Shug

In the fall of 1958, when I was in the early months of my freshman year at Clark College (now Clark Atlanta University), a male first cousin, Albert "Shug" Hill, Jr. age 17, brother of six, an eleventh grader, Black youth, was shot and killed by the Hill's next door neighbor, one Earl Vance Shivers, age 36, father of seven, white. According to the local newspaper, Mr. Shivers said the teenager was looking through a window of the Shivers' home in which sat his wife and daughter....
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In the fall of 1958, when I was in the early months of my freshman year at Clark College (now Clark Atlanta University), a male first cousin, Albert "Shug" Hill, Jr. age 17, brother of six, an eleventh grader, Black youth, was shot and killed by the Hill's next door neighbor, one Earl Vance Shivers, age 36, father of seven, white. According to the local newspaper, Mr. Shivers said the teenager was looking through a window of the Shivers' home in which sat his wife and daughter.

Albert's father sought to bring wrongful death charges against the man, but the Sheriff of that time, one Carlus Gay, refused to process such charges, reportedly saying that it was not allowed in the State of Georgia for a Black man to bring charges against any white man.

Thus, there never was any justice exacted, commanded, adjudged, or meted, so for more than 63 years Albert "Shug" Hill, Jr. has lain a-molding in his grave all but forgotten. It is here in this small book, SHUG--Wrongful Death: Remembering the Forgotten, Exploring the Unknown, Seeking the Truth--that we commemorate him.