Biography
He was one of the Quincy Five, Black civil-rights and voter-registration activists prosecuted for the September 1970 robbery at Luke’s Grocery in Leon County and the killing of deputy Thomas Revels. The contemporaneous defense report described police harassment of their organizing and actual jail custody and mistreatment. Keaton received a death sentence in May 1971. The conviction was overturned and the murder prosecution ended in July 1973, but he remained imprisoned under unrelated robbery sentences until actual parole release on July 24, 1979.
He was one of the Quincy Five, Black civil-rights and voter-registration activists prosecuted for the September 1970 robbery at Luke’s Grocery in Leon County and the killing of deputy Thomas Revels. The contemporaneous defense report described police harassment of their organizing and actual jail custody and mistreatment. Keaton received a death sentence in May 1971. The conviction was overturned and the murder prosecution ended in July 1973, but he remained imprisoned under unrelated robbery sentences until actual parole release on July 24, 1979.
Original contemporary source 1 ; Original contemporary source 2 ; Original contemporary source 3 ; Original contemporary source 4.
