Biography
Willie Peterson was a Black coal miner and World War I veteran from Birmingham, Alabama. Police arrested him on September 23, 1931 after a surviving witness accused him of murdering Augusta Williams and Jennie Wood, although Peterson did not match the original description and hospital records supported his alibi. Dent Williams, the witness’s brother, shot Peterson three times inside the Jefferson County Jail on October 2; Peterson survived. A first trial ended without a verdict, but an all-white jury convicted him at a second trial in 1932 and he was sentenced to death. Governor Benjamin Miller commuted the sentence to life imprisonment on March 20, 1934, citing grave doubts about Peterson’s guilt. Peterson remained imprisoned and died of tuberculosis in the state prison infirmary in 1940.
An October 16, 1931 International Labor Defense bulletin reports Peterson in Hillman Hospital near death after Dent Williams shot him in county jail. It identifies attorney Rosenthal as retained for the defense and alleges coercion of a Black barber in an identification procedure. Nell Williams, described as an eyewitness, is distinct from Dent Williams. The report’s near-death description is not an actual death or a new custody endpoint. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n250-NY-oct-17-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=5
The December 29, 1931 Daily Worker describes Peterson as an unemployed tubercular miner and says Dent Williams nearly murdered him in Birmingham county jail. This supplies another contemporary custodial-assault account in the existing prosecution. It does not establish a new arrest, exact shooting day or a separate measured term. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n312-NY-dec-29-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
The March 14, 1932 Daily Worker describes Peterson as an unemployed war veteran prosecuted in Birmingham and reports that Dent Williams, brother of one of the dead women, shot him while in police custody. The frame-up characterization is the paper’s allegation. The retrospective paragraph supplies no new arrest, shooting date, exact medical outcome or complete served duration. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n062-NY-mar-14-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=4
The March 5, 1934 issue reports that the earlier February 16 execution date had been postponed, with a clemency hearing scheduled for March 6 and execution then threatened for March 30. It describes Peterson as a Black miner and war veteran suffering from tuberculosis. The postponement is reported as completed; the hearing and later execution date remained prospective. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n055-mar-05-1934-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
The January 1934 Labor Defender reports that Peterson’s scheduled January 12 execution had been stayed and clemency efforts were continuing. This is an intermediate stay, separate from the later commutation to life imprisonment, and not an execution or release. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1934/v10n01-jan-1934-lab-def.pdf#page=3
The article recalls Dent Williams shooting Peterson inside his cell about five years earlier and presents the prosecution as a racial frame-up. These are attributed allegations about the existing case; the rounded interval supplies no new exact date. Labor Defender, December 1936, original PDF page 14. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1936/v12-%5B10%5Dn11-dec-1936-orig-LD.pdf#page=14
The October 5, 1931 Daily Worker, reporting from Birmingham on October 4, describes Peterson in serious condition in a local hospital under heavy guard after being shot twice in the chest and once in the arm inside jail. It reports Governor Miller sending one hundred National Guardsmen. This supplements the already documented October 2 jail shooting without creating another arrest or a release. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n239-NY-oct-05-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
A December 1935 International Labor Defense relief appeal placed Peterson in Alabama’s Wetumpka Prison under a life sentence and described the institution as housing prisoners with tuberculosis.
A disputed statement in the July 1933 defense campaign
The July 25 issue prints Birmingham dispatches dated July 21 and July 24 about a dispute over a statement issued in Willie Peterson’s name. The paper attributes the statement opposing ILD involvement to defense lawyer Walter S. Smith rather than establishing that Peterson personally made it. It also names John W. Altman as a defense attorney. The article’s criticism of the NAACP and account of the Birmingham World’s response are contemporary advocacy claims. Its August 25 execution date is prospective, not proof of an execution; it does not alter the later commutation, death history, custody endpoints or counter.
Daily Worker, July 25, 1933, original page 2. Contemporary allegations are attributed to the newspaper.
Page 2 identifies Roderick Beddow as the lawyer who secured Peterson’s conviction and alleges race-hate tactics, in a polemic over Scottsboro defense counsel. The accusation is the newspaper’s characterization; no new arrest, individual sentence day or physical endpoint supplied.
Pages1 and4 report six alibi witnesses, serious illness at Hillman Hospital, and the jail shooting by Dent Williams in the presence of officials. The ILD statement prints September24 as the arrest date, conflicting with the existing September23 date; this discrepancy is preserved without overwrite. It disputes identification based on a hat and alleges coercive questioning despite grave wounds. These are attributed defense claims, not judicial findings or another arrest.
