killed Clarence Alligood, a sixty-two year old white prison guard in North Carolina’s Beaufort County Jail. Little had been incarcerated in Beaufort County for two months while she awaited a court date for a breaking and entering charge. Alligood entered her cell with a pickaxe and attempted to rape her. Little fought back, killed him with the pickaxe, and escaped. She turned herself in to authorities a week later. While she claimed self defense against sexual assault, Little was charged with first degree murder. If convicted, she would be sentenced to death.

Little’s case brought together a broad based coalition of activists working on her behalf. The Free Joan Little Movement, as it was called, found common cause in a range of issues around her trial: from the affirmation of Black women’s bodily autonomy and their right to self-defense, to the issue of the everyday violence faced by incarcerated Black women, to the question of the ethics and morality – not to mention the racism – concerning the application of the death penalty. The participants of the Free Joan Little Movement included, among others, Rosa Parks and Angela Davis, Julian Bond and Maulana Karenga, and Gil Scot-Heron and Bernice Reagan Johnson, whose song, “Joan Little,” became the anthem of the movement.

The editors of the radical journal Freedomways also joined the movement, writing an editorial in Little’s defense. For Freedomways, the case pointed to the “degeneracy” of the US legal system and saw a potential conviction as a victory for patriarchy and whitesupremacy – and another defeat for not only Black women, but for all poor and disenfranchised peoples.

Little was acquitted. Some argued that it was “The first time in the history of the United States where a black woman had killed a white man who was raping her, and was found not guilty.” It was also an example of a successful coalition-based organizing effort around Black women’s bodily autonomy.

In honor of Joan Little, to remember the work of the Free Joan Little Movement, and to mark the last days of Black August, we reprint below Freedomways’ 1975 editorial, “Joanne Little: American Goes on Trial.”

Joanne Little: American Goes on Trial

Freedomways

Freedomways adds its voice to the many who are outraged by the unjust prosecution of 20-year-old Joanne Little who has committed the threefold “crime” of being Black, a woman, and defending herself against rape by a racist jailer.

Joanne Little’s case began August 27, 1974, when county jailer Clarence Alligood entered her cell in the Beauford Country, North Carolina, jail where she was being held as the only woman prisoner. With ice pick in hand, he attempt to rape her. In self defense, she stabbed him with his ice pick and killed him. Shen then fled but turned herself in to the State Bureau of Investigation eight days later when she could be assured of her safety. She is now being tried for her life.

Ms. Little’s case is overtly reminiscent of the days of chattel slavery. One of the brutal realities in the history of this country and in the struggles of the Afro-American people for their liberation has been the denial to the Black woman of the basic right to self-defense against would-be violators and to seek justice in the face of violation.

As court convenes in this issue, it is not Joanne Little who is on trial. As in the case of Dr. Kenneth Edelin of Boston (convicted recently for the “murder” of a fetus during a legal abortion on a consenting Black woman patient) it is the system of American justice, itself, that is once again brought dramatically to trial. Once again, the issues are discrimination against the poor and the nationally-oppressed, contempt for women and continued sanction of a prison system which strips the accused of all human and civil rights and puts them at the mercy of frequently biased and irresponsible officials.

It is, indeed, unfortunate that Clarence Alligood lost his life; but it is even more unfortunate that Clarence Alligood accepted and then abused a post which called for integrity and basic regard for human rights. Seen in this light, the greatest tragedy lies in the racist fixations and fantasies that drove him to his defenseless prisoners cell to commit the act from all of the subsequent tragedies flow.

Jerry Paul, attorney representing Ms. Little, has said: “Clarence Alligood would never have been charged with first-degree murder if Joanne Little had been found stabbed to death in his office. Joanne Little is Black and female and Clarence Alligood was white and male—that’s the political issue.” The conviction of Joanne Little would be a victory for racism and male supremacy. It would make another step down the road towards degeneration for the American legal system. But the logic of organized, mass protest is to insure that Ms Little is not convicted.

We urge all those who have regard for democracy, all who oppose the concept of a “double standard” of justice for the rich and the poor, all who abhor racial prejudice, to join in the demand to halt the murder protection of Joanne Little.

The Editors

“Joanne Little: American Goes on Trial,” Freedomways: A Quarterly Review of the Freedom Movement, Vol. 15 No. 2, 1975

Image: Joan Little (left) and one of her attorneys (Karen Galloway) wait for an elevator July 14, 1975 in the Wake County Courthouse where Little was on trial for the 1974 stabbing death of one of her jailers. Source: Washington Area Spark.

Black Women

Sexual Assault

Joan Little

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