According to Mrs. Russell’s petition, in the early hours of March 24, 1941, the white driver of a segregated, chartered civilian bus described Private King and his friends, who were in the back of the bus, as “screaming and laughing and cutting” and said he had said that they should be quiet or they would be removed.The driver asked for help from Sergeant Lummus, who was patrolling the road on a motorbike.
Sergeant Lummus ordered Private King and his friend Private Lawrence J. Hoover to get off the bus. As they disembarked, Sergeant Lummus hit Private Hoover in the back of the head with a blackjack. Private King fled, while a dozen white soldiers from the bus beat Private Hoover until he was semi-conscious, the petition said. (According to The Washington Post, he served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.)
Sergeant Lummus was the only one who testified to what happened next. The sergeant said he found Private King and ordered him to stop. Sergeant Lummus said the soldier ran over and “kept coming” as the sergeant fired five rounds.
According to the call of Mrs. Russell struck Private King with three gunshots to the side of his head and neck, and one to his lower back and the front of his body.
Fort Benning’s investigation into the murder began and ended on the same day Private King was killed. A military court determined that Sergeant Lummus, who had been transferred to Fort Knox, Ky., was justified in the fatal shooting.
A second, independent investigation by a board of officers determined that Private King had died in the line of duty. However, less than two weeks later, Fort Benning’s commanding general, Major General Lloyd Fredendall, ordered the board to reconsider its findings, and the decision was reversed.
Decades later, researchers from the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project at Northeastern University School of Law explored Private King’s story and published an investigation in The Washington Post.