Introduction

On Sunday morning, August 3, 1952, in Live Oak, a small farming town in north Florida, Ruby McCollum entered the colored entrance of Dr. C. Leroy Adams’ office, walked past two waiting colored patients, appeared to confront the doctor over a bill, then fired three shots into his body, leaving him sprawled facedown on the floor between the colored waiting and treatment rooms.

After the colored patients ran screaming out of the waiting room into the alley, Ruby fired a fourth bullet into the physician’s prostrate body.

Lingering by the dying man for several minutes to regain her composure, Ruby returned her .32 caliber nickel-plated Smith & Wesson to her purse, locked up the office, and walked calmly to her 1951 two-toned blue Chrysler. Checking on her two small children in the back seat, she drove out of the alley and through the center of town, passing the police station two blocks away on her route home.

In less than an hour, every law enforcement vehicle in Suwannee County was parked in front of the McCollum home, a two-story, Spanish-style mansion surrounded by tin-roofed bungalows. In less than half an hour, three officers escorted Ruby to their vehicle through a growing crowd, defusing the situation by telling them that she was an eyewitness who was going to lead them to the person who murdered Dr. Adams.

Accompanied by a squad of Florida Highway Patrol cars, and under direct orders from Governor Fuller Warren in Tallahassee, Ruby was rushed over 50 miles away to the Florida State Prison Farm in Raiford, the home of Florida’s famous electric chair.

Had Ruby McCollum been an ordinary colored woman, she would have been promptly transported a mile away to the Suwannee County jail, a two-story red brick building on the grounds of the county courthouse in downtown Live Oak. But Ruby was no ordinary colored woman―she was married to “Bolita Sam,” the gambling kingpin of Suwannee County.

This clearly complicated matters in the minds of the arresting officers, since Sam McCollum’s bolita business operated under their full protection. In return for their protection, law enforcement officials were paid in “cash money,” leaving no audit trail to connect them to their role in the gambling racquet―and no taxes to pay to the IRS.

Were it not for Ruby’s accounting book, none of this would have mattered. But many prominent members of the white community were aware that their names were recorded in Ruby’s ledger, along with a record of no-interest “loans” from Sam McCollum.

The Monday morning following the murder found many of Live Oak’s citizens lined up for haircuts at Deese’s Barber Shop, or hairdos at Annie’s Beauty Shop, to ceremoniously lament their loss and prepare for their beloved physician’s funeral. Stories were shared about the “poor man’s doctor,” the “best friend a man ever had,” and the “only doctor who visited coloreds.”

Slowly, public lamentations gave way to whispers about Adams’ darker side. Slowly, inevitably, the sordid story of illicit sex, greed, drugs and murder came into focus.

Rumors circulated about Loretta, Ruby’s light-skinned child by Adams. People began to talk about Roy Adams, Leroy’s father, and how he had been run out of Live Oak years ago for fathering a family by his colored mistress.

Although colored mistresses were popular at the time―primarily because they were inexpensive to maintain and free from paternity issues―there was an unspoken “quota” of mulatto children that white society was willing to tolerate. The fear was that the offspring of these unholy unions, with skin shades running the gamut between colored and white, might confuse the otherwise clear demarcation between Negro and Caucasian and lead to integration.

Then there were the rumors about Adams having his hand in Sam McCollum’s bolita business, serving as the connection with the white establishment that provided immunity for Sam’s illegal gambling and liquor operations in Suwannee County.

After the funeral, the town’s weekly newspaper, the Suwannee Democrat, ran the story of the murder with the headline, “Dr. Adams Murdered by Negress.” Adams’ campaign photograph appeared beneath the headline with the caption, “Murdered.” Needless to say, this caption had a tremendous impact on readers who had grown to associate Adams’ image with campaign promises of no new taxes, free medical care for the elderly, exemption of barren land from taxes for 10 years, better schools, a medical school in the state, and a greater share of south Florida’s race track taxes.

The Democrat went on to describe the doctor’s funeral, the largest in the history of Suwannee County. The newspaper referred to the “beloved Dr. Adams”―the Democratic senatorial candidate voted in by a landslide―as “noble,” and characterized the murder as a senseless slaying by an angry “Negress” over her doctor bill.

Newspapers around the country picked up the story, echoing the assertion that the murder, perpetrated by Ruby McCollum―the “Negress” in question―happened during a heated dispute over her doctor bill.

While the newspapers perpetuated the officially sanctioned version of the story, the citizens of Live Oak knew better.

The whispering grew louder.

People asked themselves why Ruby McCollum―the wealthiest colored woman in Suwannee County with a reputation for paying her debts―would murder a doctor whose byword was, “Pay me what you can, when you can.”

The official version of the story just didn’t add up.