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WORK TITLE: Murder on Shades Mountain
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1949
WEBSITE: https://www.melaniemorrison.net/
CITY: Lansing
STATE: MI
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY:
Lives in Ocherous, MI.
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born 1949.
EDUCATION:Beloit College, B.A.; 1971; Yale Divinity School, M.Div., 1978; University of Groningen, the Netherlands, Ph.D., 1998.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, speaker, educator, and activist. Pastor, 1978-1993, Bronson, MI, Groningen, the Netherlands, and hoeing Community Church, Kalamazoo MI; Leaven, MI, executive director, 1987-2007; Social Justice Educator and Consultant. 1987–; Doing Our Own Work, cofounder, 1994; Seminary adjunct faculty March 1996 – present; Chicago Theological Seminary, Chicago, IL, and Methodist Theological Seminary, Delaware, OH, seminary adjunct faculty, 1996–; Sacred Conversation on Race, Cleveland, OH, advisor, consultant, 2008-09; Allies for Change, East Lansing, MI, founder and executive director, 2008–. Also co-designed and helped facilitate Creating Culturally Proficient Communities for the Ypsilanti Community School, MI.
AWARDS:Yale Divinity School John A. Wade Preaching Prize, 1978; Lansing Association for Human Rights Prism Award for Contributions to the LGBT Community in the Area of Spirituality, 1998; Outstanding Alumni Award, East Lansing Education Foundation, 2017.
WRITINGS
Contributor to books, including Cloud of Witnesses, edited by Jim Wallis and Joyce Hollyday, Orbis Books (New York, NY), 1991; Re-Membering and Re-Imagining, edited by Nancy J. Berneking and Pamela Carter Joern, The Pilgrim Press (Cleveland, OH), 1995. Contributor to periodicals, including the Christian Century, Hervormd Nederland, Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, Lavender Morning, Leaven Notes, Open Hands, the Other Side, Sojourners, South of the Garden, Trouw, the Witness, and Yale University Reflections.
SIDELIGHTS
Melanie S. Morrison, who has a master’s degree in divinity and a doctorate in theology, is a social justice educator and activist with experience in establishing transformational group process. Founder and executive director of Allies for Change, she has worked as a trainer and consultant for both educational and non-profit organizations, from Michigan State University’s College of Education to the Yale Divinity School. She is also a public speaker at national and regional conferences, where she discusses racial, disability, and sexual injustices.
Morrison is also the author of more than fifty articles for American and Dutch periodicals. She is also the author or coauthor of books, including Murder on Shades Mountain: The Legal Lynching of Willie Peterson and the Struggle for Justice in Jim Crow Birmingham. The book tells the tragic story of a reign of terror on a black community in 1931 and its aftermath. In August 1931 three young white women were attacked on a mountain ridge near Birmingham, Alabama. Only one of the women survived, Nell Williams, who was eighteen years old. Williams claimed a black man shot them after holding them prisoner for four hours. That same night Birmingham’s black community underwent a horrendous attack that included burning black businesses and armed white men searching for blacks. Many black men were arrested in a large manhunt.
Williams eventually identified Willie Peterson as the attacker who killed her sister and another woman. During the trial, it was pointed out that Peterson did not resemble the description first provided by Williams. Nevertheless, Peterson was convicted and sentenced to death. In Murder on Shades Mountain Morrison relates how the events divided Birmingham, with many believing that Peterson’s conviction and sentence was a travesty of justice. The divide was not only between blacks and whites but also between the National Association of Colored People and the American Communist Party, both vying for black Americans’ allegiance and both fighting to overturn the conviction of a man who was falsely accused.
Morrison first heard about the tragedy from her father, who dated the younger sister of Williams. Morrison’s father, a native of Birmingham, was fifteen years old at the time of the murders on Shade Mountain and was actually dated another one of Williams’s sisters. “This case proved to be a momentous turning point in my father’s young life,” Morrison told Foreword Reviews Online contributor Karl Helicher, adding: “He often told the story later to describe the gross inequities that black people suffered in Jim Crow Birmingham.”
After Morrison’s father died in 2006, she came across a book and an article concerning the murders, finding that they both corroborated most of what her father had told the family over years. However, there were pieces missing in her father’s story. Morrison began to do research about the murders. Her research led her to write the book that show how blacks faced injustice in the Jim Crow South and how the judicial system in the case of the Shades Mountain murders actually functioned as a kind of lynch mob.
Morrison points out that the accused murderer Peterson was gravely ill, suffering from tuberculosis. At 125 pounds and seriously disabled, Morrison notes that Peterson usually could only function for no more than a couple of hours at a time. “It is highly improbable that Willie Peterson would have had the physical capacity to commit the crimes that Nell Williams described,” Morrison told Foreword Reviews Online contributor Helicher.
In her book, Morrison points out that many of the police and other legal authorities seriously doubted that Peterson was guilty of the crime but refused to express those doubts. According to Morrison, they did so because they did not want to impugn the reputation of a white woman. Later, Alabama governor Benjamin Miller expressed his doubts about Peterson’s guilt, especially after receiving numerous letters from law enforcement and justice officials expressing concern over Peterson’s conviction. In 1934 the governor commuted Peterson’s sentence to life in prison, where Peterson died in 1940 at the age of forty-six.
“Morrison, who is white, shares this painful story with clarity and compassion, emphasizing how much has changed since the 1930s,” wrote a Publishers Weekly contributor. In a review for Foreword Reviews Online, Helicher remarked: “Audiences will be enthralled and angered by this all-too-familiar account of a criminal justice system that was and remains biased against black Americans.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly, January 8, 2018, review of Murder on Shades Mountain: The Legal Lynching of Willie Peterson and the Struggle for Justice in Jim Crow Birmingham, p. 55.
ONLINE
Alabama Public Radio website, http://apr.org/ (April 23, 2018), Don Noble, review of Murder on Shades Mountain.
Foreword Reviews Online, https://www.forewordreviews.com/ (March 15, 2018), Karl Helicher, “Reviewer Karl Helicher Interviews Melanie Morrison, Author of Murder on Shades Mountain; (June 25, 2018), Karl Helicher, review of Murder on Shades Mountain.
Melanie S. Morrison website, https://www.melaniemorrison.net (June 25, 2018).
About
Melanie S. Morrison, Ph.D., is founder and executive director of Allies for Change. She is a seasoned social justice educator, activist, and author with 30 years experience designing and facilitating transformational group process. Melanie has provided training and consultation for a wide variety of educational and non-profit organizations including Michigan State University’s College of Education, Yale Divinity School, and Hunter College School of Social Work. With Shayla Griffin, Ph.D., she designed and facilitated trainings for Creating Culturally Proficient Communities, a five-year initiative on racial and economic justice for the Ypsilanti Community School district in Michigan.
Passionate about writing, Melanie is the author of four books including The Grace of Coming Home: Spirituality, Sexuality, and the Struggle for Justice and she has written more than fifty articles for American and Dutch periodicals. Her newest book – Murder on Shades Mountain: The Legal Lynching of Willie Peterson and the Struggle for Justice in Jim Crow Birmingham – will be published in the spring of 2018 by Duke University Press.
As a keynote speaker at national and regional conferences, Melanie has addressed issues of racial, disability, and sexual justice. In 1994, she co-founded Doing Our Own Work, an intensive anti-racism program for white people that has attracted hundreds of participants from all across North America. She served as consultant to the United Church of Christ Sacred Conversation on Race, a national initiative launched in 2008.
Prior to founding Allies for Change, Melanie was executive director of The Leaven Center, a retreat and study center in Lyons, Michigan dedicated to nurturing the relationship between spirituality and social justice. As a United Church of Christ pastor, she has served three congregations; two in Michigan and one in the Netherlands. She has also served as adjunct faculty at Chicago Theological Seminary and the Methodist Theological School in Ohio.
Melanie has a Masters of Divinity from Yale Divinity School and a Ph.D. in theology from the University of Groningen in The Netherlands. She lives in Okemos, Michigan with her life partner, April Allison.
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1Curriculum VitaeMelanie S. Morrison, Ph.D.Executive Director, Allies for ChangeDate:September 2017Contact Informationwww.alliesforchange.orgwww.melaniemorrison.netEducationPh.D. Theology, 1998University of Groningen, The NetherlandsM.Div., 1978Yale Divinity School,New Haven, ConnecticutB.A., 1971Beloit College,Beloit, WisconsinProfessional ExperienceSocial JusticeEducatorand ConsultantOctober1987 –presentI have 30years experience facilitating transformational group process. Witha multiracialteam of educators I design and lead seminars, workshops, and training sessions addressing systems of privilege and oppressions such as racism, sexism, ableism, and heterosexism. I have beena keynote speaker at national conferences on issues of racial, sexual, and disability justice. In 1994, I createdDoing Our Own Work, a six-‐day anti-‐racism seminar for white people and have facilitated this seminar for hundreds of participants throughout North America. With Dr. Shayla Griffin, I am currently designing and leading a five-‐year professional development program for teachers and administrators in the Ypsilanti,Michigan,School Districtaddressing issues of racial and economic justice. AuthorAugust1978 –presentI am the author of fourbooks including Murder on Shades Mountain: The Legal Lynching of Willie Peterson and the Struggle for Justice in Jim Crow Birmingham, to be published in spring 2018 by Duke University Press. Fifty-‐oneof myessays and articles have appeared innumerous journals,magazines, and newspapersincluding Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, Yale University Reflections, Sojourners, Journal of Current Social Issues, The Christian Century, Hervormd Nederland, Trouw, and The Witness. With Eleanor S. Morrison, I authored Created in God’s Image(United Church Press, 1993), a human sexuality curriculum for adults that was used in United Church of Christ congregations throughout the United States. Founder and Executive Director,Allies for ChangeJanuary2008 –presentAllies for Change(www.alliesforchange.org) provides anti-‐oppression education, training, and resources for individuals and organizations that seek to deepen their commitmentto social justice and organizational changethrough nurturingcollaborative action and authentic relationship across differences of race, class, gender, abilities, and sexual orientation.Allies for Changehas provided
2training and consultation for a wide variety of educational and non-‐profit organizations including Michigan State University’s College of Education, Yale Divinity School, Hunter College School of Social Work, and the University of Vermont, Division of Student and Campus Life. Advisor/Consultant, Sacred Conversation on RaceApril 2008 –January2009In response to events surrounding the 2008 Presidential election, the United Church of Christ launched a national conversation on race. I served as consultant to the Sacred Conversation on Race,developing theresources used in local congregations,and advisinglocal pastors,lay leaders, and conference staff who engaged this conversation in different regions of the country.Executive Director, LeavenOctober1987 –December2007I co-‐founded Leaven, a non-‐profit organization dedicated to nurturing the relationship between spirituality and social justice. In 2000, we opened The Leaven Center –a retreat and study center in mid-‐Michigan serving people engaged in movements for social change.As Executive Director, I oversawconstituency development, fundraising, grant writing, program development, supervision of staff, and administration of the day-‐to-‐day operations of the center. Between March 2000and December 2007, The Leaven Center offered more than 200 programs attended by 3,000 people.Seminary adjunct facultyMarch 1996 –presentI have taught graduate-‐level coursesin the fields of practical theology and social justice for seminary students at Chicago Theological Seminary and Methodist Theological Seminary in Ohio. Courses includeUnited We Stand: Working to End Racismand Homophobia in Our Communities, Ministry on the Margins: The Joys & Perils of Unconventional Ministriesand Doing Our Own Work: An Anti-‐Racism Intensive for White People. PastorSeptember1978 –January1993Ordained in 1978 to ministry in the United Church of Christ, I served three congregations; two in Michigan,and one in the Netherlands. I began my ministry in Bronson, Michigan,as the first woman to serve a church in that community. In the mid-‐1980s, I served a new church start that brought together two Dutch denominations (Hervormdand Gereformeerd) just outside Groningen, the largest city in the north of The Netherlands. In 1987, I co-‐founded a new congregation, Phoenix Community Church, in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Phoenix was welcoming of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people from its inception and affiliated with the United Church of Christ in 1990.Awards& HonorsOutstanding Alumni Award, East Lansing Education Foundation (2017)Murdale C. Leysath Leadership Award, Michigan Conference, United Church of Christ (2017)Olivet College Leadership in Individual and Social Responsibility Award (2014)Women Writing the South: a research grant from the Resource Center for Women and Ministry in the South (2010)Lansing Association for Human Rights Prism Award for Contributions to the LGBT Community in the Area of Spirituality (1998)
3Yale Divinity School John A. Wade Preaching Prize (1978)Beloit College James Leeson Essay Award (1971)Selected Presentations and Workshops“Beyond Good Intentions: The Role White People Must Play in the Work of Racial Justice.” Sprague Lecture, North Broadway United Methodist Church, Columbus, OH. 2015.“Racial Justice Institute.” Six-‐day training for Michigan Voice, a coalition of social justice organizations. Detroit, MI.2015.“Creating Culturally Proficient Communities.” Five-‐year professional development program for teachers and administrators in Ypsilanti CommunitySchool District. Ypsilanti, MI.2013-‐2018. “Ableism: What Is It& What Can You Do about It?”Workshop for Disability Network of Southwest Michigan. Kalamazoo, MI.2014.“Disability Justice –What Role Can You Play? A Workshop for Nondisabled Allies.” Two-‐day workshop. Lansing, MI.2014.“Building Alliances, Sustaining Inclusive Communities.” Six-‐day leadership development program. Lansing, MI.2013.“Spirit and Pride: Re-‐Imagining Disability in Jewish and Christian Communities.”Workshop at the Society for Disability Studies. Denver, CO. 2012.“Race & Inclusion at Yale Divinity School.” Workshops for faculty and students at Yale Divinity School, New Haven, CT.2012.“UnderstandingRace –A Summer Institute.” Five-‐day institute for pubic school teachers and administrators in Washtenaw County. Ann Arbor, MI. 2012.“Race, Dis/Ability, and Class: Confronting Interlocking Privilege and Oppression.” Six-‐day intensiveseminarfor faculty and graduate students in the Collegeof Education, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI. 2011-‐2012.“Doing Our Own Work: An Anti-‐Racism Seminar for White People.” Six-‐day seminarsled in different parts of the country. 1994 to present. “Beyond Guilt: The Role That White People Must Play in Confronting Racism.” Keynote address at the Calvin College Symposium on Race,Grand Rapids, MI. 2011.“Radical Genealogy.” Presentation at the Resource Center for Women and Ministry in the South, Durham, NC.2011.“From Talk to Action: Anti-‐Racism Workshop for White Allies.” Two-‐day workshop in Vancouver, British Columbia.2011.“Spirit & Pride: Re-‐Imagining Disability in Jewish and Christian Communities.”Five-‐week seminar in Grand Rapids, MI.2010.“Beyond Good Intentions: The Role of White People in the Work of Racial Healing,”Keynote addressat the Grace & Race Racial Reconciliation Empowerment Seminar, Washington, D.C. 2010.“Understanding Privilege and Oppressionto Create a More Just and Inclusive Community.” Six-‐day intensive seminarfor faculty and graduate students in the Collegeof Education, Michigan State
4University, East Lansing, MI.2009-‐2010.“Dismantling Racism andWhite Privilege.” Workshop for faculty at Eden Theological Seminary, St. Louis, MO.2009.“Restoring Hope: the Sacred Work of Confronting Racism.” Truman A. Morrison Lecture Series. East Lansing, MI.2008.“Doing Our Own Work: Confronting Racismand White Privilege.” Six-‐day intensive seminarfor faculty and graduate students in the Collegeof Education, Department of Teacher Education, Michigan State University.East Lansing, MI.2006.“Wading through Uncomfortable Waters: Marginalization, Multiple Oppression, and Justice.” Workshop at Word & Word: A People’s School.Rochester, NY.2004.“The End of Safety: Exploring White Privilege.” Common Witness Leadership Conference, United Methodist Church.Chicago, IL.2004. “Qualities of an Ally.” Workshop for Olivet College faculty, staff, and students. Olivet, MI.2001.“Attending to the Unfinished Business in Movements for Social Change.” Plenary Speech for Witness Our Welcome Conference in DeKalb, IL.2000."Looking Back and Moving Forward, Stories for the New Millennium." Keynote Speech for the International Brethren Mennonite Council Convention in Toronto, Canada. 1998."A New and Deeper Joy: Recognizing and Challenging White Racism." Keynote speech for the17th National Gathering of the UnitedChurch Coalition, Columbus, OH.1997.“Difficult Conversations: A Seminar for African American and White Women.” Six-‐day seminar, Detroit, MI.1994.Selected PublicationsBooksMorrison, Melanie.Murder on Shades Mountain: The Legal Lynching of Willie Peterson and the Struggle for Racial Justice in Jim Crow Birmingham. To be published in spring 2018 by Duke University Press.Morrison, Melanie. The Grace of Coming Home: Spirituality, Sexuality, and the Struggle for Justice. Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 1995.Morrison, Eleanor and Melanie Morrison. Created in God's Image: A Human Sexuality Program for Ministry and Mission. Cleveland: United Church Board for Homeland Ministries, 1993.Kamphuis, Christine and Melanie Morrison. Verpleegkundigen en Ethiek (Nurses and Ethics).Groningen: Wolters-‐Noordhoff, 1988.Book ChaptersMorrison, Melanie. “Here's To You, Mr. Robertson” Re-‐Membering and Re-‐Imagining. Nancy J. Berneking and Pamela Carter Joern, eds. Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 1995.Morrison, Melanie. “Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Faith and Conviction” Cloud of Witnesses. Jim Wallis and Joyce Hollyday, eds. New York: Orbis Books, 1991.
5ArticlesMorrison, Melanie. “Becoming Trustworthy White Allies.” Yale University Reflections. Spring 2013.Belser, Julia Watts and MelanieMorrison. “What No Longer Serves Us: Resisting Ableism and Anti-‐Judaism in New Testament Healing Narratives.”Journal of Feminist Studiesin Religion. Fall 2011. Morrison, Melanie. “Genealogy as Spiritual Practice.” South of the Garden. June 2011.Morrison, Melanie. "Bethany Tuesday: A Place at the Table," Open Hands.Winter 1998. Morrison, Melanie. “The Power of Saying God-‐She.” Lavender Morning. Fall 1994.Morrison, Melanie. “Remembering Audre Lorde.” Leaven Notes. November 1993.Morrison, Melanie. “The Cross and the Pink Triangle.” Leaven Notes.February 1992.Morrison, Melanie. “A Love That Won’t Let Go.” Sojourners. July 1991.Morrison, Melanie. “Telling the Truth about Our Lives.” The Witness. September 1991.Morrison, Melanie. “A Crisis of Pronouns,”The Other Side. March-‐April 1990.Morrison, Melanie. “Resurrection Stories.” The Other Side. October 1987.Morrison, Melanie. “The Open Door’s Response to Homelessness in Atlanta.” Trouw. April 8, 1983.Morrison, Melanie. “A New March on Washington.” Trouw. May 14, 1983.Morrison, Melanie. “Europe’s Peace Movement: Strengthening Political Solutions,” The Christian Century.July 6-‐13, 1983.Morrison, Melanie. “The Sanctuary Movement in the U.S.”Hervormd Nederland.July 9, 1983.Morrison, Melanie. “New Underground Railroad in America.” Trouw. June 4, 1983. Morrison, Melanie. “Survival Obligates: Portrait of a Dutch Journalist Slain in El Salvador.”Sojourners.October1982.Morrison, Melanie. “400,000 Come Together for Peace.”Sojourners. February 1982.Morrison, Melanie. "Bonhoeffer: A Kind of Brokenness. A Conversation with Eberhard Bethge." Sojourners.May 1979.Morrison, Melanie. "Sumter County: Memories of Serving and Being Served." Sojourners.July 1978.Works in ProgressBooksMorrison, Melanie. Letters from Old Screamer Mountain: White Supremacy, Ancestral Legacies, and the Sacred Work of Racial Justice(working title)ArticlesMorrison, Melanie. “Trayvon Martin, the Legacy of Lynching, and the Role of White Women.”Morrison, Melanie. “Soul Splitting: How Lynching Impacted the White Children Who Witnessed It.”
6Morrison, Melanie. “Ghosts in the Room: The Shame that White People Carry.”Morrison, Melanie. “Cultural Envy.”Web-‐Based PublicationsMorrison, Melanie. “Disarming the Lethal Knot of White Fear.” formations.//living at the intersections of self, social, spirit. December 21, 2015.Morrison, Melanie. “At the Hand of Persons Unknown: The Verdict in the Michael Brelo Case.” formations.//living at the intersections of self, social, spirit. May 26, 2015.
REVIEWER KARL HELICHER INTERVIEWS MELANIE MORRISON, AUTHOR OF MURDER ON SHADES MOUNTAIN.
Of all the racial divisions in this country, one of the most enduring and discouraging is the percentage of white Americans who don’t see racism as a problem, and, in fact, believe society does TOO much to help African Americans. Somehow they dismiss racial profiling, high incarceration rates for black men, the deplorable state of many inner-city public schools, and other legacies of eras gone by when racism was front and center and all but legal. Somehow they dismiss the recent rise in white supremacy.
While pulling our hair out in frustration, we can only conclude that the United States has done a disgraceful job educating students on the history of racism.
Cover image of Murder on Shades MountainOf the infinite stories of injustice in the American South, one of the most egregious features Willie Peterson, a black man falsely accused of murdering two affluent white girls in the early 1930s in Birmingham, Alabama. Today’s Face Off features Melanie Morrison, the author of Murder on Shades Mountain, a compelling investigation of the Peterson case enhanced by much-needed historical context. In his Foreword Reviews review of the book, Karl Helicher writes, “Morrison’s is a deeply researched account of the shooting [of the girls], the ensuing trials, and the fight between the NAACP and the American Communist Party for the allegiance of black Americans in Birmingham and the nation. … Audiences will be enthralled and angered by this all-too-familiar account of a criminal justice system that was and remains biased against black Americans.”
Karl and Melanie’s conversation represents exactly the sort of truth-telling this country needs to embrace as our racial enlightenment unfolds. You’ll find Special Features and Featured Reviews at the end.
This terrific book reveals one of the most significant lynching incidents of which most readers never heard. How did you become aware of the Peterson trial, and why don’t we know more about it?
I learned about the trials of Willie Peterson from my father who was born and raised in Birmingham. He was only thirteen years old when the murders on Shades Mountain occurred, but this case proved to be a momentous turning point in my father’s young life. He often told the story later to describe the gross inequities that black people suffered in Jim Crow Birmingham.
When three white women were brutally attacked on a secluded mountain ridge overlooking the city of Birmingham in the summer of 1931, it was a huge story. When the sole survivor, Nell Williams, said a black man had held the women captive for four hours before shooting them and disappearing into the woods, a reign of terror was unleashed on the black community. Six weeks later, when Nell Williams identified Willie Peterson as the assailant who killed her sister, Augusta, and friend, Jennie Wood, this story was spread across the front page of every Birmingham newspaper. The conviction and sentencing of Willie Peterson also received widespread coverage in black newspapers throughout the United States because the trial was rife with judicial bias and misconduct.
The legal lynching of Willie Peterson vividly demonstrates how courtrooms in Jim Crow Alabama could function like lynch mobs when the defendant was black and the victims of the alleged perpetrator were white women. Despite the fact that Peterson bore little resemblance to the description originally given by Nell Williams, and despite the fact that her story kept changing over time, Willie Peterson was sentenced to die in the electric chair.
The struggle to free Willie Peterson provides a window into the social and economic forces at work in the early 1930s. The NAACP and the Communist Party vied for leadership in defending Peterson. Although the NAACP eventually took the lead, the Communist Party’s legal arm—the International Labor Defense (ILD)—continued to generate support for Peterson in Birmingham’s poor and working class black communities.
Over the years, the Peterson case has been noted by historians and legal scholars, but given its significance, I was surprised that no one had undertaken an exhaustive investigation of this case. The more I learned about the case and the historical context surrounding it, the more I felt compelled to do just that.
Describe your relationship with your father. How did he inspire you and what connections did he have to the Peterson case?
My father was a pastor, but the work of dismantling racism and white supremacy was his deepest calling. In the churches he served, he often declared from the pulpit: “To love God, you must work for justice, and justice cannot be realized in this country until racism is eradicated!” He didn’t just talk about the evils of systemic racism, he and my mother were actively involved in organizations that sought to address the racial disparities in housing, education, health care, and the judicial system.
My passion for racial justice and my work as an antiracism educator are legacies I inherited from my father. One of the core stories that seeded this passion was my father’s telling of the unjust conviction of Willie Peterson.
My father grew up in the Mountain Brook section of Birmingham, the only son of a wealthy white entrepreneur. When he was fifteen years old, he fell in love with Genevieve Williams, the younger sister of Nell and Augusta Williams. Just months after he was smitten, the defense of Willie Peterson was once again in the news. The NAACP asked several prominent white leaders to write Governor Miller imploring him to commute Peterson’s sentence to life imprisonment. One of those leaders was my father’s pastor, Henry Edmonds—a man my father deeply admired as a mentor. When the governor commuted Peterson’s death sentence in March 1934, citing “grave doubt as to his guilt,” my father believed that Edmonds had played the decisive role.
Torn by conflicting loyalties to his girlfriend and his mentor, my father’s insular white world began to come apart. He became obsessed with the possibility that Willie Peterson had been wrongly convicted and—much to the surprise of his family and friends—he ended the relationship with Genevieve.
Two years after my father’s death in 2006, I stumbled upon a book and an article that described the Shades Mountain murders. Much of what my father had told us was corroborated, but I also discovered gaping holes in my father’s story. As a teenager living in his insular white enclave of Mountain Brook, he didn’t know about the reign of terror carried out on the black community or the black-led campaigns to free Willie Peterson.
Discovering these holes in my father’s story, I made my first trip to the Birmingham archives, compelled to learn more about these events, as much by what my father did not tell me as what he did.
Tell us about Willie Peterson. He was a very unlikely person to commit a murder. Why did so many people want to see him framed and executed? What does this tell us about the times?
At the time of his arrest, Willie Peterson was an unemployed miner disabled by tuberculosis. Weighing only 125 pounds, having no criminal record, and most days unable to be up and around for more than a few hours at a time, it is highly improbable that Willie Peterson would have had the physical capacity to commit the crimes that Nell Williams described. As my book reveals, most of the arresting officers and legal authorities that had contact with Peterson later testified that they had always harbored doubts that he was the assailant. They kept those doubts to themselves, however, and abruptly ended the manhunt as soon as Nell Williams identified Willie Peterson as the assailant. They let the scapegoating of Willie Peterson unfold because they didn’t want to assail the reputation of a white woman or imply that she might be lying.
To me, the most fascinating aspect of the book was its comparison to the much better known Scottsboro Boys case. What are some of the similarities and differences between these cases?
Yes, the case of the Scottsboro Boys played a critically important role in what transpired after the murders on Shades Mountain. The trials of the nine young black men in Scottsboro, Alabama, accused of raping two white women had many in Birmingham’s white community on edge, fearing that something as horrific might befall Birmingham. The fact that the Communist Party was managing the defense of the Scottsboro Boys and shining a light on Jim Crow injustice was another source of fear and resentment among Birmingham’s white population.
Given the backdrop of the Scottsboro trials, it is not surprising that rumors of communist conspiracy fueled the manhunt for the Shades Mountain assailant. The attack on Shades Mountain became the pretext for intensifying efforts to arrest anyone suspected of being a communist.
In many ways the violence perpetrated on Shades Mountain was more frightening to Birmingham’s white elite than the crime being tried in Scottsboro. Unlike the victims in the Scottsboro case, the victims on Shades Mountain were from prominent white families.
Although the ILD sought to gain control of the Peterson case, the NAACP officials convinced Willie Peterson’s spouse, Henrietta, to retain their lawyers. With the financial support of the national offices, local NAACP leaders spearheaded the campaign to free Willie Peterson.
What lessons would you like readers to take from the book? Why is it important now?
The injustice that Willie Peterson suffered was all too prevalent in Jim Crow Birmingham. His case is significant, but sadly, not exceptional. The history of Jim Crow racism has not been adequately taught in our country’s public schools. To understand the alarming rise of white supremacy we are experiencing today, as well as the continuing realities of racial profiling and the criminalization of black men, its is essential that we understand the legacies of Jim Crow racism. These legacies continue to distort white imaginations and fuel racial disparities in arrests and sentencing.
Researching and writing this book has also taught me that those of us who are white must always critically examine the family stories we have inherited, even those that have inspired our passion for justice. For years, I retold the Shades Mountain story as my father had described it, not knowing I was telling a truncated, white-centric story that rendered invisible the black-led resistance in Birmingham in the 1930s.
Please describe the legacy of the Peterson trial to the 1960s civil rights movement and to the current Black Lives Matter?
Just as the history of Jim Crow injustice has not been adequately taught in America’s public schools, children and youth today learn very little about the manifold organizations, movements, and uprisings—led by people of color—that resisted racism in every region and era of this country’s history. When the struggle for justice in Jim Crow Birmingham is remembered, it is images and events from the 1960s that most often come to mind. But the civil rights movement was not born in the 1960s or the preceding decade. It is centuries old and the 1930s are rife with historical antecedents to the movements and protests of the 1950s and 1960s.
As I learned about the black-led resistance to legal lynching in Jim Crow Birmingham, I was learning about the courageous predecessors of present-day movements like Black Lives Matter that demand an end to racial profiling, police brutality, and the criminalization of black men.
Karl Helicher
March 15, 2018
Murder on Shades Mountain: The Legal Lynching of Willie Peterson and the Struggle for Justice in Jim Crow Birmingham
Publishers Weekly. 265.2 (Jan. 8, 2018): p55.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
* Murder on Shades Mountain: The Legal Lynching of Willie Peterson and the Struggle for Justice in Jim Crow Birmingham
Melanie S. Morrison. Duke Univ., $26.95 (280p) ISBN 978-0-8223-7117-5
In this passionate account of Jim Crow-era injustice, educator and activist Morrison (The Grace of Coming Home) exposes how courtrooms "could function like lynch mobs when the defendant was black." Birmingham, Ala., during the Depression was riven by racial, political, and economic tensions. An afternoon excursion in 1931 by three young white women resulted in the deaths by gunshot of two of them: Augusta Williams and Jennie Wood. The sole survivor, Augusta's 18-year-old sister, Nell, was put under intense pressure to identify the murderer, who she claimed was a black man. Weeks later, Nell pointed at a passerby on the street, Willie Peterson, and claimed that he was the guilty party. Awaiting trial, Peterson was shot in jail by Nell and Augusta's brother, Dent, but survived and attracted the assistance of the International Labor Defense, the NAACP, and eminent black legal scholar Charles Hamilton Houston. Despite this high-powered help, Peterson was sentenced to death, while Dent Williams, pleading temporary insanity, walked free. Alabama governor Benjamin Miller subsequently expressed "grave doubts" regarding Peterson's guilt and in 1934 commuted Peterson's sentence to life imprisonment. Peterson died of chronic tuberculosis in Kilby Prison in 1940, aged 46. Morrison, who is white, shares this painful story with clarity and compassion, emphasizing how much has changed since the 1930s, how much white people need to "critically interrogate" the past, and how much "remains to be done" in the fight for justice. Photos. (Mar.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Murder on Shades Mountain: The Legal Lynching of Willie Peterson and the Struggle for Justice in Jim Crow Birmingham." Publishers Weekly, 8 Jan. 2018, p. 55. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A524503016/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=3763c13b. Accessed 4 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A524503016
MURDER ON SHADES MOUNTAIN
THE LEGAL LYNCHING OF WILLIE PETERSON AND THE STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE IN JIM CROW BIRMINGHAM
Melanie S. Morrison
Duke University Press (Mar 30, 2018)
Hardcover $26.95 (280pp)
978-0-8223-7117-5
Melanie S. Morrison’s gripping, revealing, and tragic Murder on Shades Mountain returns to 1931 and the Jim Crow South to cover the trial of Willie Peterson, blamed for the murders of Augusta Williams and her friend, Jennie Wood.
Morrison’s is a deeply researched account of the shooting, the ensuing trials, and the fight between the NAACP and the American Communist Party for the allegiance of black Americans in Birmingham and the nation.
Peterson’s accuser, Nell Williams, accompanied her older sister and friend on a car ride to Shades Mountain, where Williams claimed she was wounded and the other two women were shot to death by Peterson. Although Jim Crow conventions required that a white woman be believed when she accused a black man of violence, the circumstances surrounding Williams’s accusation were immediately doubted by the black press, the local black community, and a number of white citizens.
Willie Peterson did not even resemble the man Williams described. Furthermore, weighing only 125 pounds and with his body ravaged by tuberculosis, he lacked the strength to climb Shades Mountain, let alone to overpower the three women.
This investigative book unravels the circumstances around the murder through a flowing narrative. Its work is based on primary sources—newspapers, magazines, NAACP official records, and trial transcripts—and it introduces local and national NAACP leaders who fought hard to free Peterson. Their efforts are stirringly recounted.
The author deserves praise for identifying Peterson’s trial as an important precursor to the 1960s civil rights movement. Audiences will be enthralled and angered by this all-too-familiar account of a criminal justice system that was and remains biased against black Americans.
Reviewed by Karl Helicher
March/April 2018
"Murder on Shades Mountain" By Melanie S. Morrison
By DON NOBLE • APR 23, 2018
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“Murder on Shades Mountain: The Legal Lynching of Willie Peterson and the Struggle for Justice in Jim Crow Alabama”
Author: Melanie S. Morrison
Publisher: Duke University Press
Pages: 280
Price: $26.95 (Paperback)
Although the title may suggest a fictional thriller, "Murder on Shades Mountain" is a straightforward, thoroughly researched nonfiction account of yet another disgraceful episode in Alabama racial history.
Morrison includes details about economic conditions in the 1930s, racial tensions, the parallel case going on in Scottsboro, the lynchings in Tuscaloosa, the uproar over the participation of the Communist party lawyers in Alabama cases, and much more, but a summary of what we really know about the events on Shades Mountain on a day in August, 1931 can be brief.
Three white girls from Mountain Brook, Jennie Wood, Augusta Williams and her younger sister, Nell Williams, after a movie matinee, went for a ride, just to see the sights.
According to Nell, a Negro man jumped onto the running board of their car, made them drive to a secluded spot, and held them all at gunpoint for perhaps four hours. Immediately afterwards, she said that he seemed well-educated, perhaps a Yankee, and harangued the women about racism and social justice. The man allegedly ravished Jennie Wood after shooting Augusta in the abdomen, then shot Jennie Wood in the neck and as a parting shot, Nell in the right arm.
The assailant fled, Nell ran for help.
Augusta would die that evening of blood loss, Jennie Wood a few days later.
That is what we think we know, although even this account, except for the actual gunshot wounds, is in some dispute.
When the police arrived and the newspapers published their account of the incident, all hell broke loose, what Morrison describes as a "reign of terror."
As whites searched for the assailant, "Black-owned businesses were targeted by vigilantes, and random attacks on black people occurred as angry mobs charged through black neighborhoods." Electricity in black neighborhoods was cut off by the city each evening at 10:00, making them especially vulnerable.
Morrison reports that "Hundreds of black men were apprehended, detained, questioned," legally and illegally.
Charlie Horton was taken from his home and shot in the spine.
James Bennett was abducted by three men claiming to be police officers and shot three times. James and William Edwards, traveling on a freight train, were both shot. James died.
Angelo Herndon, 18 and a new member of the Communist Party, was arrested, beaten with rubber hoses, and only released when Nell Williams declared he was not the man. Herndon "estimated that as many as seventy black people of both sexes were killed in the weeks following August 4, 1931." Maybe it wasn't seventy but lawlessness ran amok.
Finally, after several weeks went by, and no suspects, alive or in photographs, were positively identified by Nell Williams, who changed her description of the killer several different ways, she positively identified Willie Peterson, and the nightmare turned into absurd theater.
Despite a good many discrepancies and contradictions, Ms. Williams never wavered in her identification.
Although the assailant had been in and on the car for hours, no fingerprint evidence was offered. Willie Peterson was local, not possibly a northern Negro. He weighed only 125 pounds, skinny, nearly emaciated. On disability, Willie Peterson had tuberculosis.
Nevertheless, Peterson was arraigned and tried, the judge being "Cotton Tom" Heflin's brother H. P. Heflin. Judge Heflin’s conduct during the trial led many to believe he was “working in tandem with the state.”
Miraculously, there was a deadlocked jury and mistrial but, in the retrial, no second miracle was available. Even though many in law enforcement knew Peterson had a sound alibi and was physically incapable of the crime, it finally came down to whether a jury of white Southern men would decline to believe the sworn testimony of a white Southern woman from a fine family.
As Morrison puts it: “If a physical or sexual assault occurred and a white woman of Nell Williams’s social class and standing said, ‘a Negro did it,’ white men were honor bound to avenge this gravest of violations by any means necessary.”
(Readers will see the similarities to the trial of Tom Robinson in "To Kill A Mockingbird.” That defendant had a useless arm and the accusing white woman was not of high social standing. Nevertheless.)
Peterson was found guilty and sent to death row at Kilby Prison where he had to prepare himself for electrocution in Yellow Mama six times. So many letters were written on his behalf, many by law enforcement officers who believed him innocent, that in March of 1934 his sentence was commuted to life. In June of 1940 Peterson died in prison of his tuberculosis. He was 46 years old.
Don Noble is host of the Alabama Public Television literary interview show “Bookmark with Don Noble.” His most recent book is Belles’ Letters 2, a collection of short fiction by Alabama women.