Gang-raped by six white men who never faced justice, woman who inspired Oprah’s ‘presidential’ awards speech
HARROWING STORY OF MUM ASSAULTED BY RACISTS
Ayoung black woman gang-raped by six white men in the segregated Deep South of the 1940s, Recy Taylor showed true courage when she demanded justice.
But sadly that bravery was only to be silenced by bigoted authorities, and her attackers went free, cleared twice by all-white, all-male juries.
The feelings of invisibility and shame she was left with dogged the remainder of her 97 years of life and when she died last month, few knew her name. On Sunday, that finally changed. The recognition may be 70 years too late, but she became a household name overnight at the Golden Globes – thanks to one of the world’s most powerful stars.
As Oprah Winfrey became the first black woman to accept the Cecil B DeMille lifetime achievement award, she said: “Recy Taylor: a name I know and I think you should know too.”
Oprah told Recy’s harrowing story as she addressed racial injustice and sexual abuse on an night in which women wore black at the film and TV awards to show support for the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements against sexual assault.
Her powerful rallying cry received a standing ovation from the audience and moved many to tears after she told young girls who might be listening at home: “A new day is on the horizon.”
The rousing words fuelled speculation the talk show host and philanthropist could run for president in 2020 – and ensured a once invisible lady was given a global audience of millions.
“Recy Taylor died 10 days ago – just shy of her 98th birthday,” Oprah said. “She lived, as we all have lived, too many years in a culture broken by brutally powerful men. For too long, women have not been heard or believed if they dared to speak their truth to the power of those men. But their time is up.”
Recy’s great-grandaughter Aisha Walker, who was raised by her, says she is overwhelmed with pride that Recy’s strength is now being recognised.
She wouldn’t believe it if she was here,” Aisha, 39, says, smiling. “Recy would have gained such comfort from knowing she may be an inspiration for other women to speak out.
“She always told me to speak out if anything happened to me, and she would say the same to all women – she always said that, even though she never got justice for doing so herself.”
Aisha adds: “She just wanted people to know the truth. She lived her whole life wanting people to know that.”
Recy was walking home with a friend from church in Abbeville, Alabama, in 1944 when seven youths got out of a Chevrolet with knives and guns. Recy, then 24, was driven to woods where she was raped by all but one of the thugs – a 14-yearold who knew her.
Her father heard of the kidnap and called the country sheriff. In a Deep South governed by Jim Crow’s segregation laws, attacks against black women were not infrequent. Experts estimate thousands of unreported rapes took place from the 1940s to the 1960s. Few women spoke out – for reasons she discovered. By the time Recy got home, she could identify one of her assailants, who lived roads away, and
ng was hauled in. But they said the as consensual for cash and were d home. The next day, white vigiset fire to the family’s porch. y, her husband, and three-year-old hter, Joyce, moved in with her and siblings. Her dad kept watch ee outside with a gun. uty sheriff Lewey Corbitt shared aiden name. His ancestors had d hers as slaves. and his team, however, were to do o bring her rapists to justice. National Association for the cement of Colored People became ed and sent a young investigator name of Rosa Parks to Recy’s aid. a would go on to refuse to give up s seat to a white passenger in 1955 of the defining moments of the ghts movement. Although the case she was sent to probe did make it to court, this was nothing but a gesture.
When the grand jury met, Recy’s relatives were the only witnesses. None of her attackers had been arrested. The jury convicted no one.
A storm ensued, led by campaigners, and another jury was called. Even though one of the men did finally back Recy’s story, the jury refused to convict.
Aisha says: “Recy told me she’d been offered $100 dollars for each man to forget about it, to drop it. She always said she couldn’t leave it. She never took the money.”
Her attackers, now all believed dead, carried on with their lives but she and her family always lived with the trauma. Mr Corbitt told her to leave town. “I don’t want any troublemakers here,” he said. “If you don’t go, I’ll lock you up.” She moved to Florida, worked as an orange picker and later separated from her husband.
Her attack had been so violent, she was left unable to have more children.
She lost her daughter in a car accident, but raised great-grandaughter Aisha, who recalls the trauma that persisted. “She would be upset with me if I was out late walking. She always had a nervousness, and she was anxious, things would wake her up, make her worry,” Aisha explains.
It took until 2008 for Recy’s story to begin to surface again, when historian and author Danielle McGuire uncovered paperwork proving the authorities’ wrongdoing in the case.
Danielle contacted the family, and it was only then Aisha found out the truth. Most upsetting to hear was the shame Recy still felt. “She told me she had felt ashamed no one believed her. She was a Christian woman, but they said she had done it for money, that she’d been drinking,” says Aisha, of Tampa, Florida.
Thanks to Danielle’s research, and a campaign led by Recy’s brother Robert Corbitt, she was offered a formal apology by the Alabama Legislature in 2011. But Recy never got her justice. Speaking then, she said: “The people who done this to me... they can’t do no apologising. Most of them is gone.”
In the end her strength prevailed. “She never treated anyone any different,” Aisha says. “Regardless of race or colour, she welcomed people. She loved people.”
She says it was a comfort at the end that her story was on people’s lips again.
Oprah concluded: “I just hope that Recy Taylor died knowing that her truth, like the truth of so many other women who were tormented in those years, and even now tormented, goes marching on.”
The girls she will inspire to speak out prove her bravery was not in vain.
At The Dark End Of The Street – Black Women, Rape, and Resistance by Danielle L McGuire, includes Recy’s story.
She lived in a culture broken by brutally powerful men OPRAH WINFREY HER GOLDEN GLOBES TRIBUTE