The story of Dixie's most blatant rape case.

Byline: R. Marc Kantrowitz

When her mother died, Recy Taylor was 17. It fell upon her slender shoulders to raise her younger siblings.

Despite her many responsibilities, she married young and gave birth to a daughter. Finding solace at the local segregated church in Abbeville, Alabama, 24-year-old Recy went often. Sept. 3, 1944, proved to be both her undoing and the birth of a movement.

***

After the services ended around midnight, Recy and two friends 18-year-old West Daniel and his 61-year-old mother, Fannie walked down the darkened and seemingly abandoned road lined by farms.

Ominously, a green beat-up car slowly passed and, more ominously, returned. Seven armed white men jumped out, intent on escorting Recy to the dark side of humanity.

Engaging in what for many young, testosterone-driven men was a sick rite of passage and depravity, the seven set upon their fleeing prey and carried Recy away. Despite her screams to let her go home to her husband and baby, six had their way with her.

After the ordeal ended, one of her assailants helped her dress. Shoved into the car, she was blindfolded and driven back to the highway where she was released.

For many of the oppressed black females living in the area, it sadly was yet another instance of brutality and degradation. Knowing that taking any action would not only be useless but humiliating and potentially life-threatening, many suffered in silence, sharing their horror with only a cherished few.

Recy, however, was not like the others. Despite the threats that she had better not tell anyone, she did anyway.

***

The Daniels, who had been with Recy when she was taken, alerted a former police chief. From the description of the car, its owner was quickly identified. Soon, an obviously victimized Recy was found as well as one of her assailants, Hugo Wilson, whom she positively identified along with his car.

Wilson readily admitted "carrying her to the spot" and, along with his friends teenagers and those in their early 20s: Dilliard York, Herbert Lovett, Luther Lee, Joe Culpepper and Robert Gamble acknowledged having intercourse with her. A seventh member of the group whom Wilson also named, Billy Howerton, did not, as it turned out, join in on the rape. Wilson added that they did not use force and that they had paid her.

Sheriff George Gamble heard Wilson's story and released him on a small bond, notwithstanding the Daniels' corroboration of Recy's violent abduction and her physical condition...