User:SunTunnels/Death of Milton King
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Milton King (d. March 5, 1951) was a Barbadian seaman who was beaten and killed by Cape Town police in 1951 after he intervened on behalf of customers being harassed by two police officers in a café in District Six. King was arrested and died two days later, likely from a brain hemorrhage that occurred after a severe beating fractured his skull.[1][2] One policeman was charged with culpable homicide [and another...], but the only publicly-known punishment resulting from legal proceedings was a fine of [pounds]10 [inflation].[1]
King's murder, and his killers' light sentences, made international headlines, particularly in the Caribbean and London.[Cite newspapers] According to some historians, the ensuing protests and boycotts constituted the beginning of the international anti-apartheid movement.[3] Four years later, Barbados became one of the first countries to impose international trade sanctions on South Africa.[1]
Context
Milton King was a Barbadian man who worked as a second steward aboard SS Strategist, a ship owned by the Harrison Line.[2][4] In March 1951, the Strategist had been sailing between the United Kingdom and the Union of South Africa when she docked in Cape Town for four days.[5][6]
[note to self — add context about Cape Town, apartheid, and racial segregation here]
Arrest and death
On March 3, 1951, King went ashore in Cape Town, accompanied by fellow West Indian crew members Hilton Browne and Wilfred Browne. According to the Brownes' court testimony, King had one brandy that evening, and the three men then went to a "café for non-Europeans" in District Six (some sources place the café on Dock Road).[2][7] Some time later, two Cape Town police officers in plainclothes attire entered the café: Johannes Stephanus Hoch Visser, aged 20;[2] and a Constable named J. J. Groenewald, age unknown.[7] The Brownes testified that the two policemen kicked a chair out from under a coloured man; when King (at that point sober) intervened, one of the policemen hit him and a scuffle began.[2] Constable Groenewald later testified that Visser had not only kicked the chair of the coloured man, named Adams, and slapped him as well.[7] However, Groenewald's story, which pinned almost all wrongdoing onto Visser, was questioned even by the presiding magistrate during the trial.[8]
According to Constable Groenewald's later testimony, Visser arrested King in the café on a charge of 'using obscene language'. The Brownes were ordered to leave the café and later saw King, sober and walking unassisted, being escorted out of the building by the two policemen. In Groenewald's retelling of the events, the three were walking on Albertus Street when Visser hit King in the head with the side of his arm.[2][7] King fell down, moaning and unable to stand up, and the back of his head had a visible bump. Per Groenewald, "Visser then said he was due to go on leave and I should lock King up on a charge of drunkenness: King's breath smelt of liquor. This was the first mention of drunkenness."[2] Groenewald, Visser, and potentially another constable carried an unconscious King to a police station and charged him as such. Sergeant A. V. Hoffman later testified that he had examined King around that time and found no visible injuries. Hoffman concluded that King was unconscious due to drunkenness, although he did not smell of liquor.[2][7]
The purser for the Strategist, William Rowntree, went to the station that night to bail King out, but found him in the courtyard outside the cells, unconscious with a beaten-up face and a bruised eye. Rowntree refused to post King's bail, later explaining he could not accept the responsibility; Rowntree left the station after a sergeant assured him King would be sent to a hospital.[2] Another constable visited King hourly throughout the night and later reported noticing 'nothing remarkable'.[7]
In the morning, King was still unconscious, but the district surgeon examined him and said he was simply under the influence. Sergeant H. G. Kruger, on duty at the cells that day, tried twice to get the surgeon's permission to send him to the hospital; Kruger was denied both times and eventually did it anyway despite contravening policy.[2][7]
King died within the next few days, most likely on March 5.[2][7] A pathologist for the local government conducted a post-mortem examination of King's body and concluded he died from a brain hemorrhage associated with a broken skull. The pathologist later stated that if King's fractured skull had been properly diagnosed earlier, his odds of survival would have been around 50 percent.[2]
Investigations
In Barbados, the colonial Government first heard of King's death on March 31 and subsequently began its own investigation, focused on bringing the killers to justice and on providing adequate compensation to King's children.[9] The House of Assembly was told by Ernest Deighton Mottley on May 15 that the Governor of Barbados, Alfred Savage, was informed about the incident and was urged to take the matter up with the Secretary of State for the Colonies.[5] On May 22, Hugh Gordon Cummins addressed the House of Assembly on behalf of the Government, saying he was authorized to confirm that an investigation was taking place. However, due to British jurisprudence laws and jurisdiction issues, all the Barbadian Government could really do was call for High Commissioner for Southern Africa to pursue its own investigations thoroughly and justly.[9]
In South Africa, Visser was charged with culpable homicide, and he appeared before the Cape Town Magistrate's Court for a preparatory examination on April 13.[7][8] On July 12, Visser was fined £10 (equivalent to £397 in 2023) for his role in King's death, but was not found guilty, since it could not be proven whether Visser or Groenewald had struck the ultimately-fatal blow.[8] The presiding Magistrate Carnie censured the two policemen[10] and was reported as remarking:
These two men only know who hit King the blow in the street which caused his death. How can I be asked to accept Groenewald's statement that Visser struck the blow when he is a confessed liar? I do not know why they are so stupid and inhuman as to fabricate this story and charge King with drunkenness. [...] I am inclined to believe that Groenewald is the man who struck the blow, but the court cannot rely on the evidence of one or the other constable. [...] I am sure, and have confidence, that you will be brought to task and be dealt with departmentally for your action.
— Magistrate J. T. Carnie[8]
On August 10, the Cape Town Deputy Commissioner of Police, G. P. Britz, announced that a Police Department Board of Inquiry had investigated Visser and Groenewald's actions. Britz said that the men had been punished but that the specifics could not be made public.[10]
Reactions
Responses in South Africa to Milton King's death (and the ensuing legal proceedings) are poorly documented, but opposition politicians did discuss it as an example of apartheid's injustices. In the wake of protests and riots in May 1951 opposing disenfranchisement of Coloured voters,[11] United Party member Harry Lawrence criticized then-Minister of Justice C. R. Swart's force-heavy policing philosophy by citing "the Milton King case, where a policeman practically murdered a Coloured man and then lyingly said he was drunk."[12]
SS Strategist returned to Barbados on June 28, anchoring in Carlisle Bay. Crew members who disembarked that evening wore black ties in honor of their deceased crew mate.[4] King's funeral was held in the following days and was attended by much of the ship's crew, King's wife, and the officiating minister.[6] In an interview with The Barbados Advocate, Hilton Browne, the Strategist cook who had accompanied King ashore, said that many of the West Indian crew aboard the vessel were afraid to even set foot on South African soil after King's death. Browne observed that Cape Town and Durban, the two South African cities where Strategist had docked, were both "filled with race segregation," including hotels that had refused all clients who weren't 'strictly European'.[6]
In late summer 1951, the Barbadian government announced it would be claiming damages on behalf of King's dependents.[10]
References
- ^ a b c Cobley, Alan Gregor (June 1992). "'Far from home': the origins and significance of the Afro‐Caribbean community in South Africa to 1930". Journal of Southern African Studies. 18 (2): 349–370. doi:10.1080/03057079208708318.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l "Policeman Charged in Death of Milton King". The Barbados Advocate. Bridgetown, Barbados. British United Press. June 15, 1951. p. 3.
- ^ Williams, Elizabeth (2015). The politics of race in Britain and South Africa: black British solidarity and the anti-apartheid struggle (New hardback ed.). London: Tauris. pp. 12, 14. ISBN 9781780764207.
- ^ a b "Strategist Arrives". The Barbados Advocate. Bridgetown, Barbados. June 29, 1951. p. 7.
- ^ a b "Inquiry Into Seaman's Death Urged By M.C.P." The Barbados Advocate. Bridgetown, Barbados. May 17, 1951. p. 3.
- ^ a b c "Strategist Crew Feared to go Ashore". The Barbados Advocate. Bridgetown, Barbados. June 30, 1951. p. 5.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i "Constable Charged with Homicide". Rand Daily Mail. Johannesburg, South Africa. South African Press Association. April 14, 1951. p. 10.
- ^ a b c d "Death of B'dos Seaman: Policeman Fined £10". The Barbados Advocate. Bridgetown, Barbados. British United Press. July 25, 1951. p. 1.
- ^ a b "Govt. Investigate Milton King's Death". The Barbados Advocate. Bridgetown, Barbados. May 23, 1951. p. 5.
- ^ a b c "Inquiry into Actions of Policemen". Rand Daily Mail. Johannesburg, South Africa. South African Press Association. August 11, 1951. p. 7.
- ^ "Capetown Colored in Worst Rioting; Disturbance Follows Protest March, Joined by Whites, Over New Election Bill". The New York Times. May 29, 1951. Retrieved 24 July 2024.
- ^ "In the House of Assembly: Strauss Repeats His Challenge for Cape Riots Prosecution". Rand Daily Mail. Johannesburg, South Africa. June 21, 1951. p. 9.