Burwell and Lee Reynolds
Kitty Reynolds, an enslaved worker, was nursemaid for Hardin and Nancy Reynolds’ children, and is credited with saving Hardin from a raging bull. However, she should also be remembered as a “mother” of civil rights.
Two of Kitty’s children, Burwell and Lee, were involved in a scuffle resulting in the death of a white man, Aaron Shelton. In April 1878, the two brothers were tried separately by all-white juries. Burwell was found guilty of first-degree murder, while Lee received an 18-year sentence for second-degree murder.
Attorneys for the brothers, Andrew M. Lybrook and William Martin, had requested the jury be one-third black. They petitioned U.S. District Judge Alexander Rives to move the cases to the federal court on the grounds the state court denied the defendant rights by excluding citizens of African race on the juries.
The 1880 U.S. Supreme Court case, Ex parte Virginia, was the first case that upheld the federal government’s right to enforce civil rights legislation on the states. As a result, the brothers’ cases were reviewed.
In a retrial, Burwell Reynolds received a sentence of five years for manslaughter of Aaron Shelton, and Patrick County released Lee Reynolds without prosecuting him.
Judge Rives called two grand juries (including black men) that eventually indicted judges from 14 Virginia counties for violating the Civil Rights Act of 1875 by excluding blacks from juries.
– This information is part of a display at the Reynolds Homestead; written by Director Julie Walters-Steele
