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By Root 14082 0

’clock found him back in court. The room grew dark and the lights were turned on. The parade of witnesses ceased to be real to Bigger. Five white men came to the stand and said that the handwriting on the kidnap note was his; that it was the same writing which they had found on his “homework papers taken from the files of the school he used to attend.” Another white man said that the fingerprints of Bigger Thomas were found on the door of “Miss Dalton’s room.” Then six doctors said Bessie had been raped. Four colored waitresses from Ernie’s Kitchen Shack pointed him out as the “colored boy who was at the table that night with the white man and the white woman.” And they said he had acted “quiet and sane.” Next came two white women, school teachers, who said that Bigger was “a dull boy, but thoroughly sane.” One witness melted into another. Bigger ceased to care. He stared listlessly. At times he could hear the faint sound of the winter wind blowing outdoors. He was too tired to be glad when the session ended. Before they took him back to his cell, he asked Max,

“How long will it last?”

“I don’t know, Bigger. You’ll have to be brave and hold up.”

“I wish it was over.”

“This is your life, Bigger. You got to fight.”

“I don’t care what they do to me. I wish it was over.”

The next morning they woke him, fed him, and took him back to court. Jan came to the stand and said what he had said at the inquest. Buckley made no attempt to link Jan with the murder of Mary. G.H. and Gus and Jack told of how they used to steal from stores and newsstands, of the fight they had had the morning they planned to rob Blum’s. Doc told of how Bigger had cut the cloth of his pool table and said that Bigger was “mean and bad, but sane.” Sixteen policemen pointed him out as “the man we captured, Bigger Thomas.” They said that a man who could elude the law as skilfully as Bigger had was “sane and responsible.” A man whom Bigger recognized as the manager of the Regal Theatre told how Bigger and boys like him masturbated in the theatre, and of how he had been afraid to speak to them about it, for fear that they might start a fight and cut him. A man from the juvenile court said that Bigger had served three months in a reform school for stealing auto tires.

There was a recess and in the afternoon five doctors said that they thought Bigger was “sane, but sullen and contrary.” Buckley brought forth the knife and purse Bigger had hidden in the garbage pail and informed the Court that the city’s dump had been combed for four days to find them. The brick he had used to strike Bessie with was shown; then came the flashlight, the Communist pamphlets, the gun, the blackened earring, the hatchet blade, the signed confession, the kidnap note, Bessie’s bloody clothes, the stained pillows and quilts, the trunk, and the empty rum bottle which had been found in the snow near a curb. Mary’s bones were brought in and women in the court room began to sob. Then a group of twelve workmen brought in the furnace, piece by piece, from the Dalton basement and mounted it upon a giant wooden platform. People in the room stood to look and the judge ordered them to sit down.

Buckley had a white girl, the size of Mary, crawl inside of the furnace “to prove beyond doubt that it could and did hold and burn the ravished body of innocent Mary Dalton; and to show that the poor girl’s head could not go in and the sadistic Negro cut it off.” Using an iron shovel from the Dalton basement, Buckley showed how the bones had been raked out; explained how Bigger had “craftily crept up the stairs during the excitement and taken flight.” Mopping sweat from his face, Buckley said,

“The State rests, Your Honor!”

“Mr. Max,” the judge said. “You may proceed to call your witnesses.”

“The defense does not contest the evidence introduced here,” Max said. “I therefore waive the right to call witnesses. As I stated before, at the proper time I shall present a plea in Bigger Thomas’ behalf.”

The judge informed Buckley that he could sum up. For an hour Buckley commented upon the testimony of the State