By Rita McInerney

On Tuesday afternoon, July 22, four men were released from prison after serving 50 days of a one year term for interfering with a train’s right of way. The lone woman convicted at the same time was not released until two days later.

Rev. A.B. Short, Joe Cohen and Mark Reeve, of Decatur; Joe White, of Americus, and Elizabeth Cheatham, of Morganton, in north Georgia, were on the tracks during a prayer protest of a train carrying nuclear missiles from the Pantex plant in Amarillo, Tex., to a submarine base near Charleston, S.C., when they were arrested in Montezuma, Ga., on Feb. 21. On May 22, a Macon County jury found them guilty of unlawfully standing on the Seaboard Coast Line tracks. Their trial lasted two days. At no time during the trial were the five permitted to argue of the peril posed by nuclear arms.

Macon County Superior Court Judge W. Colbert Hawkins sentenced them to one year in jail or 60 days in jail and a $1,000 fine. Then on July 22, in an action which took the five by surprise, he modified the action to the time already served and dropped the fine. The Montezuma Five would be on probation for the remainder of their sentences.

In his order Judge Hawkins stated: “This court wishes to state most emphatically that it does not condone the conduct of these defendants. Their action, although perhaps considered symbolic and resulting from a sincere belief in a cause, is nevertheless detrimental to the welfare of the United States and especially to national defense and its preparation. The transportation of weapons for national defense and its preparation is of such paramount importance that it transcends the rights of any group, organization or individual to interfere.”

“The action of the defendants could very well encourage others to act to suppress the movement of military vehicles and munitions. Likewise, the defendants themselves could suffer serious injury in attempting to interfere with the movement of military vehicles, ships, or aircraft. For these and other reasons these offenses were not considered minor or trivial but are on the contrary quite serious.”

“This order has not been entered or influenced by the irresponsible and uninformed raving of a small segment of the news media but solely out of consideration for the defendants themselves.”

Reeve said there had been newspaper, radio and television coverage of the arrest, trial and imprisonment in Albany and Columbus as well as in Atlanta and Macon.

Supporters had been directing their letters protesting the sentence and urging the release of the prisoners to the State Pardons and Parole Board. Deputy director Silas Moore told the Georgia Bulletin that the volume and been “exceptionally heavy” and letters were still coming in.

The lawyer for the five, Robert McClassen, of Atlanta, had telephoned Moore about a month ago asking for “exceptional action” in their behalf. Moore said the board was preparing to respond when the judge’s action made the request a moot issue.

Ms. Cheatham spent eight days in the women’s wing at Sumter before being transferred to the Georgia Women’s Correctional Institution at Hardwick near Milledgeville. The four men were kept in a holding cell at the Sumter County Correctional Institution for 13 days. Holding cells are where prisoners are housed while awaiting transfer to the diagnostic and classification center in Jackson.

“We would not accept them,” said Fred Steeple, chief of media relations for the state Bureau of Corrections, about the four men. He said that the state does not accept prisoners sentenced to 12 months for a misdemeanor into the state system. Had the sentence been more than 12 months they would have been classified as state prisoners.

The cell where they were confined with 11 other men was 18 by 20 feet, had one ceiling fan, and boarded up windows. In addition to their bunks there were three chais, so they had to eat their meals standing up according to Cohen. Since their stay in the holding cell, Short has learned the prisoners are being taken out of the room for meals.

During those 13 days in the cell they had one two-hour combined exercise and visiting period.

Sumter County Correctional Institution was built in the Depression era as a Conservation Corps camp. There were about 140 inmates during the time Cohen and Reeve were there. On Monday, July 21, they were unexpectedly transferred to the Floyd County Correctional Institution near Rome. They were driven there by Warden James “Billie” McClung and two deputies, making a stop enroute to pick up two bloodhound puppies.

During the seven-hour ride Reeve asked McClung who had ordered the transfer? McClung replied that he had and when Reeve asked him why the warden said because Sumter C.I. was “kind of crowded” and he thought it would be better for his institution if they were not around according to Reeve.

Both Cohen and Reeve were assigned outside work details at Sumter. Cohen chopped bushes, cleared brush and cleaned up around dumpsters. Reeve did general labor, fixing roads and bridges, building fences. They worked under guard eight hours a day.

“We got used to the labor,” Cohen said. “I have problems with allergies and asthma. I asked for a transfer because of the dust and pollen but never got it. I saw the prison doctor and he said I couldn’t request a change unless I had pneumonia or bronchitis. ‘You need to go up to the Mariott Marquis’ he told me.” Cohen said he got the impression the doctor thought he was trying to get out of work. This wasn’t the case, he said.

Cohen said he had trouble breathing because of his assigned work and asked for a mask. He never got one. He also had a lot of trouble sleeping at night. He was assigned to the state dorm that slept 80 men in bunk beds. There was one television set. Reeve was in the county dorm with 28 men. The third or kitchen dorm held 24 men.

“Joe was a much better prisoner than I was,” Reeve said. “He made a lot of friends.” The two would see each other at breakfast and dinner. After dinner there was a two-hour period when they could stay in the dining room and write letters or read their Bibles. Reeve, administrator at Clergy and Laity Concerned in metro Atlanta, was faithful in making daily entries in his prison journal.

Short said he and White were transferred to Stewart County Correctional Institution in Lumpkin handcuffed and chained around the wrists, waist and ankles. As the group entered the facility he noticed the deputy guarding them had his hand on his open gun cover. “It was silly stuff,” he commented “They knew us. But it was kind of frightening.”

At Stewart, which houses only 35 men, Short found the atmosphere more humane. The prisoners had access to Warden Jimmie Babb, none of the guards carried guns and they even “knew our names.” They were well fed, even to the point of being asked how they wanted their breakfast eggs cooked. At Sumter C.I., by contrast, Cohen and Reeve said, the warden, who has a restaurant in Americus, was hardly ever around. His deputies, they added, were arrogant and harsh and “let you know who was in charge.”

Short was assigned as a janitor in the Stewart County courthouse in Lumpkin. He was never under guard in contrast to Cohen and Reeve who were guarded while on work detail. Before Short left the courthouse the afternoon Judge Hawkins issued his order cutting their sentences, women workers there gave him a surprise farewell party and a gift of $85 collected among them.

Short, an ordained Baptist minister, runs the Community of Hospitality in Decatur with his wife, Ann Connor. For him the stint of courthouse janitor was “a continuation of our witness. I had the opportunity to talk about why I was there.” One woman told him “You’ve taught us something. That a nuclear train exists and comes through our town.”

Ms. Cheatham said she was “treated normally, that is not good treatment,” at Hardwick. “It’s a very evil place.” There is maximum security for everyone in the overcrowded woman’s facility. Prisoners include two women on death row and 17-year-olds, “very injured children, hurt by society,” she said. “Some of the women didn’t belong there any more than I did.”

She was assigned as a teacher’s aide in the remedial class, an assignment where she felt she was able to “give something of value” to “children” imprisoned for crimes not “heavy duty.”

Support for her from the outside was wonderful, she said. One day she received 29 pieces of mail and felt “humiliated” by her good fortune while most of the others received no letters.

While the four men were released Tuesday afternoon, July 22, Ms. Cheatham remained in jail waiting for the certified copy of the judge’s order to reach the Hardwick authorities. When the mail on Thursday morning did not bring the waited copy, a chain effort was made by her friends. Joe White went to the courthouse in Oglethorpe, Macon County, and obtained another certified copy, took it to Perry, Ga., where Joe Cohen’s brother Dennis, received it and brought it to the Community of Hospitality in Decatur where waiting friends carried it to the Department of Corrections offices in the Capitol complex. From there it was teletyped to Hardwick. Ms. Cheatham was free at last, two long days after the others.

While at Sumter, Cohen, who attends Sts. Peter and Paul Church in Decatur, said he saw Father Stephen M. Walsh, O.F.M. just once, on June 14. When the priest tried to bring the Eucharist to Cohen and Joe White on another Sunday morning he was told by the sergeant on duty that he couldn’t see them.

Father Walsh, who served as a chaplain in Huntsville, Tex., for four months a few summers back, and has also served as a prison chaplain in Colorado, said Sumter C.I. was the only place this has happened to him. In Huntsville, with death row prisoners among the inmates, there was “no problem” in seeing the men any time, day or night, he said.

Father Walsh said he has been conducting a “running battle” over prison visitation with the warden, the chairman of the county commissioners, Wade Halstead, and Judge W.F. Blanks of Sumter County Court. He said he doesn’t intend to stop trying to have access to any prisoners who might ask to see him. “They’re in my parish,” said the pastor of St. Mary’s Church in Americus.

McGlassen said that he and a member of Sumter County Legal Services hope to meet with Warden McClung and his deputies about the problems that exist at Sumter C.I. “We are not interested in creating a hostile atmosphere.” One issue, he said, will be ministerial visits.

Other conditions Cohen and Reeve had detailed for him include the food and unsanitary conditions in the kitchen were dishes and utensils are washed by hand. Another is the fact that the isolation cell is also used as sick bay. One ailing prisoner, they reported, was confined for 26 days in the six by eight foot cell without windows or ventilation.

Cohen said recreation was limited with perhaps only about 25 inmates getting out three or four times a week, on a first-come basis.

At Sumter, Reeve said, prisoners were only allowed visitors on Sunday and were locked in their dorms if no family member came to visit. The few prisoners having visitors were lucky, he said, because their visitors would bring picnic lunches. For the prisoners locked in their dorm, there was no midday meal. On Friday, July 4, prisoners had no work detail but had to stay in their locked dorms – watching Liberty weekend festivities from New York on the television.

In contrast, Short said, prisoners at Stewart C.I., were allowed visitors on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays. Here visits were not limited to family members but included friends.

Cohen mentioned the absence of job and academic training, “some guys there didn’t even know the alphabet,” and the lack of rehabilitation programs as among prison conditions they want to see corrected.

While Volume Four of the Rules and Regulations for the State of Georgia, spells out, in 175 pages, operation of correctional institutions and includes chapters on visitation, medical services, educational program, religion and recreation. Bureau of Corrections spokesman Steeple said the bureau is concerned with enforcing health, sanitation and fire safety regulations. Most county facilities, he said, do not have education and rehabilitation programs.

(Page 7 of the Rules and Regulations section on the Department of Corrections reads: “All county correctional institutions in which state offenders are incarcerated shall come under the full regulatory control and supervision of the Board of Corrections.”)

The former prisoners, now on probation, have experienced prison in a personal way that has deepened their commitment immeasurably even though “all of us have always been concerned with prison conditions as part of the general peace and justice commitment,” Reeve said.

Cohen viewed his action of going on the tracks at Montezuma as one of faith, after much prayer and trying to “listen to what God has called us to do.” His 50 days in prison was “a good experience from a spiritual perspective, being powerless and dependent, one with the poor.” For him it was a time of growth and trust in God.