Woodrow Wilson Daniels

Age 37

A Black father of five who worked as a delivery man

Yalobusha County, Mississippi

June 21, 1958

Woodrow Wilson Daniels, 37, was a Black deliveryman who lived in north Mississippi with his wife and their five children. Late on June 21, 1958, the county sheriff, James Gray “Buster” Treloar, arrested Daniels for alleged reckless driving and possession of intoxicating liquor and took him to the Yalobusha County Jail. Witnesses said they saw the sheriff beat Daniels with a club both at the scene of the arrest and later at the jail, according to a Department of Justice memo about the case.

That night the sheriff called a local doctor, who examined Daniels and gave him a painkiller. The doctor later testified that he witnessed the sheriff kick Daniels during the examination. Daniels was released the next day, his nose bloodied and his face severely swollen. He died a little more than a week later at a hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. A doctor at the hospital said Daniels died of a brain injury and that an autopsy had revealed his skull was fractured and that two areas of his brain had hemorrhaged.

Initial Investigation

Treloar was indicted on manslaughter charges on July 29, 1958, and tried before Judge Curtis M. Swango, the same judge who three years earlier had presided over the Emmett Till murder trial. At the trial, Treloar acknowledged hitting Daniels several times, including slapping him repeatedly, but denied striking him in the head. He said Daniels had walked into a “white” cell, and Treloar was trying to get him back into his own cell.

He also denied kicking Daniels during the medical exam. He speculated the victim’s head injuries had come from an unrelated fall. An all-white jury deliberated less than half an hour before acquitting the sheriff. Groans erupted from the courtroom balcony, where members of the local Black community had watched the four-day trial unfold, according to a newswire article about the verdict. Multiple news agencies also reported that the sheriff then picked up his blackjack and left the courtroom with the weapon in his pocket. As he walked out, he told reporters, “By God, now I can get back to rounding up bootleggers and n—–s.”

Following the trial, The Daily Sentinel Star reported that Treloar would return to duty after a “short vacation” with his family. Meanwhile, Daniels’ widow said she would leave the community “for good,” scared and not knowing how she would support her children or pay for her husband’s medical and funeral expenses.

Till Act Status

The FBI opened a review of the case in 2008. During the investigation, agents found a copy of the sheriff’s death certificate, showing he had died on May 4, 2006, in Memphis. The agents contacted various law enforcement and government officials in Mississippi and Tennessee, according to the DOJ memo.

They discovered, however, that neither the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation nor the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office had any records on the matter, and that the Yalobusha County Circuit Court had purged a large number of its records in 2005. The remaining court records had been stored in boxes, in random order. A county official told the FBI he doubted any of the records were relevant to Daniels’ death and that the contents of each box would need to be inspected in order to find out. The search was deemed “unnecessary,” the DOJ memo said.

The DOJ closed the case in 2010, concluding it could not prosecute the dead sheriff. Even if Treloar was still alive, the relevant statute of limitations had run out, the memo said.

Un(re)solved

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About the Project

This multiplatform investigation draws upon more than two years of reporting, thousands of documents and dozens of first-hand interviews. FRONTLINE spoke to family and friends of the victims, and witnesses, some of whom had never been interviewed; current and former Justice Department officials and FBI agents, state and local law enforcement; lawmakers, civil-rights leaders and investigative journalists, to explore the Department of Justice’s reopening of civil rights-era cold cases under the 2008 Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act.

In addition to an examination of the federal effort, the project features the first comprehensive, interactive list of all those whose cases were reopened by the Department of Justice. Today, the list stands at 151 names. Among the victims: voting rights advocates, veterans, Louisville’s first female prosecutor, business owners, mothers, fathers, and children.

The project consists of a web-based interactive experience, serialized podcast, a touring augmented-reality exhibit, documentary and companion education curriculum for high schools and universities.

A project like Un(re)solved would not be possible without the historic and contemporary contributions of universities, civil rights groups, and the press, particularly the Black press, who have ensured the ongoing public record of racist violence in the United States. To pay homage to these groups, the web interactive begins with a quote from journalist, activist and researcher Ida B. Wells, one of the first to document with precision the horrors of racial terror in America. “The way to right wrongs,” she wrote, “is to turn the light of truth upon them.”

At the outset of the project, FRONTLINE forged a relationship with Northeastern University’s Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project (CRRJ), bringing them on as an academic partner. Launched in 2007 by Distinguished Law Professor Margaret Burnham, CRRJ is a mission-driven program of interdisciplinary teaching, research and policy analysis on race, history, and criminal justice. Their work has expanded beyond the names on the Justice Department’s list, archiving documents in over 1,000 cases of racially motivated homicides.

With support from the CRRJ, FRONTLINE reporters gathered what could be known about the individuals on the list, conducting interviews with family, friends and witnesses, delving into newspaper archives and gathering documentation including headstone applications, draft cards and archival photographs.

At the heart of the project has been a drive to center the voices of the families of those on the list. FRONTLINE partnered with StoryCorps to record nearly two dozen oral histories with victims’ next of kin, which are featured both in the web-based interactive and traveling AR exhibit. These oral histories will also be archived in the National Library of Congress.

To lead the creative vision for the web experience and installation, FRONTLINE partnered with Ado Ato Pictures, a premier mixed reality studio founded by artist, filmmaker, and technologist Tamara Shogaolu.

Shogaolu rooted the visuals in the powerful symbolism of trees. In the United States, trees evoke the ideal of liberty, but also speak to an oppressive history of racially motivated violence. In Persian myth, trees are humanity’s ancestors, while in Toraja, Indonesia, they serve as sacred burial sites.

“I was really inspired by looking at the role of the tree as a symbol in American history” Shogaolu said. “It’s been looked at as a symbol of freedom, we look at it as a connector between generations, and also there’s the association of trees with racial terror.” When designing the creative vision for Un(re)solved Shogaolu wondered whether she might be able to reclaim the symbol of the tree. “As a person of color, we’re often terrified of being in isolated places in the woods. And I thought it was kind of crazy that there are natural environments that instinctually give great fear because of this connection with racial terror and I wanted to reclaim that — to turn these into beautiful spaces.”

Un(re)solved weaves imagery of trees, which also recall family ties, into patterns and textures from the American tradition of quilting. Among enslaved African Americans forbidden to read or write, quilts provided an important space to document family stories. Today, quilting remains a creative outlet rich with story and tradition for many American communities.

We invite you to enter this forest of quilted memories — a testimony to the lives of these individuals, and the multi-generational impact of their untimely, unjust loss.

(Credits to come)