Virgil Ware

Virgil Ware (born 1950 - died September 15, 1963) was shot in the chest and face while riding on the handlebars of his brother's bicycle on Docena-Sandusky Road on the afternoon following the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church. His killer was teenager Larry Joe Sims.

Ware was the third of six children born to ____ and Lorene Ware, residents of Pratt City. Mr Ware was a miner employed at the Docena mine nearby. Lorene worked as a cleaning woman. Virgil, then a student at Sandusky Elementary School, played tight end for his 8th grade football team. He also helped deliver coal for extra money. He was planning to go to college to study to become a lawyer. He and his brothers Melvin and James had just secured a newspaper delivery route soon before he died.

Virgil rode with James to their uncle's scrapyard near Docena that Sunday to look for a bicycle they could fix up to split the route. They did not find one, and were riding back to their house when Sims, riding with his friend Michael Lee Farley, and holding Farley's new .22 revolver, closed his eyes and fired a few shots to "scare" the boys.

Farley and Sims had earlier attended an anti-immigration rally at which Farley's pastor, Ferrell Griswold, denounced the bombing, but asserted the State's right to preserve segregation. An effigy of Bobby Kennedy, then-Attorney General, was burned at the rally. Afterward, Farley and Sims heard about a white teen, Dennis Robertson, who was nearly killed by a brick thrown by a black teenager during the day. They claimed to have been warned by friends that two boys on a bicycle were throwing rocks at whites, and Farley claimed to have seen rocks in their hands as they approached on his motor scooter. They drove off with Sims thinking he may have hit Ware in the leg, so they asked a friend to hide the gun. Found by detectives the next day, Farley denied involvement, but Sims confessed in tears.

The two were both charged with first-degree murder. Sims was convicted on the lesser charge of second-degree manslaughter -- the same charge to which Farley later pleaded. Judge Wallace Gibson suspended their sentences and gave them two years' probation for their "lapse".

In the 1990s U. S. District Judge Willie James Ware, a Birmingham native then on the bench in San Jose, California, claimed that he had been inspired to pursue justice when his brother Virgil was shot off the handlebars of his bicycle. It was quickly revealed that Judge Ware was not Virgil's brother. After admitting to the lie, he withdrew his nomination to the Circuit Court and was publicly reprimanded by the Judicial Council of the Northern District Court of California.

References

• Copeland, Larry (May 3, 2004) "A martyr gains history's embrace." USA Today.
• Padgett, Tim and Frank Sikora (September 22, 2003) "The Legacy of Virgil Ware." TIME Magazine.
• Breitrose, Charlie (August 28, 1988) "Courts: Judge Ware reprimanded by his peers." Palo Alto Weekly.