Murder Victim's Son Finds Solace at Civil Rights Memorial Center

For most of his life, Ray McCarthy believed his father died in a car wreck before he was born.

But six years ago, he learned the truth: His father was actually the victim of a civil rights-era shooting in Maryland in 1963. It was a secret his mother had kept for decades, most likely to prevent her son from growing up with anger and hatred over the death of his father, Reinaldo Colon Rodriguez.

“It was kind of shocking,” said McCarthy, 47. “It just came out at me from left field.”

A few years after his mother’s revelation, an Internet search revealed more about McCarthy’s father: For years, his memory had been honored at the Civil Rights Memorial Center in Montgomery, Ala. The discovery would ultimately bring McCarthy and his wife from their home in Suffolk, Va., to Montgomery to see Rodriguez’s name honored among others tragically killed during the civil rights era.

His name is included in a display honoring “The Forgotten” – men and women whose deaths during the civil rights movement suggest they were victims of racial violence. Like so many deaths at that time, the circumstances of the slayings have remained largely unknown or incomplete. The media often paid little attention to these deaths, and many murders were never seriously investigated – sometimes because of the callous indifference or complicity of law enforcement officers. These men and women are a reminder that the names of all those lost to racial violence during the civil rights movement will never be known.

“I don’t know how to describe it,” McCarthy said of seeing his father’s name during the visit this past August. “The whole visit there was just … it was just heart-touching.”

Since the Civil Rights Memorial Center (CRMC) opened on Oct. 23, 2005, more than 100,000 people have visited it to learn more about the struggle for civil rights and, in McCarthy’s instance, to honor a family member. The Southern Poverty Law Center created the CRMC to provide a destination for people seeking to deepen their understanding of the civil rights movement and to forge a connection with it.

“I consistently hear that ours isn’t a museum but rather a reverent place where visitors make emotional connections to those who lost their lives during the struggle for civil rights,” said CRMC Director Lecia Brooks.

Tragedy in Maryland
For McCarthy, his connection was already deeply personal. His family found newspaper articles that provided details about the slaying and the federal trial that followed. These articles, combined with news reports found by the SPLC, provide the following account of his father’s death.

Reinaldo Colon Rodriguez was a private at Fort Meade, Md., when he was shot and killed on July 5, 1963. The events leading to the slaying began two days earlier when Rodriguez, who was Puerto Rican, accompanied a black soldier to a bar near the base. As was so often the case in the era before the passage of landmark civil rights laws, they were refused service. And they were told to never come back. A deputy U.S. attorney would later tell a jury that the men left the bar in “a shower of rocks.”

A day later, the black soldier’s car was pelted with rocks by white youths as he drove past the bar. Then, the black soldier, Rodriguez and another black companion passed the bar once more, and again the car was bombarded, according to accounts of the trial.

This time, however, two cars carrying about a dozen white men chased Rodriguez and his companions onto the military base. Two of the pursuers stepped out of their vehicle and attacked a black soldier who was walking by. When Rodriguez stepped out of the car, one of the pursuers fired a shotgun, killing him with a blast to the face and chest. McCarthy said his father was only four months away from completing his military service at the time of his death.

A few months after the slaying, an all-white, male jury convicted a white man of voluntary manslaughter in Rodriguez’s death. He was sentenced to eight years in prison. The alleged gunman told the jury he intended only to frighten Rodriguez by firing the shotgun into the air.

Visiting the CRMC
During McCarthy’s visit to the Civil Rights Memorial Center, he watched “Faces in the Water,” the center’s powerful film about the martyrs whose names are inscribed on the circular, black granite table of the Civil Rights Memorial. The film begins by highlighting the murder of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old boy who was beaten, shot and dumped into a river by two men after Till reportedly whistled at a white woman in a Mississippi store. An all-white jury found the men innocent of murder.

“It brought tears to my eyes, the things that happened,” said McCarthy, a shipyard supervisor. “I know it’s a different time, but it’s just unreal the things that people had to go through just because of their color.”

As McCarthy’s visit came to close, he and his wife stood before the Wall of Tolerance, which displays the names of visitors who have pledged to uphold the ideals of the civil rights movement. Thousands upon thousands of digitally projected names rain down the wall like water – names of people who have committed themselves to the fight for justice.

McCarthy signed his name to the wall twice. He typed in the name he took when his stepfather adopted him – Raymond McCarthy. And in honor of his father, he entered the name he was given at birth – Reinaldo Rodriguez Jr.

The name appeared on the wall, illuminated above McCarthy. It was now a permanent part of the memorial center, along with the name of the father he never met. Now, both names are preserved, father and son joined together.

“It was heartwarming,” McCarthy said. “It makes me proud to know that my father’s name is there. It is a special feeling.

“I do have some closure, and my heart goes out to all of those people that may never have that.”

Maryann and Ray McCarthy