Biography
Hanover Thompson was arrested on October 28, 1958.
James Hanover Thompson was a nine-year-old boy at the center of the 'Kissing Case' in Monroe, North Carolina. In October 1958, after a white girl kissed him on the cheek during a children's game, he and seven-year-old David 'Fuzzy' Simpson were arrested, held days without counsel, tried for 'attempted rape,' and committed to a reform school on indeterminate sentences. International protest — and a defense led by Robert F. Williams and the NAACP — won their release in early 1959.
The Equal Justice Initiative identifies J. Hampton Price as the juvenile judge who committed Thompson and Simpson to the Morrison Training School, and Walter Johnston as the judge who denied relief at a separate January 12, 1959 hearing. Its account dates the original commitment to November 3, 1958, differing from November 4 reported elsewhere. It records a February 13, 1959 pardon followed by their return to their families, without separately dating the physical discharge.
