One August night in 1931, on a secluded mountain ridge overlooking Birmingham, Alabama, three young white women were brutally attacked. The sole survivor, Nell Williams, age eighteen, said a black man had held the women captive for four hours before shooting them and disappearing into the woods.
That same night, a reign of terror was unleashed on Birmingham’s black community: black businesses were set ablaze, posses of armed white men roamed the streets, and dozens of black men were arrested in the largest manhunt in Jefferson County history. Weeks later, Nell identified Willie Peterson as the attacker who killed her sister Augusta and their friend Jennie Wood. With the exception of being black, Peterson bore little resemblance to the description Nell gave the police. An all-white jury convicted Peterson of murder and sentenced him to death.
Some years later, the story would be retold to social justice educator, author, and activist Melaine S. Morrison by her father who dated Nell’s youngest sister when he was a teenager. Morrison scoured the historical archives and documented the black-led campaigns that sought to overturn Peterson’s unjust conviction, spearheaded by the NAACP and the Communist Party. Through her book, “Murder on Shades Mountain: The Legal Lynching of Willie Peterson and the Struggle for Justice in Jim Crow Birmingham,” she takes a look at the gripping and tragic story of the attack and its aftermath, shedding new light on the struggle for justice in Depression-era Birmingham.
The recipient of a starred review from “Publishers Weekly” for the book, Morrison will be at Schuler Books & Music, 2660 28th St. SE, Monday, June 4, to talk about her book which many have called a testament to the courageous predecessors of present-day movements that demand an end to racial profiling, police brutality and the criminalization of black men.
The event is free and open to the public.
