Blood Done Sign My Name: A True Story

Brown vs. Board of Education, The Civil Rights Act, and the Voting Rights Act made no dent in Oxford. No black officials had entered into the local government. Blacks were employed in menial labor only. The public pool had been sold to become a private one, so that blacks never swam where whites did. Violence by blacks against whites was ruthlessly pursued, but not vice versa. The motivation for such action by whites, Tyson shows, was the same fear that has worked for centuries, that black men would have sex with white women. The trouble in Oxford was sparked by an allegation that Henry Marrow, a 23-year-old black veteran, had made a flirtatious remark to a white woman. He was in the store of Robert Teel, probably a member of the Klan. Teel and his son Larry ran down Marrow and shot him in the street as he pled for his life. Mobs the night of the murder firebombed buildings, destroyed stores and "...scared the hell out of most of the white people in Oxford, and some of the black ones, too." The violence was worse when the Teels were declared not guilty. White liberals like Tyson's father had Christian faith that white people would share power rather than having to have it seized from them by black people. He was eventually shifted out of Oxford because of his racial moderation. Tyson clearly admires the stance his father took, but concedes that moderate whites who spoke up and tried to be good examples wound up doing little to really improve racial equality.

Tyson quotes a liberal paper of the time that "discussion is a more promising way to racial accommodation than destruction," but says that there is an uncomfortable, indisputable fact: that in Oxford, whites "... did not even consider altering the racial caste system until rocks began to fly and buildings began to burn." Abolition was not accomplished by simple moral persuasion, nor was integration during the twentieth century. When he returned to the town to do his research for his thesis (including interviewing Robert Teel) he found that the local newspapers covering the period were absent from the newspaper's office, and the microfilms of them were gone from the library. The records of the trial from the courthouse, he was told, had similarly disappeared (but he sneaked into the basement of the courthouse and found them). He eventually delivered his own thesis to the library, which by the time he did so was glad to accept it; but he found later that someone had torn out the pages dealing with Henry Marrow's murder. _Blood Done Sign My Name_ may well be a story that some Americans would rather not hear. This eloquent book is not just a bleak assessment of the times. It is full of love for some very odd family members and friends. Tyson is unsparing about his own slow awareness of racial matters, explaining how he didn't want to drink from a playground fountain after a black boy did, finally taking a drink after letting the water rinse everything out first; "I guess that made me a moderate," he winces. The humane touches of memoir by a masterful storyteller lighten the sad history; the characters are good guys and bad guys still, but drawn realistically: "There is no moral place in this story where anyone can sit down and congratulate themselves," he writes. And finally, "We cannot address the place we find ourselves because we will not acknowledge the road that brought us here." Tyson's book is an eloquent invitation to such acknowledgement.


News Photographer Assigned To Oxford Murder Trial   March 11, 2006
Harold Barker (Dallas, TX USA)
41 out of 43 found this review helpful

I learned about Blood Done Sign My Name in June 2005. I always wondered if anyone had told the story that changed my view of life in just two days.

In August 1970, I was a young photographer on the weekend shift at the Raleigh News and Observer. An assignment came in to meet a reporter in a small town north of Raleigh. No details. Just meet the reporter.

When I got into Oxford, the reporter told me a man would soon be testifying in a murder trial and that he needed a photo of that man. I parked across from the Courthouse. I put a 200 mm lens on my Nikon motor drive and waited. Soon a police vehicle pulled up with a single man in the back. As the man exited the car, I climbed out and got ready to make the picture.

As luck would have it, the man had a newspaper covering his face. He walked a few steps, dropped the paper, and looked straight at me. I took the photo and got out of town.

The next morning, I was ordered to return to Oxford. Big mistake. The photo of the third killer appeared on front page on the local newstands, and this did not go well with the locals. The verdict came and the streets emptied. I took a last photograph as a line of police officers passed me on the street. Moments later they were back surrounding me. One pulled a knife and poked me in the stomach. The older man with the knife started to tell me I was at my end. I don't know what made me say I only made $2.00 an hour. The redneck just looked at me and said I was an idiot to risk my life for $2.00 and I agreed. They let me go.

Shortly afterward, I got to my car and hit the road south. A group of locals followed me in a truck while I was flat out in my Ford Pinto. I laugh these days when I think about that longhair photographer being chased down the highway at full speed. It was straight from Hollywood but it was very real.

I never knew the whole story until I read the book. The paper thought I wanted to file a complaint against the police, but the thought never entered my mind for a moment. To put it bluntly, I had no idea whatsoever how much danger I was in from the moment I set foot in Oxford. And I had no interest in going back to Oxford for any reason.

I put the whole story out of my mind except for the photographs that still hang in my home. Then I read the book. If you want to begin to understand America, you need to read the book carefully. The story is real. The story is about America and a past that cannot be forgotten.

A few days later, the News and Observer fired me for being too aggressive. I've always thought it was a badge of honor to be fired for becoming part of a story. I never worked as a photographer again. But I remember... Read the book...


The making of a man committed to peace and justice   June 23, 2004
Marie GG (Portland, OR)
27 out of 31 found this review helpful

This extremely well-written memoir/nonfiction book about a horrible, racially motivated killing in N. Carolina illustrates the author's coming of age in the American South. As a professor in African-American history, the book is grounded in thorough research and historical context. I was even impressed by bibliography at the end of the book. This man has done his research and documented it well.

Tyson not only writes about the tragic event that changed his life (and the history of his hometown) when he was 10, but he also shares some of the history of the Black Freedom movement and the history of his own family, and the way it has affected him throughout his life.

What I thought was particularly interesting was how the U.S. has sanitized the history of the Civil Rights Movement and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in particular. When he was killed, Ronald Reagan actually had the gall to imply that he brought it on himself because of his lack of respect for law and order, and he accused the anti-war protestors for the assasination!

I was particularly touched by the stories about Tyson's amazing parents and feisty relatives, and others who stood up for justice and compassion. Tyson also writes openly about his angst and struggles to come to grips with his own prejudices.

I will recommend this book to everyone I know--I believe that it's a book that every American needs to read, to better understand the history of race relations in this country and how far we have yet to go.


Freedom is a constant struggle   May 21, 2004
Charles Hughes (Madison, WI USA)
22 out of 25 found this review helpful

In BLOOD DONE SIGN MY NAME, Timothy Tyson details the triumph and the shame inherent in American history, with no quarter given to any assumptions or preconcieved notions. Interweaving his stirring personal narrative with an often disturbing, yet ultimately enriching, examination of the freedom struggle in North Carolina and beyond, Tyson spares no one - not even himself or his family - of his hard and direct analysis. Thus, BLOOD acts as a striking blow against our gauzy reminiscing about the Civil Rights Movement, while simultaneously reminding us of the true value of that movement and the people within it (as well as a reminder that the work isn't nearly done). Tyson's urgent tone is consistent with William Faulkner's assertion that the past "isn't even past," nor was it a series of easily achieved inevitabilities. Funny, brash, unflinching, BLOOD DONE SIGN MY NAME is the best kind of American non-fiction, one which travels on both sides of a road that, to quote an old bluegrass song, is often mighty dark to travel. A secular sermon of the highest order, helping us to better understand ourselves and leading us to fellowship.


Confronting the painful history of race in America   January 2, 2005
Paul Tognetti (Cranston, RI USA)
22 out of 25 found this review helpful

Author Timothy B. Tyson has carved out a rather unique role for himself. Believe it or not, he is a white man from North Carolina teaching Black History in Wisconsin. "Blood Done Sign My Name" is the compelling, personal and brutally honest story of how this all came to be.
Tyson was 10 years old back in 1970 and living with his family in the small rural town of Oxford, N.C. His dad was the Methodist minister and his mom a schoolteacher in town. One day in May, his 10 year old playmate Gerald Teel casually remarked that "Daddy and Roger and 'em shot 'em a nigger." Indeed, his daddy and two of this brothers had brutally shot and killed a 23 year old black man, Henry Marrow, for very dubious reasons. This single event would have profound implications for the little town of Oxford and would play a major role in shaping the life of one Tim Tyson.
"Blood Done Sign My Name" is a remarkable book on many levels. If you are interested in learning more about the arrest and subsequent trial of Robert Teel then you will certainly find it here. It is not a pretty story.
Likewise, if you would like to learn more about the painful history of race relations in this country then this is your book as well. Tyson believes with all his heart that most of us have an extremely distorted and somewhat sugar-coated view of what really went on in this country during the 1960's and 1970's. For example, as a fairly well read white man in his 50's I had never even heard about two incidents that Tyson contends are key to understanding what really happened in those years. When you read about the case of the Wilmington Ten you begin to understand the rage black people felt back in the early 1970's. And when you read the grisly and heartbreaking story of what happened to some slaves who dared to rebel at the Destrehen Plantation in Louisiana way back in 1811, you again begin to appreciate the reasons why blacks in this country feel and react the way they do. The history books that most of us read in school never mention incidents like these. So how are we to know? And if we don't know, how can we possibly understand?
And finally, "Blood Done Sign My Name" is an intimate account of one man's personal struggle with the issue of race. Tim Tyson has presented us with an exceptionally well written book that offers the reader an awful lot to chew on. Highly recommended.