On Friday Oct. 16, 1914, Evansville resident Robert Collier became the first Black man in Indiana to be sentenced to death in the electric chair after being convicted of the shooting death of a white police officer in an act of self-defense. In what seems to be a twisted act of fate, Collier helped build the chair that would ultimately be used as the instrument for his mortality.
Collier’s story remained untold for decades. An otherworldly experience then led his great-great granddaughter Latonya Collier on a journey to uncover the past.
“Some people believe in dreams, some don’t but it was like a mirror to the unseen world,” she said of the first time she saw her ancestor appear to her in a dream. Collier said in 1995 she had a dream of an image coming toward her out of pitch black space. “The closer it got to me I could see it was the image of a man,” she said.
It wouldn’t be until she ran out of ideas for a research paper in her criminal justice class that she would finally meet the man face to face.
“I went to visit my great aunt and I said ‘I’m out of ideas’ and she said ‘Sweetie, why don’t you write about your great-great grandfather?’” During a library visit to conduct research, Collier stumbled upon the image of this man again and learned he was indeed her great-great grandfather, Robert Collier.
“I thought I was going to faint,” she said. “That image is the exact same picture that’s on the cover of my book.”
After completing her research paper, Collier wanted to learn more about her late relative. Her book, Show No Fear: The 1914 Execution of Robert Collier’is the result of 10 years of research that followed soon after.
“I tell people all the time, you don’t have to believe in the supernatural or the unseen but it exists. He contacted me from beyond and I’ve been on that journey ever since,” said Collier who after the release of Show No Fear started her own publishing company, Collier Publishing and Consulting Inc., in honor of Robert Collier’s legacy.
“He was illiterate, he was handicapped, he had tuberculosis, and he was Black so he had a lot of things against him,” she said. “But he encouraged education and he told not only the media that interviewed him at the time but also family members that education was the only way to beat the system.”
On Oct. 11, Collier Publishing will host a Passing on the Legacy event from 1-4 p.m. at the Brookside Family Center located at 3500 Brookside Parkway South Drive. The event will feature community vendors, discussions, raffles, activities for children, a viewing of a documentary film on Robert Collier as well as a book signing for Show No Fear, Lord! Help Me, I’ve got Children, which is a novel with life lessons on parenting, healthy eating, spirituality, and overcoming the obstacles of single parenting and Collier’s first book Seduction in a Maze.
Reflecting the embodiment of Hebrews 12:1 which reads, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,” Collier’s vision is to share that legacy of her ancestors with everyone around her.
“I think it is so important that it’s a matter of life or death, it’s a matter of survival – you have to know your history,” said Collier “Once you learn your history and educate yourself the next step is to pass it on.”
For more information about Robert Collier, visit collierpublishing.net.
