-- WHO WAS WHO

  • Cole Blease was one of the defense lawyers for James Tillman, accused and tried for the fatal shooting of N.G. Gonzales, a founder and editor of The
  State. Blease went on to become S.C. governor and U.S. senator. He was known for being an outspoken racist, advocating the lynching of black people.

  • James Byrnes was hired by The State as a stenographer to attend Tillman's trial and provide daily transcripts of the testimony for the newspaper.
  Byrnes later was U.S. senator, U.S. Supreme Court justice, wartime adviser to President Franklin Roosevelt, and S.C. governor.

  • Ambrose Gonzales, with his brother, N.G., founded The State, South Carolina's largest newspaper.

  • Robert Lathan, N.G. Gonzales' young assistant, took a final, dying statement from the editor that was introduced at trial. In 1925, writing editorials for
  the Charleston News & Courier, Lathan won a Pulitzer Prize. It is the only Pulitzer ever won by a S.C. newspaper.

  • Patrick Henry Nelson was Tillman's lead defense lawyer. The law firm he founded, Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, is the state's largest, with almost
  300 lawyers. State Rep. James Smith, D-Richland, minority leader in the S.C. House of Representatives, is a descendant.

  • William Thurmond prosecuted Tillman. His son was Strom Thurmond, U.S. senator from 1954 to this year. His grandson, Strom Thurmond Jr., is U.S.
  attorney, a post that William Thurmond also once held.