Widow waits 25 years for memorial to slain prison guard

Posted 6:55PM on Saturday 30th March 2002 ( 23 years ago )

ATLANTA - Almost 25 years after a prison guard was viciously killed during a riot at Georgia State Prison in Reidsville, his widow has been promised a memorial in his honor. Dan Harrison was stabbed 61 times during the infamous Reidsville riot in July 1978, which brought national attention and triggered sweeping reforms in Georgia prisons. Nearly every bone in Harrison's body was broken. Inmates dragged his body up and down the halls and tried to burn the corpse by piling mattresses on it and setting them on fire. Two inmates also were killed, one of them stabbed 75 times. Harrison's widow, Alicia McEachin, says she was told the prison would be renamed in his honor. But nothing happened. First she was told the Georgia State Prison couldn't be renamed because it was written in state law. State politicians assured her some other jail would be named for Harrison. Later they promised a memorial garden, then a plaque, something to mark the gruesome killing of the only Georgia guard ever to die in prison at the hands of inmates. Each time, the funding fell through, or a lawmaker wouldn't call her back. Years became decades, and McEachin quietly raised their three children, remarried and watched as other prisons were named for people, even as officials assured her they were working hard to find an honor for Harrison. Now, 25 years later, House budget writers have finally allotted $47,000 for a bronze statue of Harrison. The life-size statue will be placed in a rotunda at Georgia State Prison with a plaque about the riot. But McEachin says she will not be at peace until she sees the statue with her own eyes. The budget process at the Legislature is not over yet, and the money still could be cut. ``You don't know how many times people have hugged me, held my hand and dried my tears and said, 'This is an outrage. We're gonna fix this,''' McEachin told The Associated Press from her home in Vidalia. ``I waited and waited and waited, and nothing ever happened,'' she said. The delay was caused in part by the atrocity of Harrison's death, said Rep. Roger Byrd, D-Hazlehurst. The bloodshed made national news and led to a complete overhaul of Georgia's prison system. Years later, it was still difficult for people to talk about. ``It was such a terrible thing, I think a lot of people didn't want to deal with it,'' Byrd said. Focus instead shifted to improving state prisons. The maximum security prison now holds about 1,300 inmates, down from 3,000 in 1978. ``Georgia State Prison was notorious,'' said Scott Stallings, spokesman for the Georgia Department of Corrections, who said the prison still holds ``the worst of the worst.'' ``The riot helped bring on the change from the old camp style of prisons to the new rehabilitation style. The murders at Reidsville led to major changes in the prison system, not just in Georgia but all over. It was national news,'' he said. According to Johnny Sikes, a former prison guard at Reidsville and now a regional director for the department, the riot was caused in part by overcrowding and resistance to integration. ``It was all blacks on one side, whites on the other. They were more opposed to integration than any of the officials,'' Sikes said. The department responded to the riot by decreasing Reidsville's inmate population and adding better-trained staff. State officials poured $100 million into improvements, said Sen. Jack Hill, D-Reidsville. ``That riot precipitated completely revamping the prison system,'' Hill said. The prison now operates as smoothly as possible, Sikes said, and the 1978 riot is seldom discussed, even among inmates who were there when it happened. ``We've grown beyond that now,'' Sikes said. But for McEachin, the murder of Dan Harrison should not be forgotten, especially at Georgia State Prison. ``It just gets put on hold year after year until it's like they don't remember it ever happened,'' she said. ``I haven't even told anyone about the statue, except for immediate family. So many times I've told people something's going to happen, then they just get disappointed. It's hard. It's been real hard. This time, hopefully it will come through. But I'm not believing it until it happens.''

http://accesswdun.com/article/2002/3/196704