A new play based on the case of Pfc. Booker T. Spicely, originally researched by CRRJ students in 2014, enjoyed a sold-out run in North Carolina this month, marking the 80th anniversary of Spicely’s death.
Changing Same: The Cold-Blooded Murder of Booker T. Spicely explores the WWII veteran’s life and violent death, killed by bus driver Herman Lee Council after refusing to give up his seat on a ride back to Camp Butner near Durham, North Carolina, in 1944.
The one-person show, directed by Joseph Megel, was performed by Mike Wiley to sold-out audiences on November 7-9 at the Swain Hall Black Box Theatre on the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill campus, and on November 14-17 at the Brody Theater in Branson Hall on Duke University’s East Campus.
“It is high time we tell the full story behind the killing of Private Spicely and the community’s collective outrage and reaction to his murder,” said Wiley, in a press release. “Changing Same is a one-man drama told from multiple perspectives in the Summer of 1944. How could we be a country crying out for victory abroad, yet silencing its Black citizens at home?”
The play was commissioned by The Booker T. Spicely Committee, who have, over the past three years, campaigned for justice for Spicely and his decedents. It was funded by Duke Energy, Council’s employer at the time of Spicely’s murder, and co-produced by StreetSigns Center for Literature and Performance and The Kenan Institute for Ethics’ America’s Hallowed Ground Project.
On July 8, 1944, Spicely was shot twice in the chest by Council as he disembarked the bus, following a confrontation between the two men. In 2014, Shaneka Louise Davis ‘14, was participating in CRRJ’s Restorative Justice Clinic when she was assigned to investigate Spicely’s case, and subsequently wrote an essay about the killing.
When James Williams Jr., a retired death penalty defense attorney, discovered Davis’ essay he was moved to launch a committee to advocate for restorative measures in the Spicely matter. “I viewed Pfc. Spicely a martyr whose life was taken not on foreign but on US soil,” said Williams. “He was struck down because he, a Black soldier, stood up for freedom, equality and democracy for all, abroad and at home.”
The committee decided during its initial meeting in 2022 to seek a State Highway Historical Marker in Spicely’s honor. The application was eventually approved and in December 2023 a marker was unveiled in honor of Spicely, the first such marker in North Carolina to use the term “Jim Crow.”
In addition, the committee sought funds from Duke Energy to establish a Booker T. Spicely Scholarship, to organize a symposium about Spicely and the Black military experience, and to commission the play about Spicely.
In 2023, North Carolina Central University Law School officials announced a $100,000 grant from the Duke Energy Foundation to create the Booker T. Spicely Endowed Scholarship Fund, and a public school lesson plan incorporating Spicely’s case was released, to be taught to students in North Carolina public schools.
Spicely’s case can be researched in CRRJ’s digital archive.
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