The Color Of Night Summary

The book The Color of Night: Race, Railroaders, and Murder in the Wartime West concerns the issues that surround racial bias in the Criminal Justice system, as well as outside it. The book revolves around the particular case of Robert E. Lee Folkes, a young African American railway cook, who was accused, tried, convicted, and eventually executed for the murder of the twenty year old White woman, Martha James on 23 January 1943 (Geier, P. 12). Robert E. Lee Folkes was only twenty when he was accused of the murder. He had dropped out of high school so that he could help his mother pay their bills (Geier, P.9). He was born in "rural Arkansas," but the family moved to Los Angeles in order to escape the racism in Arkansas (Geier, P. 9). In Los …show more content…
Martha James was found "bleeding to death in the aisle of a Pullman sleeping car sometime between 4:00 and 5:00 am," by Black trainman (Geier, P.12). Found standing over her with blood all over his hands was Private Harold Wilson, a White military man, who was also a high school dropout, and had previous run-ins with law enforcement for violent sexual attacks on women (Geier, P.12). The newspapers of course sensationalized the story, and put special emphasis on the fact that Mary James had not been "criminally attacked," meaning she hadn't been sexually assaulted (Geier, P.12). Wilson was questioned by police, but he "deflected attention" by stating that he had seen a ""dark" man fleeing the sleeper car shortly before he saw Martha James lurch into the aisle (Geier, P.12)." After finding and eliminating one other Black suspect, based on the "reliable" eyewitness testimony of White passengers, investigators focused their attention on Robert E. Lee Folkes, and three days after the murder of Martha James, "the Linn County district attorney announced that the Los Angeles Police Department...had arrested Folkes and charged him with murder (Geier, …show more content…
Even the first suspect, Harold Wilson, who had the right demeanor and motive to make him the "most likely suspect," would not identify Folkes as "the man he claimed to have seen fleeing the murder (Geier, P.13)." Unfortunately for Folkes, he was being accused and tried for murder in a State and county that "actively discouraged Black people from taking up residence" and the jury for his trial was made up Entirely of White farmers, with eight women and four men (Geier, P.13). After deliberating for just seventeen hours, the jury found Folkes guilty of murder, and he was sentenced to death (Geier, P.13). Though he and his lawyers repeatedly appealed the conviction, they were also repeatedly denied, and on 5 January 1945, Folkes was executed in the gas chamber in Linn County, Oregon (Geier,