Passion, Purpose & Power

36. Framed For Murder

The embattled Brother [N. W.] Olvin faced new trouble. A Mr. H. B. Aden gave a Vicksburg paper certain distorted and misleading details of a “murder.” The newspaper printed the story as fact. Edson questioned the reporter, who admitted that he had only heard the story from some Negroes whom Edson immediately recognized as Brother Olvin’s bitter enemies. PPP 182.1

The persecution Brother Olvin had first felt when he became an Adventist followed him to his new home, and this newspaper headline was the result: “FIENDISH MURDER, Of a Little Negro Boy by a Negro Man.” PPP 182.2

This story followed: “From Mr. H. B. Aden, who arrived in this city on last night’s 7 o’clock train, the following particulars of some of the most brutal and horrible murders ever committed in this section, are learned: PPP 182.3

“Some months ago a Negro man giving the name of N. W. Oliver [sic] came to the Valley Park section, and located on the Dixie plantation where he taught school. A short time after his coming, he took up with a colored woman who had a child, a boy about five years old. Oliver took a dislike to the child, and on many occasions treated him shamefully. PPP 182.4

“A few days ago, Oliver whipped the child most unmercifully, breaking the flesh in many places. The mother dared not utter a word of complaint, fearing the anger of the brute Oliver. PPP 183.1

“After Oliver had beaten the child until but little life was left, he spread grease over its body and limbs in great profusion and then held it so near a hot stove that the flesh was blistered. The victim of this most unhuman [sic} treatment died while in the hands of Oliver. PPP 183.2

“The latter was arrested, and committed without bail. If the full extent of his crime had been known before he was sent to jail, it is probable he would never have lived to have a trial. PPP 183.3

“A gentleman from that section in the city today states that Oliver’s life is in no wise secure even now.” PPP 183.4

Edson commented that “the spelling of the name of Olvin is about as true and accurate as the rest of the statement.” PPP 183.5

Edson’s only hope of saving Brother Olvin was to set the record straight in the Gospel Herald and to raise money to defend him in court. Olvin never taught school. He simply cultivated a piece of land like all his neighbors. He did not “take up with a colored woman who had a child,” but an orphan boy, wandering homeless, was taken in by his own family and treated as one of their own children. PPP 183.6

The boy had previously been exposed to smallpox, and soon came down with the disease. And although Olvin was living in poverty, he nursed the boy back to health. The boy did need correcting, for he was caught stealing from the neighbors, but the charges of cruelty were completely false. PPP 183.7

After he had been nursed through his attack of smallpox, the boy came down with dysentery. One day he was lying on the porch, five feet above the ground. Brother Olvin was in the house lying down, himself sick with a fever. The boy tried to get up, but was seized with an attack of dizziness, fell off the porch, hit his head on the rim of a washtub, and fractured his skull. He died that night. PPP 183.8

The coroner’s jury included some of the same enemies of Olvin who had invented the murder story. PPP 183.9

It was months before Edson could post the $1,500 bail and release Olvin from Jail. The sick and frightened man stayed on board the Morning Star until his trial. PPP 184.1

Edson advertised in the Gospel Herald to raise money for the “Olvin Defense Fund.” But Olvin’s enemies were taxed through their church to raise a fund to secure his conviction. Any member who would not pay was put out of the church. The difficulty in getting favorable witnesses from such a community is not hard to imagine. PPP 184.2

Olvin’s case finally came to trial. The spurious name given him in the newspaper dispatch seems to have stuck, and court records always refer to him as N. W. Oliver. His judge was named, ironically enough, Patrick Henry. Henry was a former United States Congressman from Mississippi and a member of the state constitutional convention which wrote the laws designed to keep Negroes from voting. PPP 184.3

However, in Olvin’s extreme circumstances, Judge Henry turned out to be his only chance for life. At first he pleaded “not guilty” to the charge of murder. Fifty names were drawn from which to select a jury. PPP 184.4

The records indicate that Brother Olvin dropped his plea from “not guilty” to the murder charge. Perhaps realizing that with no one to witness in his favor, and with a jury stacked against him, he would certainly be convicted of the murder charge. The gallows were built right into the jail where he had been held. The sketchy evidence seems to suggest that he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter to escape death and was sentenced to ten years in the state penitentiary. PPP 184.5

Penitentiary reports follow him through the first four years of his sentence, but no reports were filed with the state governor during the final years of his sentence. What eventually happened to him is not known. But the earnest black man paid a high price for his decision to accept the Bible Sabbath and for his hope in his Lord’s return.—Ronald D. Graybill, Mission to Black America, 1971, pp. 138-141. PPP 184.6