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Eye Opener: Census Worker Found Hanged
Updated 2:19 p.m. ET
A part-time Census Bureau field worker was found hanged in Kentucky Sept.
12 with the word "fed" scrawled across his chest, according to a law
enforcement source. Bill Sparkman, 51, who was white, was found at the
Daniel Boone National Forest in rural southeast Kentucky, the Associated
Press first reported Wednesday night.
Sparkman, an Eagle scout, moved to southeast Kentucky to be a local
director for the Boy Scouts of America, his mother told the AP. He most
recently served as a substitute teacher in Laurel County and earned extra
money as a Census field worker.
Census Worker's Death: The Next Generation of Lynching? - William sparkman - Gawker
We know that the levels of right-wing vitriol have reached psychotic new
heights. But could they really be behind the "apparent homicide" of a
Kentucky census worker, William Sparkman? Should we be calling this, as
some are, a "lynching?"
On September 12, the same day as those wacky protests, Sparkman was
found hanging from a tree with the word "fed" carved into his chest. The 51-
year old single father and substitute teacher had been canvassing Kentucky's
rural, poor Clay County for the Census Bureau. That sounds like a pretty safe
job, yes,
but locals warned Sparkman of hidden dangers lurking in the blue
grass. Recalled former State Trooper Gilbert Acciardo:
I told him on more than one occasion, based on my years in the state
police, 'Mr. Sparkman, when you go into those counties, be careful because
people are going to perceive you different than they do elsewhere.
Even though he was with the Census Bureau, sometimes people can view
someone with any government agency as 'the government.' I just was afraid
that he might meet the wrong character along the way up there.
Turning Sparkman into a symbol will be easy
— he was a single father, an Eagle Scout and completed his teaching degree while fighting cancer