JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – It’s been nearly six decades since a Jacksonville mother of 10 children was gunned down in a racially-motivated attack on New Kings Road and Flicker Avenue.
The only known picture still in existence of Johnnie Mae Chappell, 35, is one that was taken after the tragedy. It shows her husband looking down on her body at the morgue after she had been shot to death.
“That’s the only known picture we have of my mother,” said her youngest son, Shelton. “It’s the only picture that exists. When you see that picture, it says everything I could ever say for the rest of my life. That picture says it all.”
Along what is now known as Johnnie Mae Chappell Parkway, the woman who the stretch of road is named after was searching for a wallet she’d dropped while carrying groceries.
As she was walking, a car carrying four white men pulled up, and one of the men shot her. She died as she was being taken to a hospital.
Fifty-eight years later, her youngest son returned Wednesday to the very spot where his mother was attacked, honoring the mother he never got to know. He was just 4 months old when she was killed.
“So I never had a chance to say happy birthday. Happy Mother’s Day,” said Shelton Chappell.
“As a result of those 10 children losing their mother, that family was separated. They went to foster homes,” said Lashonda Holloway, a friend of Shelton Chappell.
Johnnie Mae Chappell was murdered around the same time a violent protest erupted downtown over racial segregation. Investigators at the time said four white men who drove by the civil unrest didn’t stop, and someone in the car said, “Let’s get a (expletive).” That’s how investigators determined the murder was racially-motivated.
“It was racial. Political,” Shelton Chappell said.
Months after the shooting, investigators got a break in the murder case when they interrogated Wayne Chessman. He told the detectives that he was in the car with the three other men, and he identified J. W. Rich as the shooter.
All four men were later indicted for murder, but for some reason, evidence in the case went missing before the trial and the detectives were not asked to testify about the confession they received. As a result, charges against three of the men were dropped and the murder charge against Rich was reduced to manslaughter. He was convicted on that lesser charge but was only sentenced to three years in prison.
“What is a Black woman’s life worth? Is it worth three years? Certainly not,” Holloway said.
This is why Johnnie Mae Chappell’s son continues to seek justice for his mother. But 58 years later, his idea of justice is in the form of a new federal anti-lynching bill recently passed by Congress called the Emmett Till Bill. It’s named after the 14-year-old Black boy, who in 1955 was lynched in Mississippi for allegedly flirting with a white woman.
“We’re waiting on the president to sign that now,” Shelton Chappell said. “That’s somewhat justice. That’s not all the way justice, but that’s some justice.”