The Trenton Six (Ralph Cooper, Collis English, McKinley Forrest, John McKenzie, James Thorpe, and Horace Wilson) is the group of the six African-American men convicted in August 1948 by an all-white jury sentenced to death for the alleged murder of elderly white shopkeeper William Horner in Trenton. The Civil Rights Congress and the NAACP had legal teams that represented three men each in appeals to the State Supreme Court. The NAACP claimed that the court’s instruction to the jury, and remanded the case to a lower court for retrial. After several trials, Forrest, McKenzie, Thorpe and Wilson were all acquitted, Cooper pled guilty and was sentenced to life and was paroled in 1954 before disappearing from records and English died in prison.
Go visit the Eastern Service Workers Association located at 6 West End Ave and speak to Michael Clark. He can give you the full story of what happened and the black woman who was instrumental in getting them exonerated. Or call him at (609) 695-9562. This is history that many black Americans do not know about and most have lived here all their life.