Joanne Little / On the Line.

Atlanta, Georgia: Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project, (n. d.), circa 1975. 45 vinyl record in a 7 x 7-1/4 inch sleeve. White paper sleeve printed in black, with b&w photographic illustration of Little and description of her case to recto; verso blank. Light creasing and soiling to sleeve, with few small tears to opening and approx. 2" split to bottom fold. Record has a short, faint scratch on Side 1, but otherwise appears clean and undamaged -- we have not tested it on a player. Very Good.

A scarce 45 record produced by the Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project to raise funds for the Joanne Little Defense Fund, as well as for other incarcerated men and women in the South. Side 1 of the record is "Joanne Little," written and sung by Bernice Reagon, and Side 2 is "On the Line," written by John D. Loudermilk and sung by Anne Romaine. The songs were first issued on Reagon's album, Give Your Hands to Struggle, and Romaine's Mountain Morning Sun, respectively. Reagon's song urges listeners to recognize that "Joan is you and Joan is me / Our prison is the whole society.” Romaine's points out that "human rights are on the line" in Little's case, and compares it to the case of Inez Garcia, who was also on trial at the time for killing a man who helped rape her.

Joanne (Joan) Little (b. 1954) is a Black woman who was charged with the murder of white jail guard Clarence Alligood in 1974, after Alligood sexually assaulted her in her cell. Little, who was incarcerated at the Beaufort County jail at the time, after being convicted in June 1974 for felony breaking and entering and larceny, fatally stabbed Alligood with an icepick when he assaulted her; he was discovered on Little's bunk, naked from the waist down, with stab wounds to the temple and heart and semen on his leg. Little initially fled the jail and became a fugitive, but turned herself in to authorities in Raleigh a week later. She was put on trial for first-degree murder, which carried a mandatory death sentence under state law. At the time, over a third of all death penalty cases in the U.S. were in North Carolina.

The case drew the attention of prisoners' rights advocates, civil rights activists, and feminists, who all worked to raise funds for the Joanne Little Defense Committee. It also put into stark focus the especially poor treatment of Black people in the Southern criminal justice system, adding to the media attention on the case. Women who had been incarcerated at the Beaufort County jail came forward to testify that Alligood had a history of using his position of authority to elicit sexual favors from women prisoners, often providing them with "gifts" like cigarettes and magazines with the expectation of receiving sexual acts in return. Although the prosecution argued that Little had seduced Alligood so she could murder him and escape, Little testified that Alligood had forced her to perform oral sex while threatening her with an icepick, and she was only able to get the icepick from him afterward when his guard was down. He then forcefully attacked her, and she stabbed him to protect herself.

The autopsy concluded that Little's explanation of events was true: Alligood's stab wounds were consistent with self-defense. Little became the first woman in the U.S. to be acquitted of murder committed in self-defense against sexual assault.

OCLC locates one holding, at the University of Michigan.