David Olius “Ollie” Battle, a 33-year-old White male deputy sheriff from the Birmingham area, was spending Christmas Eve 1910 with his family in Oak Grove when the quiet of the holiday was broken by reports of gunfire at the nearby Laird home. A neighbor, Jepp Knight, went to Battle for help, and Battle answered as an officer even while off duty, heading toward the disturbance to see what had happened. What he found, according to later historical accounts, was a scene already steeped in bloo
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