Judge Edward Aaron (January 24, 1923 – March 11, 1991) was an African American handyman in Birmingham, Alabama, who was abducted by seven members of Asa Earl Carter's independent Ku Klux Klan group on Labor Day, September 2, 1957.
[2] Aaron, who was mildly developmentally disabled, was abducted by Klan members who beat him with an iron bar, carved the letters "KKK" into his chest, castrated him with a razor, and poured turpentine on his wounds.
[3] Police found Aaron, near death from blood loss, and took him to Hillman Hospital, where he was treated and survived.
[4] Two of the six Klansmen turned state's evidence and received five-year sentences in exchange for testifying against the other four men.
However, when George Wallace became governor of Alabama, he pardoned the four convicted men, but not the two who had turned state's evidence, with no explanation.