Thirty miles off U.S. Highway one in the small town of Alston, GA, Alexander Rivera, Jr. found himself interviewing the newly widowed Sallie Nixon in a chauffer outfit as a reporter for the Pittsburgh Courier in 1948. Her late husband, Isaiah Nixon, a turpentine worker and a father of six, had been shot three times on their front porch for voting in the Democratic Primary. Even before the interview, Alexander Rivera knew that a small town faced with the murder of a black man would be enraged and torn by the act of racial violence. Living in the Jim Crow South as a traveling reporter for the Pittsburgh Courier, Alexander Rivera was used to the act of concealing his identity to garner crucial information on trials, lynching’s and murders done to African Americans. “Something told me, I don’t know what the something was to go dressed as a chauffeur” Alexander Rivera explained, “It was easier traveling as a chauffeur because everybody figured that you worked with somebody important”. …show more content…
The Democratic primary that would take place in Georgia in 1948 would be the first to be inclusive of African Americans. Demagogues encouraged the practice of slowdown times at polls and intimidation practices in order to systematically disenfranchise blacks . The weeks leading up to the primary was rampant of rallies held by the Ku Klux Klan and intimidation practices that led to the black community fearful of the