The group had an illustrious membership; "luminaries included W.E.B. Du Bois; Mary Church Terrell, a suffragist and founder of the National Association of Colored Women; Charlotte Hawkins Brown, a popular clubwoman and respected educator; Ira De A. Reid, a sociologist and assistant director of the new formed Southern Regional Council; John Sengstacke, the publisher of the "Chicago Defender"; Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes of Harlem Renaissance fame; Lillian Smith, author of the controversial interracial love story "Strange Fruit"; and Broadway impresario Oscar Hammerstein II." The "illustrious" group drew the attention of the FBI as the House Un-American Activities Committee argued that the group was simply a cover for the Communist Party. After Governor Sparks launched an investigation, Sheriff Gamble was interviewed again about the measures he took to ensure justice on the behalf of Taylor. Gamble falsely claimed that he started an investigation of his own immediately after the attack. He also claimed that he had arrested all of the men involved in the rape two days after the assault, and that he had placed Hugo Wilson, the man identified as being the owner of the car, under a $500 bond. He also accused Taylor of being "nothing but a whore around Abbeville" and that she had been "treated for some time by the Health Officer of Henry County for venereal disease." Later, other white men from Abbeville identified Taylor as an "upstanding, respectable woman who abided by the town's racial and sexual mores". Investigators interviewed the rapists, and four of the seven men "admitted to having intercourse with Taylor, but argued that she was essentially a prostitute and willing participant." Others, including Herbert Lovett, denied knowing anything about the attack. However, one of the assailants, Joe Culpepper, admitted that he and the other rapists were out looking for a woman the night of the attack, that Lovett got out of the car with a gun and spoke to Taylor, that Taylor was forced into the car and later forced out of the car and made to undress at gunpoint, was raped and later blindfolded and left on the side of the road. Culpepper's retelling of the story was directly in line with Taylor's original account. However, even with this information including several of the alleged assailants testimonies, the attorney general "failed to convince the jurors of Henry County that there was enough evidence to indict the seven suspects when he presented Taylor's case on February 14, 1945."