Klansman convicted of ‘64 slayings deserves monkeys and a banana skirt, not jail time

By Toure Muhammad

Reputed Ku Klux Klansman James Ford Seale was sentenced August 24 to three life terms in prison for his role in the 1964 abduction and murder of two Black teenagers in southwest Mississippi.

U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate told James that while the crimes occurred 43 years ago, “justice itself is ageless.” Yes, Your Honor, but justice can sometimes be as late as the runaway bride on her wedding day when it comes to just us.

James should have been judged by 12 and carried by six a long time ago, but I guess us black folks should be mighty happy that justice was finally rendered. He was convicted June 14 on federal charges of kidnapping and conspiracy in the deaths of Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee, two 19-year-old college students who disappeared from Franklin County on May 2, 1964. The decomposing bodies of the young men, mostly just skeletal remains, were found about two months later in the Mississippi River.

During the sentencing, James, now 72-years-old reportedly showed no emotion. I wish the victims’ families could have showed him a good old-fashioned “To Kill a Mockingbird” bullet in that court room. But that would have been an easy way out for James, who does not deserve prison time.

Normally, I don’t advocate for capital punishment because usually it is the people without capital that get the punishment. But in this case, James should be put to death, but not with lethal injection, electricity, or even a firing squad. He should be put to death with 18 monkeys and 72 straight razors.

Imagine the scenario. First, get the aggressive type monkeys with big teeth that hate to be looked at in the eyes. Then don’t feed the monkeys for one month. Heavily tape the straight razors to the monkey’s feet and hands. Make sure the blades are exposed. Tie James to a tree right near the Mississippi River where those two precious teens were found. Finally, strip him butt naked, put him in a ripened Chiquita banana skirt, and spread even more monkey food over his body. Then paint a bunch of eyeballs on his chest, his neck and back and let the monkeys feast. Now that is the video I would love to see uploaded to YouTube.

Finally, take that video, a parrot, and an aggressive, do-not-look-in-the-eyes-big-teeth monkey to every nursing home in “the Confederacy.” Play the video for every old white man while the parrot sits on the monkey’s shoulder repeating the words: “Brawck, the FBI has more than 100 unsolved cases from the civil rights era to crack. Brawck, Polly wants a cracker! Brawck, Polly wants a cracker!”

Meanwhile, the monkey sits quietly picking his teeth with a razor blade.

(Toure Muhammad publishes Bean Soup Times, a satire and entertainment news publication. He can be reached at toure@beansouptimes.com)

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