Simon Glanton's Grocery (Cash Grocery)

Address: 467 Hancock Street

The Cash Grocery, owned by Simon Henry and Lydia Jackson Glanton, was a small Black business staple. Simon Henry Glanton was born on May 6, 1911, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee and registered for the draft in World War II at the age of 29. At the time he was living at 705 E. Street in Murfreesboro with his wife Lydia. In 1950, Glanton’s name appears as he posted bail for Sam Henry Batey Jr. who was wrongfully accused as a “peeping tom.” Batey Jr.’s petition for the writ of habeas corpus contends that he was walking down the street when he was “most brutally beaten” by police and did not receive a trial as prescribed by law for his supposed actions. At the time of the arrest, no ordinance was made against “prowling and loitering” or acts the “create public alarm and terror.” Such ordinances, like ones implemented by the city council a few weeks after Batey Jr.’s arrest, were common tools of segregation era politics in which enforcement varied by race. Simon H. Glanton, undertaker John Killgo, and Ethel May Scott, all contributed to the $250 bond to release Batey Jr. on bail.