artist Casey Downing Jr. meeting with the Judge Horton Monument Committee and Horton family
ATHENS-An Athens man who stood for justice soon will stand for generations as a testament to courage and fairness.
The Judge Horton Monument Committee has commissioned Mobile sculptor Casey Downing Jr. to create a bronze likeness of Horton, which will be erected on the west side of the Limestone County Courthouse entrance. The committee has raised the $53,000 required to fund the likeness. The committee continues to raise funds for the base, installation costs and historical marker.
Judge Jimmy Woodroof with Casey Downing
The money has been donated from citizens throughout Alabama and the United States, including farmers, attorneys, bankers, minority owned businesses, historians and others.
On June 22, 1933, Judge James Horton left his home, which was located where Athens City Hall is now, and walked to the Courthouse. That morning, he stunned not only local citizens but the world when he overturned a jury’s guilty verdict and death sentence for Haywood Patterson, one of the defendants in the infamous Scottsboro Boys case. Nine black defendants including Patterson were accused of raping two white women and despite contradictory testimony and a lack of medical corroboration, the jury found Patterson guilty.
Judge James Edwin Horton
From the bench, Horton spoke for a lengthy period of time. Here is a snippet from his decision:
“Social order is based on law, and its perpetuity on its fair and impartial administration. Deliberate injustice is more fatal to the one who imposes it than to the one on whom it is imposed. The victim may die quickly and his suffering cease, but the teachings of Christianity and the uniform lesson of all history illustrate without exception that its perpetrators not only pay the penalty themselves, but their children through endless generations.”
Some lauded Horton for his brave decision. Others criticized him. His family states he never regretted his decision, even though he lost his bid for re-election and never held public office again. He moved the family home to Greenbrier, and the family later donated their downtown property to the City of Athens for public use. Horton embarked on a new passion, farming, and raised award-winning Aberdeen-Angus cattle, the largest herd in Alabama.
Downing said the likeness will take about a year to complete. The committee is working on the limestone base and the historical marker, which will include a narrative about Horton. Part of the narrative reads, “Judge Horton’s decision to order a new trial for Patterson represented a resounding blow to Jim Crow justice. Northern newspapers hailed him as ‘Lincolnesque,’ noting the judge’s physical resemblance to Abraham Lincoln, while comparing Horton’s judicial action with Lincoln’s efforts to end slavery.”
Downing, who has created pieces such as the Buffalo Soldier Monument in Huntsville and the Joe Louis World Heavyweight Champion bronze likeness in Chambers County, said he is fascinated by the stories of the people whose images he creates.
Horton’s granddaughter, Kathy Garrett, was among those who met with Downing to discuss the pose, facial features, and clothing for the bronze likeness. Garrett noted her grandfather would have been embarrassed by a statue of himself being placed in Downtown Athens. Growing up, Garrett knew Horton simply as “Granddaddy.” As an adult, she appreciates the legacy he left not only his family and community, but the world.
That legacy is summed up in a phrase he learned as a child, “Let justice be done thought the heavens may fall.”
