Eunice Hunton Carter was exposed to violence at a young age, but this sermon is not about that violence. Eunice was born in Georgia in 1899. When she was only seven years old, white mobs roamed her neighborhood in Atlanta: attacking and killing people, burning homes and businesses. Her parents held the family together in prayer that night as they stayed to protect their home. When the massacre was over, Eunice’s family joined many Black people who fled, never to return. What would her life be?
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When Eunice Carter witnessed violence at such a young age, she didn’t know what would happen, but it changed everything. She couldn’t control the threat that day or the immediate impact it would have on her life. Still, as she grew up, she made choices about her life, about who she would be and what she would pursue. Think of the temptations she must have faced: to be terrified and withdraw from society; to be enraged and never trust anyone; to be molded by powerlessness and just keep her head down.
Like her parents before her, she went to college. She worked as a social worker and then studied the law. In 1933 she passed the bar exam in New York and became a lawyer. I don’t need to tell you how difficult it was for a Black woman to get work or recognition in the 1930s. Surely, the temptation was to pack it in. She worked at what they used to call Women’s Courts where most of the cases had to do with prostitution. She built her reputation, even being chosen by the mayor for a commission that investigated a riot in Harlem. In 1935, Eunice was the, “first black woman assistant district attorney in the state of New York.” Not too long after that, Special Prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey chose her to be a deputy assistant in a massive case. He launched the biggest ever effort to bring down organized crime. Dewey’s team was called “Twenty Against the Underworld” and Eunice was the only one who was not a white man.
Though Eunice was an ambitious and masterful lawyer, she was unquestionably at the bottom of the pecking order. Dewey and the others gave her the task they valued least: taking complaints from the public. Their temptation was to see her as less than and many probably didn’t think twice about it. The thing about Eunice, though, is that she remembered working in the Women’s Courts. She remembered that when prostitutes came through the system, many had the same few lawyers and bail bondsmen. When those lawyers appeared before the judge, suddenly the police officers couldn’t remember details on the stand. When the women spoke, they had almost the same story. Their charges usually didn’t stick.
Now, Dewey didn’t want to be seen as a moral crusader – he wasn’t interested in information that connected the mob and prostitution. His ambition, his temptation was to be the great crusader against organized crime. Carter tried to convince him to listen to the evidence she had gathered. These few lawyers and bail bondsmen had close ties with the biggest mob boss of all – Charlie “Lucky” Luciano. Eunice resisted the temptation to back down. She risked her life going down to pool halls and bars, gathering information that led to wiretaps, interviews, raids, arrests. What she heard again and again was that the mafia forced prostitutes to pay half of their income to the mob or else they wouldn’t get access to the lawyers and bail bondsmen who had just the right corrupt combination to keep these women out of jail.
Carter was able to convince another prosecutor on their team that this was the key. Before this, the other lawyers hadn’t even thought it would be possible for the mafia to control prostitution. But, evidence in hand, they convinced Dewey to pursue the case. Ultimately, Lucky Luciano and 8 others were “convicted on 62 counts of compulsory prostitution” and he got a sentence of “30 to 50 years in state prison.” We remember of course that the only thing they could convict Al Capone on was tax evasion, right? Well, this was the first case where anyone with great power in organized crime was found guilty of a crime related to their criminal enterprise. That is huge. One imagines that Dewey may have been tempted to deny credit to this young Black woman who was essential to the conviction. Yet, after the trial, he publicly mentioned everything she had brought to the table.
In dedicating their lives to fight crime and pursue justice, Eunice and Dewey made the right choice. Yet, each time Eunice chose courage and perseverance, she made a new way through biases and expectations that were considered perfectly natural at the time. She did more than resist temptation – she led those around her to fight temptations they didn’t know they had.
Resources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eunice_Carter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1906_Atlanta_race_massacre
https://www.tba.org/?pg=Articles&blAction=showEntry&blogEntry=51159
https://www.biography.com/crime/eunice-hunton-carter-lucky-luciano
https://www.fordham.edu/school-of-law/alumni/alumni-of-distinction/eunice-carter/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_Luciano