In 1955 in Danville, a Black man was killed by a white police officer at a Little League baseball game. Two days later, the officer was acquitted and the death was ruled a justifiable homicide.
Almost 70 years later, Ashby Jones is still thinking about it.
Jones, a white 82-year-old writer who now lives in Santa Ana, California, grew up in Danville. He’s spent decades trying to learn more about this event, which he remembers from his teenage years.
“Time went on and I never could get it out of my mind,” Jones said.
The local media paid little attention to the victim, Lisberger Wilson, outside of describing the altercation.
Two Danville newspapers reported on the altercation, but their accounts were largely one-sided and were riddled with inconsistencies. And since nearly seven decades have passed, there aren’t many people left who knew Wilson personally or who witnessed the attack, leaving historians to try to keep the story alive — and to speculate about what actually happened.
While the world has grown more aware of police killings in recent years, there was a time when these sorts of actions were “tolerated,” Jones said — especially in Danville, which had a reputation for police brutality and strict segregation.
During the city’s 1963 civil rights movement, protesters were met with violence from law enforcement, and June 10, 1963, became known as “Bloody Monday” because of the brutal police response to the demonstrations.
Scott Booth, who was Danville’s police chief from 2018 until he left in October to take the top police job in Roanoke, has called police brutality a “community trauma” in the city.
Booth worked to repair the relationship between the police department and the community, especially the Black community. Today, Danville has a majority Black city council, a Black mayor, a Black superintendent and many Black police officers and other elected officials.
But the incident that Jones remembers happened nearly 10 years before Bloody Monday, when the city was still a very segregated place, he said.
He didn’t know the name of the victim or the officer, and his attempts to learn more had been fruitless, he said. Jones made a trip back to Danville a few years ago to visit the courthouse and see if he could find any records of the event.
“The clerk told me, ‘I remember this like it was yesterday, but you will find no court records,’” Jones said. “We went back into the files for three hours, and found nothing.”
He had even tried to contact funeral homes and Black churches in Danville, to no avail. The lack of information only fueled him, he said.
“It was a slow-to-evolve obsession with wanting to find out why this happened,” Jones said.
He asked friends and family members about the killing, hoping that someone would recall the details.
One of his uncles remembered the event, Jones said, as did a George Washington High School classmate, Mike Heitzler.
“He asked me about it, and I remembered very well the incident,” Heitzler said. “I must have been 13 years old at the time.”
Heitzler also played Little League baseball in Danville in the 1950s, but he was not on one of the teams that was on the field during the incident. Neither Jones nor Heitzler was at the game when it happened, but they remember hearing about it in whispers afterward, they said.
Heitzler has an “outstanding memory,” Jones said, and he’s the one who remembered the name of the police officer involved.
“It was Pap Herndon,” Heitzler said, recalling the nickname for M.H. Herndon. “It just came to me. Boom.”
With this newfound information, Jones turned to the Danville Historical Society, which has almost a half-million pieces in its collection, mostly paper items like documents and photographs.
It was there that, decades later, he finally found answers.
* * *
The historical society has newspaper records of the event.
One of Danville’s newspapers at the time, The Bee, first reported on the incident on May 13, 1955, the day after it happened.
The article describes a Little League baseball game with 150 to 200 spectators at the Stonewall Jackson field, which is now Danville’s Camp Grove Recreation Center. The umpire happened to be a Danville police officer, Lt. Lonnie W. Riddle.
“Police say Riddle was attacked by the colored man while umpiring the ball game and that Traffic Officer M.H. Herndon used a ball bat on the assailant to save Riddle’s life,” the article says.
Wilson approached the third baseline, according to the article, disrupting the game. Twice Riddle asked Wilson to leave the field, and even escorted him behind the fence, says the article.
“Riddle stated Wilson then pulled a hook-blade knife from his left pocket, opened it and started advancing,” according to the article. Riddle tripped, and Wilson “kicked him severely in the back,” it says.
Riddle grabbed a baseball bat and struck Wilson across the arm, “just as Herndon arrived and inflicted the head blow,” the article says. “Spectators were grabbing bats and rushing toward the scene when the blow was struck.”
Wilson was taken to Winslow Hospital, the city’s Black hospital, the article said. He remained unconscious and was in critical condition at the time the first article was published.
Another daily newspaper, The Register, also covered the event, with many of the same details.
Both newspapers said that Riddle had been hospitalized, though The Register reported that he was “bleeding from his kidneys” and The Bee reported that “the officer’s injuries were not as serious as first feared.”
The following day, May 14, The Bee reported that Herndon was facing a murder charge, but that the defense had moved for a dismissal “on the grounds that testimony was overwhelmingly to the effect that Herndon used no more force than necessary to handle the situation and that the officer’s action in wielding the bat therefore was justifiable.”
This article includes reports on testimony from “impartial eye witnesses.” Judge Calvin Berry ruled the killing a justifiable homicide.
The Register covered the court case on May 15, writing that the defense counsel argued that even though Herndon was off-duty, he was “performing his duty as a police officer in dealing with a man engaged in a felonious act.”
Both newspapers also reported that Wilson had died at Winslow Hospital “from the effects of a fractured skull as the result of a blow.”
Robin Marcato, executive director of the Danville Historical Society, believes there’s likely more to this story than what was printed.
Witnesses testified that Wilson was “over six feet tall and weigh[ed] around 180 pounds,” according to the May 14 article. What were the chances, Marcato asked, of someone killing a man that size with one swing of a baseball bat?
It would’ve taken immense strength, the patience to aim and some luck to fatally strike a man who was not standing still with a wooden bat, Marcato believes. And considering that this was a Little League game, the bat likely would’ve been smaller and lighter than normal, too, she said.
Herndon might have continued to hit Wilson while he was on the ground, she said. Or it’s possible that the crowd of spectators beat Wilson to death, she said, and that Herndon took the fall for it because as a police officer, he was more likely to be acquitted.
Articles from both newspapers provide some support for that theory. The first Bee article says that “spectators were grabbing bats and rushing toward the scene,” and The Register reported that “other spectators at the game also were grabbing bats about the same time, it was said.”
Another questionable detail, Marcato said, is that the articles report that Wilson was brandishing a knife, but when Riddle was on the ground, he was kicked in the back, not injured with a knife.
There are also several inconsistencies between the articles.
In the May 13 Bee article, Riddle says he “walked back to his umpiring position behind first base.” But he also says he tripped over his chest protector, a piece of equipment usually only worn by home plate umpires, Marcato said.
In the May 14 Bee article, one witness is described as a “base umpire,” and Riddle is described as the home plate umpire.
“If he really was behind first base, why did he cross the field to deal with Wilson, when the main umpire was closer?” Marcato said.
In the May 13 Bee article, Riddle said only one ball had been thrown in the game when Wilson walked onto the field. But in the next day’s Bee article, the same witness said he first noticed Wilson in the field right after the fifth inning.
The first Bee article reports that Riddle said he “grabbed a bat as he scrambled to his feet,” but according to the second article, he testified in court that “some fellow handed me a bat.”
Many of the witnesses testified that they were afraid for the children on the field, according to the articles.
In the May 14 Bee article, one witness is quoted as saying, “My main concern was about the danger to the children. The throats of half a dozen or more could have been cut.”
But the previous day’s Bee article says that “the youngsters on the field had not fled despite the brandishing of the knife.” If the young players never left their positions, Marcato believes that they couldn’t have been very afraid of Wilson.
* * *
Despite the horrific details of the event, Jones said that it was incredible to finally learn more about this case after years and years of searching.
“I just shook and had chills all over,” he said. “What it brought to me wasn’t justice, but the truth that a Black person was killed by a white cop.”
Some of the details in the newspaper coverage corresponded with his memory and some didn’t, he said. Though Wilson’s age at the time of his death is not provided in the article, he is described as a grown man.
“I was stunned that [Wilson] was a young man and not a young boy,” Jones said.
Jones also said that he was surprised by the newspaper’s description of Wilson as “belligerent” and dangerous. The articles claimed that “Riddle, perhaps others, may have been killed, had not Herndon acted.”
“I was stunned at the conclusion that was drawn by the press and how they evaluated the day of the murder,” Jones said.
He said he was also appalled that Herndon was acquitted only two days after the event.
“This was a reflection of what was going on in the South then, not a reflection of justice,” he said. “But in that day and age, this kind of stuff was tolerated.”
Growing up in Danville in the 1940s and ’50s, Jones said he remembers many of the segregationist policies that permeated everyday life.
“I left Danville at a pretty early age. I just couldn’t stand it in the town back then,” he said. “It was just as racist as it could possibly have been. The Ku Klux Klan was there and everything. Anyway, I know it’s changed quite a bit by now, but back then it was pretty doggone bad.”
Herndon’s son, M.H. Herndon Jr., still lives in Danville. He was also playing on a Little League baseball team in 1955.
He said he’s familiar with the incident, but because he was so young — only about 8 or 9 years old — he doesn’t remember much about it.
“It’s a blur,” said Herndon, who’s now 79, from behind his storm door during a brief conversation. “I have very little knowledge of it. … Things were different back then.”
Jones said Wilson’s death had such a hold on him because of a personal connection to Danville’s Black community.
After his mother’s suicide when he was 10 years old, Jones was looked after by an older Black boy in Danville named Willie.
“He helped raise me after my mother was gone and my father needed somebody to meet me after school and make sure I was OK, things like that,” Jones said. “I developed a real love for him and for African Americans, and I’ve always felt very compassionate when it comes to their troubles.”
Jones said he thinks that Willie eventually became an attorney, but he lost contact with him after leaving Danville. “I never could find him,” Jones said.
* * *
Afterward, the incident was kept quiet, Heitzler said.
“Most people just didn’t say anything about it,” he said. “It was a sort of hush-hush thing. … It was just swept under the rug.”
The story might not have received widespread attention at the time, but local historian Karice Luck-Brimmer mentions it on historical tours today, hoping to keep it alive.
In addition to her genealogical work, Luck-Brimmer gives tours related to Danville’s Black history. She said she mentions Wilson’s death during tours near the Camp Grove community, where the baseball field used to be located.
The only reason she knows about the incident is that she combs through newspaper archives for stories to add to her tours, she said. After reading about it, Luck-Brimmer said she discovered that she has a personal connection to Wilson.
He was “named after his uncle Lisberger Gausney, who was the minister of music at my home church,” Luck-Brimmer said. “He’s a distant cousin on my Wilson side.”
They’re both descended from a man named Tazewell Wilson, though there is some debate over the spelling of that name, Luck-Brimmer said.
“Tazewell had a son named Turner and another son named Lewis,” she said. “Lisberger descends from Lewis, and I descend from Turner.”
Lewis Wilson’s family relocated to the Camp Grove community in Danville from another local Black neighborhood. Luck-Brimmer said she’s not sure why, but both she and Lisberger Wilson were raised in Camp Gove — although many years apart.
“Lisberger grew up over in the Camp Grove on Abbott Street,” she said. “When I was looking on Abbott Street, I found out that [the Wilsons] lived right next door to my great-great-grandparents on another side.”
Some of the elders in Danville’s Black community remember this story, Luck-Brimmer said, because they were young children at the time.
Even before learning more details about Wilson’s death, Jones was so affected by the event that he planned to incorporate it into his writing.
Jones has published two books, with a third coming in November 2024 that is loosely based on two true stories. One is inspired by a college relationship that Jones had, and the other by Wilson.
The book, called “The Little Bird,” is partially about a young Black boy named Jesse who is killed by a white police officer during a Little League baseball game. Jones said he hopes the story might create more awareness about Wilson’s death.
“We kind of know what the real truth is, though it’s never been put out there,” he said. “I would love somehow to get the story out there so it would be looked into. Maybe it’s already been put to bed forever, but at the same time, I would love to have attention drawn to it.”
Jones said he’s not surprised that Wilson’s death was ruled a justifiable homicide and that details were so hard to find, given the time period and the nature of the city. In fact, similar things have surely happened in many, many places throughout the country’s history, Jones said.
“This story was the same story over, and over, and over again,” Jones said. “I wish we as humans had enough strength to depart from these old stories and not have to replay them.”
Still, Jones said he is glad to finally have some answers about Wilson’s case — answers that might bring him back to Danville.
He’d love to attend one of Luck-Brimmer’s tours, Jones said, and pay a visit to the historical society.
“I would love to come back and let people know about this,” Jones said. “It’s the truth coming out.”
