In Georgia's Toombs County, deep in the dark land of white supremacy, Robert Mallard was known to many white folks as a "biggety nigger." At 37, he was a traveling salesman, strong, brash and prosperous. His voluminous sales of caskets, embalming fluid, and clothing irked his white competitors. He owned a 36-acre farm, drove a flashy 1948 Frazer sedan. He made frequent trips North and was fond of calling himself "Mister Robert Mallard."
In Toombs County, adjoining Montgomery County, where a Negro was shot to death last September for daring to vote in the Democratic primary (TIME, Sept. 20), Mallard was clearly living dangerously. On the warm Saturday night of November 20, driving along a country road with his wife, Amy, their son and two young Negroes, Robert Mallard was killed. A single shot pierced the windshield and slammed into his chest. Amy, a schoolteacher, said that white-robed men had blocked the road with cars and shot Mallard.
White Man's Country. But it was four days before the news leaked out of Toombs County on a tip to the liberal Macon News, 90 miles away. Explained the editor of the Lyons Progress in Toombs County (who is also a string correspondent for Atlanta papers): "It's just another Negro killing—why, I'm not even going to put it in my paper." But "just another Negro killing" was soon headline news in the sensitive South.
To prodding Georgia newsmen, Toombs County Sheriff R. E. Gray first reported that Mallard had been killed by men wearing "some white stuff." The Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, Dr. Samuel Green of Atlanta, who insisted the local Klan robes were all locked up that night in the Klavern, opened his own investigation. Soon he had statements from Toombs County law enforcement officers, including Sheriff Gray, exonerating the Klan. Said the sheriff: "This Negro was a bad Negro, as I have had dealings with him. I further know that this Negro was hated by all who knew him."
The Atlanta Constitution's Editor Ralph McGill gave the investigation an unheard-of twist. McGill announced that an anonymous "wool hat" Georgian, a firm believer in "white supremacy," had deposited with him a $500 reward for the arrest and conviction of Mallard's killers. Said the wool-hatter: "This is a white man's country and therefore the law is the white man's law. It is important that he live by it ... No decent white man, no real 'wool hat Georgian' will support murder and lynch violence."
Hummon Steps In. Thus harassed, Georgia's newly inaugurated Governor Herman ("Hummon") Talmadge acted fast. On his orders, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation moved in with dispatch. Four days later it had its own answer to who killed Robert Mallard. As she left her husband's funeral services, Mrs. Mallard was arrested by the G.B.I. on a charge of murder. Blandly, the arresting officer, Lieut. William E. McDuffie, announced: "It is our belief that they [the Klan] are not guilty of shooting Mallard." But he gave no basis to reporters for charging Mrs. Mallard. Dumfounded and hysterical, the widow screamed again that men in white robes had killed her husband. Released without bond, she fled terror-stricken into the woods, shivered all night in a rainstorm, finally found sanctuary with Savannah friends.