Sixty Years Ago: "Man Shot Dead at Restaurant"
The year was 1964.
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After midnight on Thursday, Oct. 29, 1964, four Black men walked into the Krystal restaurant at Main and Market streets.
Just four months earlier, the LBJ-White House signed the Civil Rights Act, outlawing segregation in restaurants.
The waitress - a white woman - asked for their order.
One of the men - Charles Marrow Jr. from Alton Park - answered.
“Hey baby doll," he reportedly said, "how about a cup of coffee?”
Another report said Marrow replied: "Baby, I want ... "
The white waitress objected, telling him not to use that word - "Baby" - at her, then told him to leave the restaurant.
"Get up and get out," she reportedly said.
Marrow refused.
“A quarrel developed,” the Chattanooga Daily Times reported.
She threw a cup of hot coffee in Marrow’s face.
“He was reported to have seized a sugar jar, throwing it at her and striking her in the back,” the Times continued.
Nearby, a white man - 64-year-old retired railroad employee named A. M. Jones - was drinking hot chocolate at the end of the counter. Unable to sleep, he'd taken a drive, eventually stopping at the Krystal restaurant.
He carried a .38 pistol in his coat pocket.
“Police said he left his stool, moved toward the front, where the disturbance was in progress, and pulled out his pistol. One report said he opened fire as Marrow was leaning across the counter or attempting to go across it in the direction [of the waitress],” the Times reported.
Jones shot Marrow in the back.
“The fatally wounded man ran outside, crossed Market Street and collapsed in an alleyway,” the Times stated. A Franklin-Strickland ambulance - presumably the ambulance service was segregated in 1964 - took him to Erlanger Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Charles Marrow Jr. was 22.
Police arrested Jones. Days later, he was arraigned on “murder and pistol-carrying charges,” the Times reported, which, in the same story, described Marrow’s past criminal history: disorderly conduct, assault, battery, public profanity.
The year was 1964.
The year was 2024.
I had picked up a copy of John T. Edge's The Potlikker Papers which calls itself "a food history of the modern South."
Edge's book is a thoughtful, complex look at the ways culture and identity - especially race - and the Southern table aren’t just intertwined, but inseparable.
“Conversations about food have offered paths to grasp bigger truths about race and identity, gender and ethnicity, subjugation and creativity," he writes. "Today, Southern food serves as an American lingua franca. Like the Black Power fist and the magnolia blossom, fried chicken discloses, cornbread suggests, potlikker tells.”
Edge’s 352-page book has three references to Chattanooga, each lasting only one sentence each.
- From his section on moonshine:
- “At Limestone Branch Distillery in Lebanon, Kentucky, brothers Paul Beam and Steve Beam partnered with Chattanooga Baking Company to make official-issue Moon Pie-flavored moonshine.”
- “Krystal, the Chattanooga, Tennessee, hamburger chain, inspired by the success of Hardee’s, contracted her to help them bake better biscuits.”
- “An old white customer at a late-night diner in Chattanooga, Tennessee, shot and killed a young black customer who reached across the counter in a recently desegregated restaurant and supposedly said to a waitress, “Hey baby doll, how about a cup of coffee?”
This is the sentence that stopped me in my tracks.
I'd never heard this story. Not growing up here, not returning here as an adult, not as a journalist.
Never.
Have you?
On Thursday, October 29, 1964, the Chattanooga Daily Times ran the front-page headline:
"Man Shot Dead At Restaurant."
Hours and hours spent at the Chattanooga Public Library uncovered traces of this story, preserved in microfilm from newspaper archives.
Here's what I found.
In November 1964, Jones was indicted on murder charge - with a $2500 bond - and a pistol-carrying charge, with a $50 bond.
On Nov. 30, 1964, he pleaded not guilty to both charges.
On February 18, 1965, Jones stood trial in Judge Tillman Grant's courtroom.
Before him: 12 members of an all-male, all-white jury.
Jones told the jury he "feared Marrow would kill" the waitress, the Chattanooga News-Free Press reported.
He'd come to Krystal unable to sleep. The pistol? He kept it in his coat - not his home - so potential thieves wouldn't steal it. He'd forgotten "to remove the gun when he put on the coat that night."
Hard of hearing, he said, and "too old" to fight Marrow, he feared for the waitress's life and safety. (A second waitress was also working.)
"I fired to keep him from going over the counter and murdering one or both of those girls," he told the courtroom.
A police officer testified that Jones told him that night: "I didn't want to hurt him, but I couldn't let him hurt that lady," the News-Free Press reported.
Four witnesses - all Black men - testified, telling a different version of the shooting. They'd come from a club where they'd "drunk about two beers each," the Times reported.
After they sat down, Marrow said "Baby" while placing his order.
"I don't have to stand here and take this off you," one witness remembered the waitress telling Marrow. "Get up and get out."
Marrow reportedly then cursed her, which made her angry.
"The witness said she threw a cup of hot coffee in his face and knocked him off the counter stool," the News-Free Press reported.
"Marrow then threw several objects at her and started for the door."
"Four Negro witnesses ... said Marrow was shot in the back while trying to escape out the door of the restaurant," the News-Free Press reported.
The bullet "entered Marrow's back near the waist and ranged upward and leftward," the Daily Times reported. Defense attorneys argued Marrow was leaning over the counter, hence the bullet's path.
The jury took needed about an hour to render its verdict.
On February 18, 1965 - exactly 60 years ago this month - the jury declared Jones innocent of the murder charge and guilty in the pistol charge.
The next day, both newspapers ran headlines.
"Man is Acquitted in Negro's Death," the Daily Times reported.
"Man Cleared in Negro's Death," the News-Free Press reported.
The Chattanooga NAACP called it a "miscarriage of justice and a mockery," the Daily Times reported.
"We are concerned over the manner in which the jury panels are selected because so few Negroes are included," chapter president James Mapp.
Current court clerks could find no record nor transcript of the trial other than two indictment records. One shows that Jones was granted a new trial for the pistol charge. In March 1965, he paid a $50 fine.
Story ideas, questions, feedback? Interested in partnering with us? Email: david@foodasaverb.com
This story is 100% human generated; no AI chatbot was used in the creation of this content.
food as a verb thanks our sustaining partner:
food as a verb thanks our story sponsor:
The Robert Finley Stone Foundation
A private foundation in memory of Bobby Stone.
After midnight on Thursday, Oct. 29, 1964, four Black men walked into the Krystal restaurant at Main and Market streets.
Just four months earlier, the LBJ-White House signed the Civil Rights Act, outlawing segregation in restaurants.
The waitress - a white woman - asked for their order.
One of the men - Charles Marrow Jr. from Alton Park - answered.
“Hey baby doll," he reportedly said, "how about a cup of coffee?”
Another report said Marrow replied: "Baby, I want ... "
The white waitress objected, telling him not to use that word - "Baby" - at her, then told him to leave the restaurant.
"Get up and get out," she reportedly said.
Marrow refused.
“A quarrel developed,” the Chattanooga Daily Times reported.
She threw a cup of hot coffee in Marrow’s face.
“He was reported to have seized a sugar jar, throwing it at her and striking her in the back,” the Times continued.
Nearby, a white man - 64-year-old retired railroad employee named A. M. Jones - was drinking hot chocolate at the end of the counter. Unable to sleep, he'd taken a drive, eventually stopping at the Krystal restaurant.
He carried a .38 pistol in his coat pocket.
“Police said he left his stool, moved toward the front, where the disturbance was in progress, and pulled out his pistol. One report said he opened fire as Marrow was leaning across the counter or attempting to go across it in the direction [of the waitress],” the Times reported.
Jones shot Marrow in the back.
“The fatally wounded man ran outside, crossed Market Street and collapsed in an alleyway,” the Times stated. A Franklin-Strickland ambulance - presumably the ambulance service was segregated in 1964 - took him to Erlanger Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Charles Marrow Jr. was 22.
Police arrested Jones. Days later, he was arraigned on “murder and pistol-carrying charges,” the Times reported, which, in the same story, described Marrow’s past criminal history: disorderly conduct, assault, battery, public profanity.
The year was 1964.
The year was 2024.
I had picked up a copy of John T. Edge's The Potlikker Papers which calls itself "a food history of the modern South."
Edge's book is a thoughtful, complex look at the ways culture and identity - especially race - and the Southern table aren’t just intertwined, but inseparable.
“Conversations about food have offered paths to grasp bigger truths about race and identity, gender and ethnicity, subjugation and creativity," he writes. "Today, Southern food serves as an American lingua franca. Like the Black Power fist and the magnolia blossom, fried chicken discloses, cornbread suggests, potlikker tells.”
Edge’s 352-page book has three references to Chattanooga, each lasting only one sentence each.
- From his section on moonshine:
- “At Limestone Branch Distillery in Lebanon, Kentucky, brothers Paul Beam and Steve Beam partnered with Chattanooga Baking Company to make official-issue Moon Pie-flavored moonshine.”
- “Krystal, the Chattanooga, Tennessee, hamburger chain, inspired by the success of Hardee’s, contracted her to help them bake better biscuits.”
- “An old white customer at a late-night diner in Chattanooga, Tennessee, shot and killed a young black customer who reached across the counter in a recently desegregated restaurant and supposedly said to a waitress, “Hey baby doll, how about a cup of coffee?”
This is the sentence that stopped me in my tracks.
I'd never heard this story. Not growing up here, not returning here as an adult, not as a journalist.
Never.
Have you?
On Thursday, October 29, 1964, the Chattanooga Daily Times ran the front-page headline:
"Man Shot Dead At Restaurant."
Hours and hours spent at the Chattanooga Public Library uncovered traces of this story, preserved in microfilm from newspaper archives.
Here's what I found.
In November 1964, Jones was indicted on murder charge - with a $2500 bond - and a pistol-carrying charge, with a $50 bond.
On Nov. 30, 1964, he pleaded not guilty to both charges.
On February 18, 1965, Jones stood trial in Judge Tillman Grant's courtroom.
Before him: 12 members of an all-male, all-white jury.
Jones told the jury he "feared Marrow would kill" the waitress, the Chattanooga News-Free Press reported.
He'd come to Krystal unable to sleep. The pistol? He kept it in his coat - not his home - so potential thieves wouldn't steal it. He'd forgotten "to remove the gun when he put on the coat that night."
Hard of hearing, he said, and "too old" to fight Marrow, he feared for the waitress's life and safety. (A second waitress was also working.)
"I fired to keep him from going over the counter and murdering one or both of those girls," he told the courtroom.
A police officer testified that Jones told him that night: "I didn't want to hurt him, but I couldn't let him hurt that lady," the News-Free Press reported.
Four witnesses - all Black men - testified, telling a different version of the shooting. They'd come from a club where they'd "drunk about two beers each," the Times reported.
After they sat down, Marrow said "Baby" while placing his order.
"I don't have to stand here and take this off you," one witness remembered the waitress telling Marrow. "Get up and get out."
Marrow reportedly then cursed her, which made her angry.
"The witness said she threw a cup of hot coffee in his face and knocked him off the counter stool," the News-Free Press reported.
"Marrow then threw several objects at her and started for the door."
"Four Negro witnesses ... said Marrow was shot in the back while trying to escape out the door of the restaurant," the News-Free Press reported.
The bullet "entered Marrow's back near the waist and ranged upward and leftward," the Daily Times reported. Defense attorneys argued Marrow was leaning over the counter, hence the bullet's path.
The jury took needed about an hour to render its verdict.
On February 18, 1965 - exactly 60 years ago this month - the jury declared Jones innocent of the murder charge and guilty in the pistol charge.
The next day, both newspapers ran headlines.
"Man is Acquitted in Negro's Death," the Daily Times reported.
"Man Cleared in Negro's Death," the News-Free Press reported.
The Chattanooga NAACP called it a "miscarriage of justice and a mockery," the Daily Times reported.
"We are concerned over the manner in which the jury panels are selected because so few Negroes are included," chapter president James Mapp.
Current court clerks could find no record nor transcript of the trial other than two indictment records. One shows that Jones was granted a new trial for the pistol charge. In March 1965, he paid a $50 fine.
Story ideas, questions, feedback? Interested in partnering with us? Email: david@foodasaverb.com
This story is 100% human generated; no AI chatbot was used in the creation of this content.
Food as a verb thanks our story sponsor:
Food as a Verb Thanks our sustaining partner:
A private foundation in memory of Bobby Stone.
