Location(s): Elmore County, Alabama
Decade: 1940s
On October 25, 1947, 38-year-old Amos Starr was shot and killed by Officer Cecil Orris Thrash in Tallassee. On September 15, 1949, Thrash was indicted in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama in Montgomery. The trial began on November 3, 1949, and resulted in an acquittal.
The collection includes Amos Starr’s death certificate, an autopsy report, a letter from NAACP Alabama Branch President, E.D. Nixon, to Attorney General Tom C. Clark, United States of America v. Cecil Orris Thrash Indictment, and CRRJ student’s essay: “Amos Starr, Police Brutality and Civil Rights Violations in Mid-20th Century Alabama.”