Buried Truths

Four days before Christmas in 1957, Clarence Horatious Pickett, a preacher and newspaper ad salesman in Columbus, Georgia, walked into town to pick up his paycheck. Forty-eight years old and known as “Reverend” to many, the tall, lean man with wire-rimmed glasses left his home and headed toward The Columbus World, a black newspaper where Pickett worked. Pickett, who’d been a boy preacher, was showing signs of mental instability and had spent time in the county jail and the state mental hospital, which was notorious for employing doctors with addictions, poor training and racist beliefs. Before the day was over, Pickett would be arrested, jailed, and beaten senseless by a white police officer. An examining physician would conclude that Pickett was “putting on.” He wasn’t. His injuries would lead to his death two days later. Pickett’s killing would spur police and FBI investigations where a remarkable number of eyewitnesses would come forward to test