The Story of Art and Woodrow Allen Bush
"OUR REAL Black Panther"

By Wilkie S. Frieson
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​The Story of Art and Woodrow Allen Bush: A Southern Stand for Dignity


In the sweltering summer of 1936, amid a wave of racial violence sweeping through Calhoun County, Alabama, a Black man named Art Bush made a stand that shook the conscience of the South.
He wasn’t a politician or a preacher.
He was a sharecropper. A husband. A father.
But when a white mob came to his doorstep—armed, angry, and determined—Art chose to protect his family with everything he had.
Gunfire erupted in the night. A posse retreated in chaos. And when the dust settled, a white man lay dying, and the Alabama National Guard was called in.
Art Bush was hunted, captured, jailed—and then, against all odds, acquitted by an all-white jury.
But the story didn’t end there.
Just weeks later, Woodrow Allen Bush—a soft-spoken young man with a disability and a heart full of trust—was lured out by one of the mobster’s brothers and executed at the very spot where the violence began.
Their story, once buried under decades of silence, now rises from the soil of Anniston to claim its place in history.

This is not just a tale of tragedy.

​It’s a testament to strength, faith, and the unbreakable will to live free.
PUT YOUR SEATBELT ON AND GET READY TO RIDE!!
References
In the space below is the main resource we used to conduct our research of the Art & Woodrow Bush Incident.  However, there are numerous additional resources with an abundance of information about this well-researched subject.   To read the detailed documentary below, please feel free to click on the .pdf file.  It will open and present the 18-page research conducted by Munroe Graham, Northeastern University School of Law 2019
Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Clinic, August 2017.
woodrow_allen_bush_racial_tension_in_alabama_in_1936.pdf
File Size: 148 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File
Pictured in the area below is the certified death certificate for Woodrow Allen Bush, which provides the facts of his death, the condition of his body, and the manner of death.
Certified Death Certificate of Woodrow Allen BushPicture
Certified Death Certificate of Woodrow Allen Bush
The area below displays the more than 30 newspaper articles and clippings from various publications across the country, that reported on the racial tensions that led up to the Art and Woodrow Bush stories.   Feel free to pull them up and read them.     While we cannot and would not attempt to confirm the validity or journalistic integrity of these publications and/or write-ups we can ONLY trust the truthfulness, veracity, and integrity of the information presented in them.  If nothing else, they at least provide verification of the fact that the incident did— in fact — occur and we are able to see it for the travesty that it was.   

Underneath the gallery of newspaper articles is a chronological listing of these articles.
PLEASE NOTE:   These articles in the gallery below MAY NOT necessarily appear in the same order as the list that follows.  If we find that information to be confusing, efforts will be made to re-arrange the material to make it match the order of their appearance.  
News Clippings Used To Document Our Video Production
​1934 Jul 12  [The Gadsden Times P1] Front Page News Story 
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1936 Jul 6  [The Anniston Star p1]  Girl Improves At Garner From Attack Hurts (Officers Continue Investigation Of Friday Night Beating; Hunt Negro)
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1936 Jul 12 [The Tennesseean, Nashville TN p8] White Man Jailed For Killing Negro In Racial Conflict
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1936 Jul 14 [The Anniston Starp 1]  Negros Gun, Trousers Are Found In House Posse Hunts In Rain, Sun For Small Negro
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1936 Jul 15 [THE ANNISTON STAR P 1] State Guards Still Patrol City Streets
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1936 Jul 15 [The Anniston Star p1]  State Guards Still Patrol City Streets
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1936 Jul 16  THE ANNISTON STAR Pg 1 County Quiets After Negros Tale Of Guilt
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1936 Jul 17 [The Anniston Star p1]  Cotton's Force is Working Up Assault Case
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1936 Jul 20 [The Anniston Star p1]  Mrs. Joel Hill Gives Account Of Criminal Attack To Grand Jury
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1936 Jul 21 [The Anniston Star Pg1] Negro Indicted in Attack Upon Mrs. Joel Hill
1936 Jul 21 [The Anniston Star p1] Negro Indicted in Attack Upon Mrs Joel Hill
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1936 Jul 21 [The Anniston Star Pg4] Letter To The Editor
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1936 7 25 [Ledger-Enquirer] Negro Is Killed Near Anniston, AL Ozie Hicks Jailed In Connection With Slaying Of Woodrow Bush
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1936 Jul 31 [The Anniston Star p1] Graves Sends Militia Back Into Calhoun
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1936 Aug 3 [The Anniston Star p1] Officers Take  .44 Pistol From Mam In Court
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1936 Aug 4 [THE ANNISTON STAR] Vol. 54-No. 280 Page 1
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1936 Aug 11 [The Anniston Star p7] Continued from page 1  Negro Prowler, Farmer Hunted After Battle 
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1936 Aug 23  [AL Dept Vital Statistics] 21-Year-Old Woodrow Allen Bush Death Certificate
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1936 Aug  24 [The Anniston Star] Hicks Admits Killing Negro At Bush Home
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1936 Aug 24 [The Daily Capital News, Jefferson City, MO p2]  Negro Who Accosted White Girls Slain
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1936 Aug 24 [The Greenwood Commonwealth, Greenwood, MS p8]  Race Trouble At Anniston Flares Again 
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1936 Aug 24 Fri [The Monroe News-Star, Monroe, LA]  Negro Is Killed In Attack Case
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1925 Aug 25 [Richmond TimesDispatch] Negro is Killed In Racial Trouble
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1936 Aug 25 [THE TOWN TALK, ALEXANDRIA, LA p7] Negro Youth Dead White Man Is Jailed
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1936 Aug 25 [The Baltimore Sun p12]  Killing Is Aftermath To Racial Conflict 
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1936 Aug 25 [The Tennesseean, Nashville, TN p8]  White Man Jailed For Killing Negro In Racial Conflict
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1936 Aug 25 [The Montgomery Advertiser] Negro Dead in Anniston Affray
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1936 Aug 26 [The Tennessean] White Man Jailed For Killing Negro In Racial Conflict
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1936 Aug 27 [The_ProgressiveAge] Son Of Accused Negro Is Slain
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1936 Sep 3  [The Black Dispatch]  White Mobbist Jailed when admission is made of brutal murder of sharecropper
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1936 Sep 5 [The Pittsburgh Courier pA8] Two Killed Following Woman's Wild Alarm
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1936 Sept 5 [News Journal and Courier p16] (Post Quest Historical Newspapers North) Mob Member Says He Killed Negro
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1936 Sep 5 [The Pittsburgh Courier Pg7] Another Anniston Killing Bared As Slain Mobbers Brother Admits Slaying Aide In Hunt
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1936 Sep 5 [The Pittsburgh Courier Pg7] Another Anniston Killing Bared As Slain Mobbers Brother Admits Slaying Aide In Hunt
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 1936 Sep 7 [Atlanta Daily World., City Edition, Page 2, Image 2]  More Trouble In Anniston Brewing
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1936 Sep 10 [The Cleburne News]  Hicks is Bound Over To Grand Jury Without Bond  Man Says He Shot Negro Fearing Ambush At Scene Of First Slaying Anniston, Ala.
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1936 Sep 20  [The Anniston Star p1] New Grand Jury Will Prrobe Two Slayings Here  (Judge Lamar Field To Organize Jury Monday to Investigate Crime)
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