Notes

WILLIE EDWARDS JR., a truck driver, was on his way to work when he was stopped by four Klansman. The men thought Edwards was another man who they believed was dating a white woman. They forced Edwards at gunpoint to jump off a bridge into the Alabama River. Edwards' body was found three months later.

Years later in a dramatic confession to authorities a Klansman described a murder which had taken place in the aftermath of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Since the bombings had left no victims, some of the Klansman wanted to kill a black man. They pick a black truck driver, whom they suspected dating a white woman. Instead they killed Willie Edwards Jr, by mistake.

On January 23, Edwards came home tired from his job as a truck driver for Winn Dixie supermarkets. Less than an hour after he came home, a supervisor telephoned and asked him to returned to work. Another driver had called in sick and Edwards was needed to drive his route.

The night Edwards was called in to substitute for his co-worker, a carload of Klansman were waiting near the Montgomery County line waiting for a black driver in a Winn Dixie truck who they heard was dating a white woman. When Edwards appeared, they stopped him, and ordered him to get into their car. Not knowing their victim by sight, the Klansman assumed that Edwards was the driver who called in sick.

They drove Edwards through the countryside for most of the night, harassing him until he was nearly paralyzed with fear.

Then they took Edwards to the Tyler Goodwin Bridge in Montgomery County. They pulled a gun on him. Edwards begged for his life. they ordered him to "jump". Edwards saw his only chance for survival in the dark waters of the Alabama River below him, so he jumped. A fisherman found the decomposed body three months later floating in the river.

Willie Edwards had never been involved in any civil rights demonstrations or involved in the movement in any way, He was a devoted family man, and spent all his time supporting them. It was a case of mistaken identity, and being in the wrong place at the wrong time.