Smotherman described his attacker as a black man who was almost six feet tall, weighed 190 pounds and had a mustache. Early in the morning of July 25, Sidney Smotherman, manager of Quincy’s steakhouse, was shot in another robbery but recovered from his injuries. On July 3, an employee at Captain D’s restaurant died of a gunshot wound to the head in a similar robbery. On February 23, 1985, the assistant manager of a restaurant in Birmingham, Alabama, was shot twice during a robbery and died. The food was bad, his cell stank and he hated the lack of freedom. He turned himself over to the police and served some jail time. He had felt guilt growing inside him for a long time, and he confessed to his mother, who told him she raised him to admit his wrongs. He drove this car for two years until he heard that the police were looking for him. Hitchhiking as a black person was very risky, and he needed to get around. His mother raised him well, although he was by no means an angel. His pride turned to shame in an instant.ĭespite growing up in this atmosphere, Hinton had a largely happy upbringing. That was when it dawned on him they were actually shouting a racial slur. He walked off the court to chants that he thought were “Hin-ton! Hin-ton!” But he was a little confused when he realized that the opposition crowd was chanting the same thing. One time, playing basketball for his school, Hinton scored 30 points in a half – a school record. His mother warned him to run if a car full of white men ever pulled up alongside him. Hinton remembers one time when a church was bombed, and he and the other children had to stay at home. And even in the mid-seventies, you could tell that servers weren’t happy about the new arrangement.ĭespite the end of segregation laws, the 1970s were a decade when the threat of violence was ever present. Growing up as a black man in Alabama in the 1970s meant experiencing constant racism.Īlabama had been a deeply segregated state, so it was only at the beginning of the decade that a black person could go into a diner, sit at a counter and order a burger. Be polite to teachers and follow the rules. Don’t try to talk to any white girls, she said. His mother sat him down and gave him a warning. In the beginning of the 1970s in Alabama, Hinton and his friends prepared to start attending a white school, after segregation had been abolished in the state.
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