National Affairs: Jeffersonian Justice

The quail shooting season in Alabama lasts from Nov. 20 to Feb. 20. Editors and Negroes are shot all year round.

Into Birmingham’s Jefferson County jail last week walked an agitated family. One member of it was Nell Williams, daughter of a prominent lawyer. Last summer, she was riding with her sister Augusta and another girl near Birmingham when a Negro jumped on their car’s running board, made them drive into the woods, threatened to “get even for what your race has done to mine.” He then shot and killed Miss Williams’ sister and the other girl (TIME, Aug. 17).

With Miss Williams as she entered the jail were her mother, father and brother Dent, 25. A prudent sheriff searched Dent Williams for weapons and was not surprised to find a revolver. The family was then led into a room where a Negro named Willie Peterson, suspected of the crime, was to be re-identified by Miss Williams. Willie Peterson had been arrested fortnight before when, walking in Birmingham with her brother Dent, Nell Williams had suddenly pointed and screamed, “That’s him! That’s him!” Brother Dent had covered the Negro with a gun until police came.

Last week, Miss Williams took one look at Negro Peterson and nodded. Suddenly the room was filled with smoke, flame and sound. Dent Williams had whipped out another gun, concealed in the waistband of his trousers, and had done what any other full-blooded young white man in Jefferson County would have done—shot to kill “the black scoundrel.” Three slugs took effect, two in the chest, one in the arm. Willie Peterson, dying, was taken away to a hospital where 100 National Guardsmen were subsequently posted to stop further trouble. Dent Williams was arrested, charged with attempting murder, released under $1,000 bail.