Murder on Shades Mountain: The Legal Lynching of Willie Peterson and the Struggle for Justice in Jim Crow Birmingham by Melanie S. Morrison

On August 4, 1931, 18-year-old Nell Williams, her sister, and a friend were attacked on Shades Mountain near Birmingham. Nell Williams was shot in the arm but survived. Her two companions died of gunshot wounds. Williams claimed that their assailant was a well-educated, stout, light-skinned, Negro from the North. That night, white vigilantes unleashed a reign of terror on Black neighborhoods of Birmingham and all over Alabama, burning down Black businesses and harassing Black citizens. Law enforcement authorities encouraged white vigilantes to “help” them find a suspect and blamed Communist Party activists without a shred of evidence. Hundreds of Black men were detained and questioned, many brought in from distant communities. Birmingham’s Communist Party headquarters was raided, and among those detained but released was Angelo Herndon who was later convicted of insurrection in Atlanta in 1932 for organizing for the Communist Party. Weeks later, Willie Peterson was detained and then ch