Samuel Younge Jr.

People

Samuel Younge Jr.

Outcome

unknown

On January 3, 1966, Samuel "Sammy" Leamon Younge Jr., a 21-year-old civil rights activist and Navy veteran, was murdered by a white gas station attendant in Tuskegee, Alabama for trying to use a "whites-only" restroom. Younge was a student at Tuskegee Institute and an active member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Tuskegee Institute Advancement League. Earlier that day, he had helped bring 40 Black citizens to the Macon County Courthouse to register to vote, facing threats from registrars including one who pulled a knife on him. That night, around 11:55 p.m., Younge stopped at a Standard Oil station to use the restroom. When 68-year-old attendant Marvin Segrest directed him to the "colored" restroom out back, Younge insisted on using the regular public restroom. Segrest threatened to shoot him. Younge reported Segrest to police, then returned to the gas station to inform Segrest that the police were coming. The two men argued, and Segrest shot at Younge, who hid in a bus. When Younge exited the bus, Segrest shot him in the head, killing him. Younge became the first Black college student to be murdered in the United States for his civil rights activism. He had served in the U.S. Navy for two years, losing a kidney during his service and receiving a medical discharge. The bitter irony that a veteran who had served his country could be murdered for trying to use a public restroom galvanized SNCC. Three days after his death, SNCC became the first civil rights organization to publicly oppose the Vietnam War, declaring that "the murder of Samuel Younge in Tuskegee, Alabama, is no different than the murder of peasants in Vietnam." Marvin Segrest was indicted by a Macon County grand jury, but the trial was moved to Lee County because the judge ruled Segrest could not get a fair trial where Black citizens outnumbered whites 2 to 1. An all-white, all-male jury acquitted Segrest after just 71 minutes of deliberation. The acquittal sparked outraged protests in Tuskegee. SNCC's anti-war statement had profound consequences: the Georgia legislature refused to seat Julian Bond, the newly elected SNCC spokesperson, because he stood by the organization's position. Bond fought for two years before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in his favor. Younge's death helped inspire a rise in Black political participation in Macon County; by 1970, the majority of officeholders in the county were African American. His name is inscribed on the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama.