IDKMYDE: Maggie Bozeman and Julia Wilder

In this episode of #IDKMYDE, join us as we uncover the unjust nine-year imprisonment of Maggie Bozeman and Julia Wilder, two courageous Black women who fought for voter rights in Alabama. Back in the day voter fraud looked a little different. Yet, it seems society has never been absent from the "trims to a win". But in the past, 'fighting for your freedom' usually meant waiting behind bars for it. These two female elders set an example. It's the case of "no good deed goes unpunished" but with voting.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now y'all know, each season, I gotta do my absolute
best to introduce y'all to powerful black women that I
didn't know and maybe you didn't either. Well, today I
introduced to you two women from Alabama that did nine
years in jail unfairly all for standing on business. I

(00:20):
didn't know. Maybe you didn't. No, I didn't know. Maybe
you didn't. I didn't know. I didn't know. Maybe you didn't.
I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know. Fifty
one year old Maggie Boseman and sixty nine year old
Julia Wilder went to jail in Alabama January twelfth, nineteen

(00:42):
eighty two, for nineteen seventy eight voter fraud. For perspective,
white folks in the town had been hit with voter
fraud in the past and were met with minimal punishments
and or fines. Nobody had ever been jailed. Fifty one
year old Maggie Boseman got four years and sixty nine
year old Julia Wilder got the maximum five years, and
they could have pled guilty and got probation, but they

(01:04):
took it to court because they said they had done
nothing wrong, like being black in Alabama, wasn't offense enough.
In nineteen seventy eight, there was an election in Pickens County, Alabama. Now,
Julia Wilder was the president of the Pickens County Voters League,
and Maggie Boseman, who just so happens to be the
cousin of one of my comedy partners, Chris Jones, set
it off. And that's how I even came across these women.

(01:27):
So I appreciate you, Chris. But Maggie Boseman was president
of the local NAACP chapter and they were just urging
elderly literate Blacks to vote by absentee ballot. Maggie and
Julia picked up the absentee ballot applications from the County
Elections Commission, used central addresses for him, and had all
thirty nine notaras by the same notary. It wasn't even

(01:48):
really an issue until on election day when one of
the absentee voters showed up at the polls adamant to vote.
That led to an investigation because that lady was seventy
nine year old Sophie span and she testified she knew
nothing about no absentee ballots, she never signed one, and
that testimony was largely the reason the jury voted for conviction.

(02:09):
But she was sus like the sheriff bought her lunch
right before she testified for what And she even testified
that she would do whatever the chef wanted me to do,
but he ain't told me to say nothing. Yeah, all right.
It was twelve other folks whose ballots were filed by
Miss Bozman and Miss Wilder. They testified too, but their
testimonies were a bunch of confusing stories and all over
the place. They didn't really stick. The Sophie span testimony.

(02:32):
That's what did them in, even though they had fifteen
character witness to vouch for them. To the twelve white jurors,
it was to novel. They were painted as a couple
of women who went out and stole thirty nine votes. Listen,
listen here, listen. If we really wanted to be vindick DEVAQUEI,
we could have got him thirty nine counts of forger
repunishable bob to ten years each. That's what the da

(02:54):
pep Johnson said, who scratched all blacks from the jury.
They spent eleven days in the state penitentiary. Whatever were
daily protests. The then governor scrambled to put together a
work release program form. They got transferred to Tuskegee to
finish out their turn. They lived in a trailer house
instead of jail. One juror, thirty three year old William
Tay said, it may sound like five years to a

(03:16):
little lady, but if someone's found guilty, their age shouldn't
make much, no difference. A white deputy sheriff said, listen,
if they can get out there in march them ages,
they gonna do just fine in jail. Maggie Boseman and
Julia Wilder went to jail for trying to help elderly,
illiterate black folks to cast their votes in nineteen seventy eight.

(03:39):
And I didn't know. Maybe you didn't either, I didn't know.