Murder on Shades Mountain: The Legal Lynching of Willie Peterson and the Struggle for Justice in Jim Crow Birmingham
288
Murder on Shades Mountain: The Legal Lynching of Willie Peterson and the Struggle for Justice in Jim Crow Birmingham
288Hardcover
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780822371175 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Duke University Press Books |
| Publication date: | 04/06/2018 |
| Pages: | 288 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.20(w) x 17.30(h) x 0.90(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
AUGUST 4, 1931
Nell Williams came down the mountain alone in the dark. She did not have the strength to lift her wounded sister Augusta into the car. Their friend Jennie Wood was lying nearby, spine shattered in the dew-wet grass.
"Go, Nell," Augusta pleaded. "Go get help."
Nell came down the mountain alone in the dark with a tire blown flat by a stray bullet. She shifted gears with her left arm while steadying the wheel with her knee, her right arm pressed against her side to stanch the bleeding.
Go, Nell. Go get help. Go get help.
Nell came down the mountain alone in the dark desperate to find a house with a front porch light on. Would she be greeted by a welcoming, soothing presence? Or someone who would berate her for being so reckless as to sit on those rocks at the crest of the mountain, ignoring what she had been told since childhood: No matter what time of day, don't go to secluded places. It's not safe. They prey on girls like you.
Go, Nell. Go get help. Go get help. Go get help.
Mrs. G. B. McCormack was sitting on her porch in Mountain Brook at 8:00 p.m., enjoying the cool evening breezes. She stood up when she heard an automobile coming up the driveway and the car door open. She could not make out the figure moving toward her, stumbling across the lawn. With one hand on her front door she called out, "Who is it?" Out of the shadows a young white woman with bloodstained clothes staggered onto the porch. Clutching her bleeding arm, Nell Williams asked to use the phone and pointed up the road.
"My sister and my friend are up there off Leeds Highway. They've been shot. ... I've been shot ... by a Negro."
Some people shut down after experiencing severe trauma, making it difficult for police and reporters to gather information while it is fresh. Nell had a need to talk. Maybe as a way of externalizing the horror, hoping if she shared the agonizing memories they would not stay locked inside forever.
Sitting near Mrs. McCormack as she dialed the police, Nell told how "the Negro" had come out of nowhere, held them hostage for four hours, then shot all three of them before disappearing into the woods. Standing on the road in front of the McCormack house waiting for the ambulance, Nell told her story to officer C. A. Nollner of the Mountain Brook police. Sitting in the front seat of the ambulance, she told the driver, Lewellyn John, and his assistant, Paul Sutter, as she led them back to the spot where Augusta and Jennie lay waiting in the dark. On the operating table, she told Dr. J. M. Mason and his team of nurses as they worked to remove the bullet lodged in her arm.
She told Jefferson County marshal W. W. Kilpatrick that the man was coal black and talked like he was well educated. She told Fred H. McDuff, Birmingham's chief of police, giving him a full description of the assailant. And early Wednesday, "between hysterical sobs and shudders," she told Marie Parks, reporter for the Birmingham Post.
"We had been to a show and were driving around before going home. We were going slowly and it was not yet dark when the negro jumped on the running board and pointed a gun at us demanding money. We offered him what we had but he forced me to drive into the woods. I was frightened and didn't know what to do so I followed his orders. When we got in the woods, he began to say insulting things."
As Nell described the ordeal to doctors, nurses, and reporters, she stressed how the assailant had lectured them and subjected them to continuous insults.
"He seemed to be making a speech and appeared to be an educated negro. He insulted us time and again, while we begged him to let us go. He blamed the white race for the negro's conditions and declared the white people are forever heaping injustice on the negro."
Nell said his "radical" diatribe grew so "ugly" and "sickening" she could not bear it any longer. That's when she grabbed at him, hoping the three of them could wrest the gun from him. But he started shooting, and eight rounds later all three women had been wounded. Augusta was shot in the abdomen, just below her rib cage. A bullet struck Jennie's neck, severing her spine. Nell was wounded in her upper right arm. All three women lay perfectly still until the man left on foot through the woods. Nell estimated he had held them hostage for four hours.
"I knew our only salvation would be for me to pretend I was dead. I lay there for what seemed an age, as he walked around us — at last he left. I thought he would never go."
When Nell's father came running through the doors at St. Vincent's Hospital, Augusta Williams was still alive. Her body was covered with blankets, her face bloody and pale. Three doctors were working to save her, but she had lost too much blood. Clark Williams watched helplessly as his daughter drew her last breath.
Hoping to shield Nell from additional trauma, her father said Augusta was resting comfortably. After she recovered her strength, there would be plenty of time for truth telling. Nell herself could have bled to death, doctors said. The bullet had pierced her brachial artery. They feared at first that they might have to amputate Nell's arm, but gangrene infection did not occur. It was Friday before Nell learned she had lost her beloved sister.
The prognosis for Jennie Wood was not good. She had been shot through the cervical spine. Chances were negligible that Jennie would survive her wounds. If she did, she would most likely be paralyzed. Only family members were permitted to see her. Mrs. Wood refused to leave her daughter alone in the hospital despite pleas from her husband and children to get some rest. She held vigil outside Jennie's room as friends came in shifts to comfort her.
All night and into the day on Wednesday, posses of officers and armed citizens combed the woods and fields of Shades Mountain in search of the suspect. The Jefferson County sheriff had called for assistance from the Birmingham police department. That night they deputized 250 white men. Other men, acting as self-appointed vigilantes, poured into the countryside. During the night, the homes of black residents in Birmingham were raided, people pulled out of bed, and a total of twenty local suspects arrested. As the Birmingham Post reported, "Feeling ran high in the exclusive Mountain Brook section Wednesday and posses representing every section of the city joined the manhunt."
No trace of the assailant was found that night except possibly one footprint, announced in the Birmingham Post as "belonging to the Negro." The scents and trails detected by bloodhounds turned out to be those of officers and bystanders.
"Above the Smoke and Dust of the City"
In the world that Clark and Helen Williams had worked so diligently to create for Nell, Augusta, and their two other children, a tragedy such as this was never supposed to happen. When a new subdivision of elegant homes was being developed on the crest of Red Mountain for Birmingham's white, wealthy, and upwardly mobile families, they had jumped at the chance to be among the first residents of the Redmont neighborhood.
The year was 1916 and Nell was only three years old. The bliss of being the baby in the family would soon be interrupted by the birth of her little sister, Genevieve. Clark Williams had a lucrative job as an attorney in a city that was growing at a phenomenal pace. Expecting their fourth child, the Williamses decided to move from their Phelan Park home that was now too small. Besides, like so many Birmingham residents, they longed to escape the industrial grime and stifling fumes pouring from the steel mills and factories. An ad for the new Redmont subdivision boasted that the development was "above the smoke and dust of the city, yet within walking distance."
Only white people had the option of moving up the mountain to Redmont. Black workers who labored in the city's blast furnaces and coke ovens had no way of escaping the toxic fumes or the debilitating health hazards resulting from those fumes. Many of Birmingham's black residents were relegated to company-built "quarters" near the furnaces or to racially segregated neighborhoods deemed undesirable by white residents — along railroad tracks, creek beds, or alleys.
Nell and Augusta grew up playing with the children of Birmingham's wealthiest families. The offspring of George W. Connors, president of Connors-Weyman Steel Company, were close friends and classmates. The Williams sisters rode ponies belonging to the great-grandchildren of Henry F. DeBardeleben, one of Birmingham's preeminent industrial magnates and a founder of the city.
It is likely that the only black people Nell and Augusta came to know personally were the servants and chauffeurs employed by white families in the neighborhoods where they were raised. Lucy Taylor was a widowed black woman in her sixties when she began working as nursemaid to the four Williams children. When Clark and Helen Williams moved to Redmont, Lucy Taylor went with them, living in the home on Aberdeen Road and working as their private nurse well into her seventies.
After graduating from Phillips High School, Augusta and Nell attended college. In August 1931, Augusta was a recent graduate of Ward-Belmont College in Nashville, Tennessee, regarded as one of the South's most prestigious finishing schools. Nell was on summer break from Birmingham-Southern, a private liberal arts college located on 192 acres of rolling hills on the western edge of Birmingham.
The Williams sisters may have come to know their friend Jennie Wood through Highlands Methodist Church. At age twenty-seven, Jennie was five years older than Augusta and nearly ten years older than Nell, but they had formed a close bond that transcended the age difference. Like Nell and Augusta, Jennie had two sisters and a brother. Jennie's parents owned a spacious two-story home in Birmingham's Forest Park, and her father enjoyed a healthy income as a produce dealer. After graduating from Birmingham-Southern in 1928 and attending Randolph-Mason College in Virginia, Jennie returned to Birmingham and threw herself into two activities she was passionate about: teaching children in the Highlands Church Sunday School and playing tennis. She had been a debutante, presented by the Redstone Club at its lavish Christmas Ball.
As Nell would later tell it, they had gone to a matinee picture show that Tuesday afternoon in early August. It was a beautiful day, so on a whim they decided to extend their leisurely afternoon by taking the Leeds Highway up Shades Mountain. It was not yet dinnertime and they would be back long before dark. There was room for all three of them in the spacious front seat of the Woods' seven-passenger LaSalle. Jennie drove slowly as they climbed the two-lane dirt road toward the crest of the hill, where an outcropping of boulders stood. They had been to those rocks for an Easter sunrise service and knew firsthand how stunning the view could be. That's all they wanted to do, Nell said. Simply sit on those rocks in the stillness of the late afternoon. Look out over the vast expanse of Shades Valley. Then pile back into Jennie's blue sedan and head for home.
"He Talked as if Well Educated"
When residents of Birmingham opened their Wednesday newspapers, they found a full-page spread featuring large photographs of the Williams sisters and Jennie Wood surrounded by column after column of Nell Williams's harrowing account. The Birmingham News devoted a full page to describing the crime scene. A photo showed four white men standing in a semicircle, holding flashlights trained on a grassy spot. Wearing suits, ties, and hats, they appeared to be men vested with authority. A fifth white man, more casually dressed in rolled-up shirtsleeves and a cap, crouched to examine the ground that the other four had illumined. Under a large bold heading — LONELY ROAD LEADS TO DESOLATE SPOT ON EDGE OF PRECIPICE MARKED BY TRAGEDY — the reporter described the crime scene:
The little road, leading along the top of a high ridge, finds its way over to the edge of a sheer rocky cliff from which a beautiful view of the valley is presented toward the west. Strewn cigarette packages, pickle bottles and paper plates mark its use as a picnic ground. Large slabs of rock, some clean and some lichen covered, add to the wild beauty. Yet one must be careful. So precipitous is the cliff that a false step would send one to instant death below. Vines and underbrush grow thickly thereabouts. Black ashes testify to campfires. A sunset from this place should be beautiful. Dusk and twilight should stress the quietude and peace of the spot.
A description of the suspect was released Wednesday morning by Birmingham police chief Fred McDuff. It ran in all the papers and was broadcast by radio throughout the day: "The girls described the negro as being black, about 5 feet 10 inches, mustache, 150 pounds, dressed in light overalls, felt hat and rubber-bottom shoes. He talked as if well educated, the girls said." On Thursday, the Birmingham News printed an amended description of the assailant: "The negro is reported to have been without a mustache and clean shaven ... the negro's age as 30 to 35; height, 5 feet 10 inches; weight, 135 to 150 pounds; black; face broad at temple and thin at chin; dressed in blue overalls with white stripes; torn on back; old gray hat turned up on sides and down in front; sole of right shoe torn so toe will show."
How and why the description changed was not reported. Perhaps reporters got the first one wrong. Perhaps Nell changed her mind or remembered new details. A third and far more detailed description would later be released to the public in the form of a circular. Thousands of copies were distributed to law enforcement officials throughout the South and as far away as Chicago and New York. The circular included additional descriptors provided by Jennie Wood when Chief McDuff interviewed her two days after Nell first described the assailant. Jennie said "the Negro" had gold between and behind his lower front teeth, in what she considered as "an extra good dental job."
$3300 Reward
Offered by the Citizens and Civic Clubs of Birmingham, Alabama, for information leading to the arrest and conviction of negro Murderer, wanted in Birmingham for the murder of Miss Williams and Miss Wood, committed night of August 4, 1931.
The following is a description of the Negro.
Black — 35 years old.
Height — 5 ft. 8 or 10 inches.
Weight — 135 or 145 pounds.
Large pop eyes, starry look.
Some gold inlay dental work behind lower front teeth, overlapping top slightly. (Suggest that investigate for evidence of this gold inlay having been taken out since the murder)
Cheeks slightly sunk in.
Medium voice, southern accent.
A pimple similar to a mole just below right corner of mouth.
Ready talker with southern accent, but uses bad grammar.
When last seen was wearing blue Union-alls with white stripe, sleeves worn off at elbow.
Gray felt hat badly torn.
These descriptions may have guided the posses combing the mountainside and fanning out into black neighborhoods. But it is more likely that rage propelled their search and the acts of revenge they meted out. They may have cared less about the suspect's height, weight, and clothing than about Nell's assertion that "the Negro" was well educated, delivered disgusting radical diatribes about the white race, and threatened to get even. Those images were relayed by word of mouth on the telephone, in grocery stores, in bars, in barbershops, and over back fences.
In Nell's first accounts of the kidnapping, she did not speak of sexual assault or rape. Nevertheless, rumors of rape raged through Jefferson County and propelled the posses that stormed through the city and surrounding regions. It was inconceivable to most white Southerners that a black man would hold three white women hostage for any length of time without sexually assaulting them. Black men were viewed as rapists who preyed on white women. That self-generated fear often led white men to inflict terrifying and terrorizing reprisals on black men in the name of "protecting white women."
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Murder on Shades Mountain"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Melanie S. Morrison.
Excerpted by permission of Duke University Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Introduction 1 Part I. Danger in the Magic City 1. August 4, 1931 15 2. A City Beset by Fear 25 3. Reign of Terror in the Black Community 34 4. Fear, Loathing,and Oblivion in the White Community 45 Part II. Trials and Tribulations 5. The Arrest: September 23, 1931 55 6. Attempted Murder 67 7. Grand Jury Testimonies 76 8. The NAACP Comes to Life 85 9. Mounting the Defense 94 10. House of Pain 113 11. "A Temporarily Dethroned Mind" 116 12. "An Outrageous Spectacle of Injustice" 119 13. A Tumultuous Year 122 Part IV. Never Turning Back 14. Staying on the Firing Line 131 15. Charles Hamilton Houston 134 16. A Lynching in Tuscaloosa 142 17. Moving the Case Forward 150 18. No Negroes Allowed 162 19. A Flood of Letters 168 20. A Multitude of Regrets 172 21. Grave Doubts as to His Guilt 178 22. Jim Crow Justice 185 Epilogue. The Community That Kept Faith 193 Afterword. Letter to My Father 197 Acknowledgments 203 Notes 209 Bibliography 233 Index 241What People are Saying About This
"With detail not often found in narratives of antiblack violence, Melanie S. Morrison's account of Willie Peterson's officially sanctioned murder—which has almost disappeared from the canon of black struggle—teaches us not only of the destructive power of racism but also of its systemic nature and the efforts long before the so-called 'civil rights era' to resist it. It resonates with the cradle-to-prison pipeline that plagues much of black life today. Well worth reading."
“I devoured the whole impressive book, often reading late into the night. The ordeal of Willie Peterson in Depression Alabama has until now been a neglected episode in civil rights history. Melanie S. Morrison’s careful, compelling reconstruction of a tragic double murder turned judicial lynching unearths profound and, alas, enduring truths about the ways race and ideology deform human decency as well as justice.”