Lives less ordinary | 6 September 2018

To have been a black lawyer in the deep south of America in the early 1960s would have taken a level of courage well beyond the ordinary. Chevene Bowers King was just such a man. He could have worked in the desegregated north, but instead chose to risk his life in Georgia, defending black people imprisoned on trumped-up charges and organising non-violent demonstrations to end segregation. David Morley’s two-part play on Radio 4, The Trials of CB King, took us through the blatant racism, the everyday brutality and dangerous reality for the black citizens of Albany, Georgia, where the sheriff encouraged the police to beat up the innocent purely because of the colour of their skin. Those who dared to befriend black people or fight their cause could also end up literally under fire. King’s black sister-in-law loses her unborn child after being beaten in the stomach by the police for daring to visit young demonstrators who were being held without charge in the county jail.