Maceo Snipes

Maceo Snipes, 37, a World War II veteran who had fought in New Guinea, was shot in the back on July 18, 1946, one day after becoming the first and only Black resident of Taylor County to vote in that year's Georgia Democratic primary, despite explicit threats from the Ku Klux Klan and a public warning from a former governor that “wise Negroes will stay away from the white folks' ballot boxes.” Four white men, led by Edward Williamson, drove to the farmhouse where Snipes lived with his mother and grandfather and called him outside; Williamson shot him and the men drove away. Snipes died two days later after the hospital treating him said no blood was available for a needed transfusion. A coroner's jury acquitted Williamson on a self-defense claim, despite Snipes's own deathbed statement and his mother's witness testimony contradicting it. Fearing retaliation, the family buried him secretly at night in a grave whose location remains unknown to his surviving relatives, and much of the family fled the county. Snipes's killing, alongside the Moore's Ford lynchings that occurred in Georgia just one week later, prompted a young Morehouse College student, Martin Luther King Jr., to write a public letter condemning the state's racial violence. No one was ever held accountable.

Butler, GA · Taylor County

• 1946: Case opens — victim reported missing or found.
• Documented milestones (renewed investigation, media coverage, family advocacy) to be added as sourced.
• Present: case remains unresolved. No named suspect has been convicted.

• Victim identity, background, and the July 17–20, 1946 timeline, per the DOJ's public case file, PBS FRONTLINE's “Un(re)solved” case summary, and the Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project at Emory University.
• A coroner's jury acquitted Edward Williamson on a self-defense claim on July 29, 1946, despite contradicting deathbed and eyewitness testimony; no one was ever held accountable, per the same sources.

• No one was ever convicted in Snipes's death.
• The exact location of Snipes's grave, buried secretly at night out of fear for the family's safety, remains unknown even to his surviving relatives.

• PBS FRONTLINE Un(re)solved — case summary
• Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project, Emory University — case summary
• Project Cold Case
• Murder Accountability Project
• NamUs