The sensational case was covered widely in the United States press (including a report written by Zora Neale Hurston for the Pittsburgh Courier, the first for a newspaper outside Florida), and gained coverage by international papers also.
[2] In the 21st century, McCollum and her case have received renewed attention, with books and four film documentaries released that explores the issues of race, class, sexual violence, gender, and corruption in local politics.
[3][4] McCollum is thought to be the first black woman to testify in court against a white man's sexual abuse and his paternity of their child.
[2] McCollum later said that her youngest child, Loretta, who was born in Live Oak, was fathered by C. Leroy Adams, a white doctor, during a forced relationship.
The McCollums also owned a farm near Lake City, where Sam stocked fields with quail for hunting with his prized bird dogs.
[citation needed] Following Reconstruction, the White Democrat-dominated state legislature had passed a new constitution and laws to create legal racial segregation and Jim Crow conditions.
[citation needed] By 1952, black men could legally serve on juries, but participation was restricted due to the barriers to voting, as noted above.
The power relations of White men taking sexual advantage of Black women had a long history dating to the antebellum years, when African Americans were enslaved throughout the South.
Into the 20th century, powerful white men would insist on what was called "paramour rights", forcing Black women into sexual relations.
It was discovered years after his death, by a team researching a documentary film, that Adams had forged recommendations that supported his admission to medical school.
[7] On August 3, 1952, Ruby McCollum met Dr. C. Leroy Adams, a white physician and state senator-elect, in his office in Live Oak, Florida.
Later, researchers found that McCollum had left notes and letters that said Adams had sexually abused her, and that she was pregnant with another child by him when she killed him.
[2] But, Charles Hall, the local undertaker at the time, when interviewed in the early 21st century, said that Sam "knew his life was over" when his wife shot Adams.
Hall claimed that Sam purposely overdosed on his heart medication and died after knowing his kids were safe with Ruby's mother.
[1] In front of an all-white male jury, McCollum testified that Adams raped her in her home and in his office (located immediately across the street from the courthouse), and that he insisted that she bear his child.
According to Zora Neale Hurston, who reported on the trial for the Pittsburgh Courier: Ruby was allowed to describe how, about 1948, during an extended absence of her husband, she had, in her home, succumbed to the sexual assault.
"[9] The prosecuting attorney said that McCollum had shot Adams in anger over a disputed bill, an account supported by three witnesses during the trial.
[13] Upon appeal of McCollum's death sentence, the Florida Supreme Court determined that Judge Adams had violated the defendant's civil rights by not allowing her to be present at the jury visit to the scene of the crime.
Concerned for her mental health following her impending second trial, defense attorney Frank Cannon arranged for McCollum to be examined in the county jail, where she had been held for about two years.
Upon receiving the results of an examination of McCollum by court-appointed physicians, including Dr. Adams' associate Dr. Dillard Workman, the state attorney Randall Slaughter agreed to the plea.
[14] The noted African-American writer Zora Neale Hurston covered the trial as a free lance reporter for the Pittsburgh Courier from the fall of 1952 through Ruby McCollum's conviction just before Christmas that year.
Hurston, who was unable to attend the appeal or the second trial for financial reasons, contacted journalist William Bradford Huie to interest him in the case.
Huie did investigate the story and, after attending the appeal and second trial, published Ruby McCollum: Woman in the Suwannee Jail (1956).
At one point, Judge Adams charged Huie with contempt of court for attempting to influence Dr. Fernay, a witness scheduled to testify as to McCollum's sanity.
[1] McCollum lived after her release in a rest home in Silver Springs, Florida, funded by a trust set up by author William Bradford Huie.
[2] In November 1980, Al Lee of the Ocala Star Banner interviewed McCollum at the rest home in Silver Springs.
[1] In those years, the State Mental Hospital at Chattahoochee was investigated more than once over issues of patient treatment, overuse of medications including thorazine, and the administration of electroshock therapy, which can affect memory.
[citation needed] This established the trial as a landmark case, since no other black woman who had shot and killed a white man had ever been allowed to testify in her own defense.
Ellis said that McCollum noted in a letter to her attorneys that she turned down an interview with a reporter from a Jacksonville newspaper who visited her in prison at Raiford.
Z N Hurston wrote to Huie dated May 14, 1954, stating, "I suspect that two ruthless individuals met and tangled in Ruby and Dr. Adams.