Robert Mallard
Born
Robert C. Mallard

c. 1918
DiedNovember 20, 1948 (29 or 30 years old)
Lyons, Toombs County, Georgia
Cause of deathPistol to the chest
Lynching
NationalityAmerican
Other namesBig Duck
Duck
Occupation(s)Traveling bussinessman, landowner
Known forLynching victim
SpouseAmy James Mallard
Children1

Robert "Big Duck" C. Mallard (mˈælɑː͡ɹd; c. 1918– November 20, 1948) was an African-American traveling casket salesman and landowner, who was shot and lynched by a group of about 20 men in Lyons, Toombs County, Georgia. He was murdered because of his prosperity, and voting in the 1948 Georgia gubernational special election.

Biography

Prior life

Mallard was born in 1918. He was a traveling casket salesman[1] working for the Standard Products Company. He gained a 32-acre plot of land from his white stepfather-in-law. Mallard lived on a 35-acre farm[2] on the banks of the Altamaha River with his wife, Amy James Mallard, and 2-year-old son, John. Amy worked as an elementary school teacher.[3][4]

Death

On the night of November 20, 1948, 2 weeks after the 1948 Georgia gubernational special election, Mallard and Amy were driving home from a fundraiser at an elementary school with John, and two of Amy’s cousin’s: Angelina Carter, 13 years old, and William “Tim” Carter, 18 years old, in Lyons, Toombs County, Georgia. Mallard was driving in a new Frazer.[5] The car was stopped by a group of about 20 members of the Ku Klux Klan wearing all-white robes. Mallard stopped the car in front of the Providence Baptist Church,[6] and the group shot the vehicle with pistols, which killed Mallard.[7] When sheriff R. E. Gray arrived to the scene, they searched Amy’s pocketbook and the vehicle.[8]

Following months

After the lynching, Amy, her son, Angelina, and William fled for Savannah, Georgia, and moved back and forth between there and Jacksonville, Florida. Robert’s brother, Benjamin F. Mallard, who lived in California, informed Theodore L. Redding, the president of the NAACP’s Jacksonville branch about the killing. Redding told the NAACP president, Walter White, who nationalized the news.[6][9]

The former Georgia governor, Herman Talmadge, did not order an investigation by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Instead, Talmadge sent two agents went to Mallard's funeral on November 27th, 1948. There, they arrested Amy and charged her with murder.[10][11]

After the news became nationwide, an unofficial investigation from Joseph Goldwasser, a Jewish businessman from Cleveland, Ohio,[12] led police to five men. They surrendered, and two of the men were indicted for the murder; Ku Klux Klan members William L. “Spud” Howell, and Rodrick Clifton.[13] After the surrenders, fires broke out in the local black business area.[14][15][16]

Trial

The trial for the murder of Mallard began in the Toombs County Courthouse on January 11, 1949.[17][18] During the trial, Amy argued that she recognized Howell during the event.[19] Howell's lawyer, Thomas Ross Sharpe, used character evidence in his defence. He also sent two jurors to testify, a move that “defied the notions of jurisprudence”.[20] After 25 minutes of deliberation, Howell was acquitted by an all-white jury, and the charges against Clifton, whose case had weaker evidence, were subsequently dropped.[21][22]

After the trial, Amy took her two children, Doris Byron and John Mallard, went to Baltimore, Maryland with members of the NAACP to protest the decision.[23][24]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Bowman, Joseph R. (January 1949). "WHAT'S WRONG WITH JUSTICE". Tiger’s Roar.
  2. ↑ Cohen, Hon William S.; LLC, Anne & Emmett (2009-06-16). Race and Reconciliation in America. Lexington Books. ISBN 978-0-7391-3552-5.
  3. ↑ Thomas, Damion L. (2012-09-30). Globetrotting: African American Athletes and Cold War Politics. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-09429-3.
  4. ↑ Congress (U.S.), Civil Rights (1952). We Charge Genocide: The Historic Petition to the United Nations for Relief from a Crime of the United States Government Against the Negro People. International Publishers.
  5. ↑ "Robert Mallard – The Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project". Retrieved 2023-05-28.
  6. 1 2 Warren, John (8 November 2011). "DUCK: A Legal History of Robert Mallard's Murder" (PDF). Northeastern University Law Review: 14.
  7. ↑ "We Charge Genocide - The 1951 Black Lives Matter Campaign". depts.washington.edu. Retrieved 2023-06-16.
  8. ↑ Newton, Michael (2009-02-04). The FBI and the KKK: A Critical History. McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-4072-6.
  9. ↑ "GEORGIA: Just Another Killing". Time. 1948-12-06. ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved 2023-06-16.
  10. ↑ "GEORGIA: Justice In Toombs County". Time. 1949-01-24. ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved 2023-06-14.
  11. ↑ Ward, Jason Morgan (2011). Defending White Democracy: The Making of a Segregationist Movement and the Remaking of Racial Politics, 1936-1965. Univ of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-3513-5.
  12. ↑ "The Mallard Murder Case". New Georgia Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2024-01-16.
  13. ↑ "News article from Pittsburgh Courier regarding murder of Robert Mallard : January 8, 1949 | The Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive". www.crrjarchive.org. Retrieved 2023-05-28.
  14. ↑ Glass, Richard C. (December 1, 1948). "Ga. Waiting for Warrants in Slaying". Schenectady Gazette. p. 2.
  15. ↑ "5 Georgia Men Held In Ambush Slaying". The New York Times. Associated Press. 1948-12-05. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-06-16.
  16. ↑ "2 WHITES INDICTED IN GEORGIA KILLING; Early Trial slate in Ambush of Negro -- McGill, Editor, Closeted With Jurors". The New York Times. 1948-12-11. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-05-28.
  17. ↑ "The Mallard Murder Case". New Georgia Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2023-05-28.
  18. ↑ Judiciary, United States Congress House Committee on the (1949). Hearings.
  19. ↑ Times, John Pophamspecial To the New York (1949-01-12). "Georgians Freed in Negro's Killing; Two on Jury Testify for the Defense; Georgians Freed in Negro's Killing; Two on Jury Testify for the Defense". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-05-28.
  20. ↑ Anderson, Carol Elaine (2003-04-21). Eyes Off the Prize: The United Nations and the African American Struggle for Human Rights, 1944-1955. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-53158-0.
  21. ↑ Novotny, Patrick (2007). This Georgia Rising: Education, Civil Rights, and the Politics of Change in Georgia in the 1940s. Mercer University Press. ISBN 978-0-88146-088-9.
  22. ↑ Newton, Michael (2016-02-11). Unsolved Civil Rights Murder Cases, 1934-1970. McFarland. ISBN 978-1-4766-2362-7.
  23. ↑ "Amy Mallard". New Georgia Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2023-05-29.
  24. ↑ "'Let Them Take My Picture' Sobs Widow" (PDF). Baltimore Afro-American. December 18, 1948. p. 6.
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