Working as a photo-journalist during the turbulent 60’s and 70’s had it’s moments of terror and fear, as bombings and fires raged with anger of blacks and whites confronting each other. One such night of fear and anxiety came in Harford County as the H. Rap Brown trial was to open in a few days.
The trial never happened,….in Bel Air…after a car with two black men inside exploded along Route 1 and Toll Gate road, while the town was under ‘lock down’ because of threats the police received from supporters of Mr. Brown.
The story I wrote and the photographs taken were shared with Time-Life magazine in New York….
From Time magazine comes this account of what happened next:
“Two black militants were killed when their car was blasted to bits while they were riding on a highway south of Bel Air, Md. The dead were Ralph Featherstone, 30, and William (“Che”) Payne, 26. Featherstone, a former speech therapist, was well known as a civil rights field organizer and, more recently, as manager of the Afro-American bookstore, the Drum & Spear, in Washington. Both were friends of H. Rap Brown, whose trial on charges of arson and incitement to riot was scheduled to begin last week in Bel Air. Reconstruction of the car’s speedometer indicates it was traveling about 55 miles an hour when it blew up.
Police believed that Payne had been carrying a dynamite bomb on the floor between his legs and that it accidentally exploded. A preliminary FBI investigation supported that theory. Friends of the dead men contended that white extremists had either ambushed the pair or booby-trapped their car, perhaps trying to kill Brown. But police pointed out that Featherstone and Payne had driven in from Washington without notice, cruised around Bel Air briefly and seemed to be headed back. That assassins could plot and move so quickly defies belief.
Although Featherstone had not been known as an extremist, friends said that he had grown markedly more bitter in the past year. Police cited a crudely spelled typewritten statement found on his body: “To Amerika:* I’m playing heads-up murder. When the deal goes down I’m gon be standing on your chest screaming like Tarzan. Dynamite is my response to your justice.” Brown, meanwhile, was nowhere to be found.”
For me that night will forever remind me of fear of the unknown. Like the fears we all share today, in 1970, fears of racial unrest and upheaval were on everyone’s minds. I had worked that night along the roads leading into Bel Air, the county seat….and had stopped by the Armory in town for a coffee with some troopers. Nothing was going on, the town was quiet, which was good, so I headed home.
As I drove my VW bug past Saint Margaret church I heard a blast that scared the life out of me and yet, I turned around in the roadway and followed my senses onto Bond street and southbound on Route 1. The smell of death was in the air as I came on the scene…body parts hanging in trees along the side of the road, fuel and car parts strewn along the highway…police and fire crews arriving one after the other.
Life as it was would never be the same in this sleepy little town…and racial outsiders, agitating even had the black population of Bel Air upset and afraid of what would happen next. Most of my friends in the black community were confused by all the outsiders picketing and demanding the things many of the locals already had….jobs, respect and homes here in town.
It was a job of a life-time for me, fresh out of college with an English literature and history degree, and given the chance to write for the biggest newspaper in Harford County…beyond my wildest dreams. Plans were to teach in the county, and the pay for me would have been $5000 a year. The editor of the Aegis was John D. Worthington, III, a goodly man, a bit of a rounder, rough around the edges…so we got along fine.
The only thing he said to me when he hired me on was, “Write it the way you see it…just put down what you know as fact and we’ll never have a problem.”…That was it…no sermon, no booklet on the ‘whys and wherefores’ of the Aegis….just get out on the scene, tell it like it is, and play it right down the middle.
There’s more to the story, but seeing the photo of the ‘Featherstone’ car was enough to conjure up some memories of the long, strange trip to where things are today in my life.
And sometimes, when I come across some things from the past days, I feel they should be shared, to better understand one another…and myself.
My Diary From Those Days
March 9,1970 Monday
9:30 Judge Harry Dyer, Jr.s courtroom…William Kunstler , Brogue Barrett pic in front of courthouse…
1:30 Court adjourned, then reconvened…another pic of Kunstler and Clarence Davis, arm in arm coming out of courthouse. Good pic.
5 p/m check w/all police, barracks, town, sher.dept.
March 10 Tuesday
8:30 hit police tty’s..(teletypes on press board)
10 be at courthouse, pic of H. Rap (Brown) coming into courtroom…
10-22 pic…brown doesn’t show. Word is he’s in HdG at ‘safe house‘ on Revolution street, owned by Dr. Spry.
11 a/m benson barracks, check w/Mrs. Cooper, re: any new stuff on Brown
12 Conowingo post, dam…to NOrth East barrack…same thing, no news, quiet
4 Fallston, accidental shooting, get pic…I.B. Andrews
5 Benson barrack, check in
7 back in town, state police command post at Bel Air Armory, Otis Trost man to see, ‘it’s quiet, thank God”
Leaving town to go home…fire sirens, explosion, follow the lights, to toll gate road and Rte. 1…big explosion, stuff still in the air, smells of death…
Stay put…on scene, Col. Tom Smith MSP arrives fast…stay with it
1 a/m…write it out…Robbie’s waiting, must write out, with pic, cut lines…
March 11…film and contact of explosion
9 a/m WCBM calls me…why?
Bill Bruns, life magazine, wants two images of explosion.
10 Bob Comes, Sher.Dept.
4 p.m. Cover Bill Veeck Press Conference at Harford Community College, w/pic
6 pm…teach class at HCC, sixth week, tonight open darkroom, after lecture.
Reaction
“The photo is right up front is naked, raw, in your face. Right away, in the first paragraph I recall the horror of that event…for although I was physically only a kid, a mere 15 years old at the time of the incident, I was much older than that. Having the older brothers, I had the luxury of being enlightened to the 60’s, the dissent, the questioning of authority in an age when it had to be done, and the unleashing of a new read on moral values that the 50’s had tried to suppress,” said Patrick Wallis, copy-editor for Mr. Holden
“I had always been intrigued and appalled by the civil rights movement, from the early days of the 60’s. I grew up in a lower income town, full of transients and plenty of poor folk, many black, and many of them my playmates from childhood. I recall being a voracious reader in those days and I was always hungry to hear more and see more pictures to learn as much as I could about the plight of the black man. I could never understand the inhumanity dealt to whole generations, blatant and public humiliation and hatred heaped upon them everywhere they turned. I cried out in my soul at the horror of how one whole race of people could be so subjugated, so much so that by the time the mid 60’s turned the corner and Motown came around and James Brown and the whole Black culture got on that dissent bandwagon and stood up and told White America to look out ‘cuz a change was going to come…and they didn’t exactly mean the sit down and talk it over change that the good reverend spoke of…it was revolution time and they were going to lay claim to burning down all of that ugly history. I kind of understood how they would be pissed and rooted for their victory in some naïve way, that is, until a few years into that debacle I realized we were all going to burn in hell for the way we lived unless we found a way out of the mess and calmed down. Never really happened. The hippies burned out for the most part and a few carrots of freedom were dangled in front of the Black masses to appease them, but economically, culturally, holistically, they were still the downtrodden.”
“Many years have passed since then and the poor folks stay poor and lines of what’s right and wrong get blurrier every day. The Black Man as a whole, I feel, never fully got the right message…and that’s where it stays confusing, because did they remain hookers and deadbeats and absent fathers and good for nothings because they were kept down for so long or is it simply because they rose to their Peter Principal and then stopped. Same could be said for poor White Trash, the Appalachian Waifs, the lost souls who just drift through time. Don’t know that anyone’s at fault for anything anymore except I’m sure we’re all partly to blame for the sad way we’ve treated each other and how disparate our souls have gotten.”
“But, I digress. The mystery is cleared. I had never fully understood what had happened to those two blokes in the car that blew up. I was for sure that the bomb had been planted. Perhaps I didn’t read up on it because I just wanted to believe in the mystery and maybe was pulling for a bit of anarchy from the Congo. Dunno. I’m glad it was only a bomb that went off by accident and the two fools who thought they could pull off that kind of revolution got a taste of Karma, a full course actually. This town and the country itself was certainly not the same and God forbid it would have been a lot worse if their promise of destruction had been delivered.”
“Either way, we walk in shit most of the time, mostly our own. It’s good we wear shoes and wipe our feet.”
“Thanks for the memory and the history lesson,” Wallis.
My father was a state trooper at this time. He was at this scene and has told me the story for years. It was something that stuck with him for all this time down to the smallest details.
Todd-We need to see you on the Dagger more often. As a history major in college I am always interested in reading local history, even if it is “recent history”. Tell us more, please.
I agree with Mr. Norman. You are a wealth of knowledge and information about Harford County and I would love to read your contributions on a more regular basis. I moved to Harford County in 1966 and I have little memory fragments (Main Street being two-way) but not the fantastic recollection that you have.
Todd that was a great piece piece about your days as a young photo-journalist covering the Harford County beat. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the article about the explosion and thanks for documenting those troubling days in Maryland and Harford County. Also thanks for providing insight into the workings of a beat reporter in those great days for journalism. I’d sure enjoy seeing more about your newspaper work in those days, back when the papers were real and provided something we readers wanted, valuable content.
Please do more of those. Did you keep a diary for everyday? Great stuff
appreciate the comments, i value them…Mike, i do keep a diary, every day, since 1966…with photo-journalism, work schedules, had to do it…and it’s paid off with keeping the facts straight. keep reading…
It is nice work. as and old Harford Countian. I injoy the history. missed the bombing. in vietnam at the time. keep up the good work.
My dad told me that he always thought that a police officer, keying the mike in his cruiser, inadvertently detonated the bomb.
That is what my father told me as well.There was an trooper a bit ahead of them and he clicked on his mike. The blast rocked the troopers car sideways.
Lorrie,
Very interesting. I thought I remembered hearing the same thing as a kid about the bomb being detonated by keyed mic’s. My father was also Trooper at the Benson Barrack around that time and probably knew your Dad.
the trooper who was at Bel Air Bowl saw the explosion…but was not ‘on mike’…either way, it doesn’t pay to ride around with a bomb between your legs…with evil intentions.
Hey Todd, my father would like to get in touch with you, he knew you from “the old days” do you have a contact email he could reach you at?
Word has it that when the two men drove into Bel Air, they saw two policeman on the roof of the County Office building, directly across the street from the Courthouse…the police saw the car, and the car turned around and headed out of town…then the explosion…same car it was later determined.
I had heard about the incident over the years, but never such a vivid recollection. Thanks T-bone for turning me on to The Dagger.
I was thinking that this would probably make a great movie script. Then I thought about it again and realized it would never sell. What, with the bad guys creating their own doom and all. Some how the villians would have to win for it to be marketable in todays America.
that’s the truth Wayne…some of us know better…and the way Holden wrote the piece, it’s just the way it happened, with no b.s….no ‘slant’ just the way it was.
I remember that night well. Several of us were parked in the Equitable Trust parking lot (the County Office Building now) when suddenly the whole southern sky lit up, followed by a tremendous ‘bang’. My car windows shook from the blast. Soon motors were started and we headed down Route 1. Upon arriving at the intersection of Route 1 and Toll Gate, the roadway was covered with debris. I parked in the southern entrance to what was then the Bel Air Racetrack, got out, and walked closer only to see two bodies…or what used to be bodies…lying there. One had most of the flesh torn from the right side of his body (obviously the driver) and the other mangled body was smoldering. Clothing was almost non-existent.
If my memory serves me correct, someone later charged that the bomb had been planted in the car, and Featherstone and Payne were merely innocent sightseers.
yep, Len….some folks will be told anything, and tell anything to make the ‘perpetrators suddenly the poor victims’…bullshit
yet, some folks keep telling us that crap, but now i think fewer and fewer believe any of it…
Holden just told it the way it was…did you see him while you were wandering around the scene?
I don’t remember seeing him, but we were ‘escorted’ away from the scene as more police arrived…and rightfully so. A day or two before, I did see Wm. Kunstler, Brown’s attorney, coming out the front door of the Courthouse.
i also have a photograph of that as well Len…not sure if I can fit it on to my scanner though…
Many thanks to Todd Holden for sharing this important piece of Harford County history. I was 14 years old at the time the Brown trial (or non trial) was occuring. My family lived at the corner of Giles Street and Churchville Road only about 4 blocks from the courthouse in Bel Air.I recall the tension that gripped the town as it prepared for the trial. I remember watching a feature story on the national news about Bel Air. It included images of shoppers on Main Street (this was pre mall time). Bel Air was described as a quiet small, mostly white town by the national media. Recall that the Brown case was tranferred to Harford County Circuit Court from Dorchester County. Brown , who never appeared in Bel Air for any proceedings had been charged by Dorchester county authorities with inciting arson and riot. These charges arose from a speech Brown gave to African American residents of Cambridge (the county seat of Dorchester County) in 1967. After the speech a small fire broke out in Cambridge which formed the basis for the charges. After the explosion in Bel Air the case was transferred to Howard County. The Howard County States Attorney alleged that the States Attorney for Dorchester County had admitted to him that the Dorchester County States Attorney had trumped up the charges against Brown so he would a stand accused of a felony. The Dorchester States Attorney denied these allegations which resulted in the Court of Appeals taking action against the Howard County States Attorney. Brown is currently serving a life sentence resulting from a homicide conviction.
perhaps as time rolls on, and more history is recorded on the pages of The Dagger…these comments and story will be included in part of the history ‘behind the history’…all good for the folks who care….
Here is a link to a story in JET Magazine March 26, 1970 issue:
http://books.google.com/books?id=PDkDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA8&lpg=PA8&dq=featherstone+payne+bomb&source=bl&ots=Lfxu3ausv4&sig=ybHC6S_AEiQCZFwfH_yHpZSV6Pk&hl=en&ei=gPqkS93ZIIHOM6i92PQI&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CBgQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=featherstone%20payne%20bomb&f=false
We lived several houses down from the Shell Station at the corner of Rte 1 & Tollgate Road. When the bomb went off around 11 PM we were getting ready for bed. There was a lound expolsion and the whole house shook. We ran outside and our neighbors, my Father & I jumped into the car & drove to the site. Originally we thought the Shell Station had exploded. We were there BEFORE anyone, police or bystanders. Parts of the car had been pulverized & it looked like it was snowing. We parked on the rear lot (Now Bel Air Opticians & the Catholic Bookstore) and ran to Rte 1.We did not see the bodies at first. When we went to step off of the curb is when we saw the first body (We assumed the driver) laying in fromt of the Station. His body was still smoking and bones were sticking out of his legs. The skin on his face was pulled tight towards the rear of his head. The second body was across the street, in the South Bound Lane of Rte 1 & North Bound Tollgate Road, in front of the then old Tollgate House. It weas just a bloody hunk of meat and didn’t even look like a body. We were only there a short time when an armed Soilder with a “Fixed Bayonet” told us to move on. Helicopters circled most of the night. We later heard they were collecting body parts from the area. The passenger’s body was identified when they found one of his fingers on the roof of the Tollgate House.The windows in my Aunt’s House, (Who lived closer to Rte 1) were broken from the blast. I will never forget that night or what we saw. We also heard that the blast was caused by a State Trooper at the Bowling Alley when he clicked his mike. I was in Bel Air the next day when Brown’s attorney, Williasm Kunstler held a news conference in front of the Court House. It was a scary time and we couldn’t get any regular information as we had no daily newspapers because they were on Strike.
thanks Ed…
and the price of gasoline, at the Shell was 33 cents/gallon…and Ed is right…lucky the gasoline station didn’t explode too…
thanks to everyone who made comments adding to their experience of that night in March, 1970….the story piqued interest in those who recall what the event meant to them.
He was in that safehouse in HDG. I was delivering the Record and saw Kuenstler. My 13th year.
Dang, my bet was he was hold up in Hannah Moore’s Beer Garden on Bond Street in Bel Air.
let’s hope Brian Goodman keeps this little ‘file’ in tact…
because it’s growing, thanks to Spotcheck Billy….I had heard that’s where he was, and when it all broke loose, Rap headed out in the still of the night.
Great story. I grew up in Bel Air and had never heard about this.
Dear Sir: I have searched for this information. Thanks so much.I was at Essex cc at this time. I remember seeing the owner of the shell station being interviewed by TV news.I think, he said they had just purchased gasoline. Does anyone remember who the owner was? Or was the shell station open?
The bomb went off around 11 PM and the Shell Station was closed for the night. The owner’s first name was Fred but I am not sure of his last name. I think the last name may have been Schminger or something like that.
It was Fred Schiminger’s gas station! My father got his career as a mechanic started in the garage there probably 2 years after this happened (he was 16 during this event), Mr. Fred is like an uncle to me. This was a cool read for me, since it shows bel air before my time.
At the time of this incident I was 18 years old and a memeber of the Bel Air Vol Fire Co. Sheriff Bill Kunkle hired me and a few other young men to watch several buildings including the Court house in Bel Air. My position was at 18 Office Street on the northside of the Court house. I had been in the Building the night before with nothing to report. On this night at about 1145 I saw a ligth colored vehcile circle the Court house occupied by two men.
Several mintues later I saw the same vehicle pull up along side 18 Office Street and the man on the driver side of the vehicle exited the car. He started toward the Court house, but looked up and saw me in the second floor window at 18 Office Street. The man jumped back into the vehicle and it speed off toward Bond Street. I called in the suspicious car to the Sheriff’s office. As I recall at 1218 AM the blast occurred and I could see the flash and felt the building shake. I learned the next morning that the suspicious vehicle I had called in was the one that exploded at Rt 1 & Tollgate Rd. This one of several things that peaked my interset in law enforcement and lead to a 30 year career with the Baltimore County Police Department
this piece has taken on a life of it’s own… and the responses are overwhelming…adding more information. Thanks to Roger Sheets, Ed, Dennis Stankie…appreciate the interest it has generated, by the folks who were there that night.
at the time of the trail the downtown merchants hired security to patrol the downtown area in case of any trouble.the news made it seem that there were hundrerds of protesters when there were o nly a busload or so. the news tried to create a situation, some things never change.
STUART…better safe than sorry…and you can’t compare the media in Bel Air in the turbulent ’60-70’s….to what the media whores itself on today…no way…
Gas 33.9!
Where is your book?
A State Trooper once told me they believed a police radio may have caused the explosion.
Don’t think anyone knows.
Very scary time country very devided everthing changed and nothing changed.
Anyway it’s great to see you still causing trouble.
Is there a Todd Holden website?
Bryan
Mr. Holden: You wrote,”FBI investigation supported that theory”.
I have been trying to obtain a copy of this investigation via the freedom of information act. I feel frustated with attempts to obtain this report. Do you have a copy? In fact, did you write a book?The us congress passed,”The Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crimes Act to addresses the long overdue investigations into civil rights era murders. Time is of the essence in these cold cases, where witnesses and suspects are aging and physical evidence may be scant.” History will decide whether murder is the correct term.
you know i don’t have an opinion on what happened tht night because i was caught up in a small part of it, i was working and doing my job, a job i took very seriously and competively for the six years I was at the Aegis. I think the two men had come to Bel Air to do damage, and when the police road blocks were surrounding the courthouse they headed back to D.C. with an armed bomb, that accidentally went off in the front seat, between the passenger’s legs.
@Bryan, books are waiting to be written, and i heed your words, unless i do it, it won’t get done, no i don’t have a website, but that’s another thing needs doing,
I grew up in harford county and understand darkness is among us.The question was did the FBI conclude this theory to be a factual? I have requested this document from that department. My requests had gone un answered.
Secondly, no others have seemed interrested, to reply.In the land of the free and the home of the brave has all debate and open dissent become something only worthy of our 4 fathers?
I didnot grew up in a racist family. Racism did exist and if personally, race becomes a card for me to play I defer.In fact, I have suffered many hardships in my life to maintain my dignity and integity.The are more problems then I could ever solve!! I have alawys been proud to have been born in the great state of Maryland.Baltimorians have always fought for truth and justice.Loyality is our middle name!
G-D Bless you all.
tonight was the first presentation of the ‘Story of March 9,1970’, complete with additional photographs of that night on Route l in Bel Air. The Jarrettsville Lions Club asked me to present a discussion of the events leading up to the car explosion and aftermath. A lively audience, including former Superintendent of Maryland State Police Red Travers were in attendance. Thanks to Jarrettsville Lions Club for inviting me and giving me a chance to go back through the files from 40 years ago. There is still much to be learned from that event.
All very interesting. I recall this taking place (I was a junior at Aberdeen HS.) What a name, H. Rap Brown. And his attorney, Kuntsler, with that hair. What a time.
I was 9 years old but remember this crazy, scarey event being talked about by my parents and my aunt Betty & uncle Bob. I just remember the spirit of fear that raced thru my heart & my home!!! I felt like our safe, little town was being compromised…… I remember feeling happy that we lived on the out … Out…. Outskirts of town on our farm & that we might be a little safer…. Wow …. I nearly forgot about this whole incident!!
Todd,
I’m doing some research for a writing project that includes this period & would like to impose on you for some background info… would you have the time for a cup of coffe?
John