Chattanooga attorney who was among the first lawyers to reach Columbia and helped defend the Black men charged after the uprising
Maurice Weaver was a white attorney from Chattanooga who worked with the NAACP on civil rights cases. After the raid on East Eighth Street, he was among the first members of the legal team to arrive in Columbia. Weaver attempted to meet with the Black residents being held in the Maury County jail, many of whom had been detained for days without access to counsel or an opportunity to post bond.
Weaver joined Z. Alexander Looby and the other defense attorneys in investigating the arrests, preparing the defendants’ cases and challenging the evidence presented by law enforcement. He later recalled that the attorneys considered taking the case to the U.S. Supreme Court as a test of whether the defendants’ Fourteenth Amendment rights had been violated. He also believed that Highway Patrol Commissioner Lynn Bomar’s testimony weakened the prosecution because Bomar’s conduct on the witness stand made his account less credible to the jury.
After 23 of the 25 defendants were acquitted, Weaver described the verdict as “a victory for Americanism.”
Maurice Weaver
