Walter White
NAACP executive secretary who helped bring national attention and organizing power to the Columbia case
Saul Blair
Barber, business owner and community leader who helped protect James Stephenson and defend East Eighth Street
Lynn Bomar
Tennessee Highway Patrol commissioner who directed the patrol’s response in Columbia
Chief J. Walter Griffin
Police chief who led four officers into East Eighth Street on the night of February 25, 1946
Billy Fleming
White Army veteran and Castner Knott employee whose confrontation with the Stephensons became the immediate catalyst for the events of 1946
Z. Alexander Looby
Civil rights attorney who served as chief counsel for the Columbia defendants
Rev. Calvin Lockridge
Minister and community leader who helped move James Stephenson to safety and later became one of the men prosecuted after the uprising
Leon Ransom
Howard University law professor and civil rights attorney who joined the NAACP’s defense of the Columbia defendants
Maurice Weaver
Chattanooga attorney among the first to reach Columbia and helped defend the Black men charged after the uprising
Sheriff J.J. Underwood
Maury County sheriff who tried to calm both sides before calling for state assistance and later taking part in the raid on East Eighth Street
James Morton
Black businessman and community leader who helped protect the Stephensons and became one of the men prosecuted after the uprising
Gladys Stephenson
Mother whose treatment at Castner Knott helped set the events of 1946 in motion
James Stephenson
Young veteran whose arrest prompted Columbia’s Black community to organize against the threat of another lynching
