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. Burns founded the Concerned Community Citizen’s Organization, which registered Black voters. The contemporaneous report described serious injuries and a week without medical care in jail. He was found incompetent and committed to the state hospital at Chattahoochee, where he remained from early 1971; no actual discharge is established.
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. Burns founded the Concerned Community Citizen’s Organization, which registered Black voters. The contemporaneous report described serious injuries and a week without medical care in jail. He was found incompetent and committed to the state hospital at Chattahoochee, where he remained from early 1971; no actual discharge is established.
Original contemporary source 1 ; Original contemporary source 2 ; Original contemporary source 3.
