The Truth About Tulia

Tonya White is a very lucky woman. Ms. White lives in Tulia, Texas but she was in a bank in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma at the same time she was accused of dealing drugs in Tulia.

The terrible injustice perpetrated on residents of Tulia, Texas is not a new story. Forty-six innocent individuals, 39 of them black, were arrested, tried and convicted for drug dealing, solely on the word of former police officer Tom Coleman. Coleman is now under indictment for perjury.

Here in New York City crooked cops find it necessary to plant evidence in order to win convictions, but not so in the Texas panhandle. Coleman had no evidence, not wire taps, videotapes or even the drugs that had allegedly been sold. Yet he succeeded in getting sentences of up to 99 years in these cases.

I first read about the Tulia case in Bob Herbert's New York Times column. Attorneys in Texas, New York, and Washington, many of them volunteers, were all part of the successful defense effort. The result is that all of the defendants have been freed and 35 have been pardoned by the governor of Texas.

I watched a story about Tulia on the September 28th season premier of 60 Minutes and it was truly painful to revisit. Some of the cases were dismissed because the accused were able to prove they were at work or, like Tonya White, not in Tulia during the alleged drug dealing. One defendant, Joe Moore, is a pig farmer living in what I can only describe as a shack. That alone should have been evidence that he wasn't a drug dealer. I always thought that drug dealers plied their trade to avoid living in shacks.

Correspondent Ed Bradley interviewed Coleman in an exchange that was both frightening and comical. Coleman was defiant but kept addressing Ed Bradley as "Sir." The former cop admitted using the word nigger many times but when asked if he would address Bradley that way he replied, “Oh, no sir, not you.” He still maintains that the defendants were drug dealers, even when presented with Tonya White’s proof of being in Oklahoma. The strangest question from Bradley was, "How has this affected your life?" Tom Coleman is not yet behind bars. Because of his actions 46 people were imprisoned unjustly and lost their freedom for more than three years. I hope I was not the only viewer who wasn't concerned about Coleman’s life. But surprisingly, this segment was not the most disturbing portion of the broadcast.

Bradley spoke with Elaine Jones of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, whose attorneys played a key role in overturning the convictions. Ed Bradley asked a very predictable question, "How did this happen?" Ms. Jones stated the obvious when she said, “The defendants in Tulia are guilty of being Black and living in Tulia.” She went on to say that the town was too small to have a market for drug dealing on such a scale, and also blamed the excesses created by the war on drugs.

My initial reaction to Ms. Jones’ statement was that such a heinous injustice required more than a matter of fact explanation about population size and overzealous bureaucracy. But in fairness to Bradley and Jones, I am sure that their conversation was much longer than the snippets shown to viewers. They may have discussed the nature of racism, the farce that is the war on drugs, and how that led to Tulia and other cases of police and judicial misconduct. Elaine Jones and her colleagues who worked on this case could tell us all a lot more if they were not constrained by the need to allow time for real news, advertisements, and the genius of Andy Rooney.

However, the rest of us are under no such restrictions and should use these much needed if incomplete news reports as an opportunity to speak honestly about Tulia and other injustices. The sad truth is, these convictions occurred because of white supremacy. Tom Coleman had credibility with jurors because he has white skin. He didn't need wiretaps or fingerprints. A white face declaring black guilt was sufficient evidence to get prison sentences for non-existent crimes.