# Lynching of Robert Mallard

Robert Childs "Big Duck" Mallard (1910 or 1911 – November 20, 1948) was an African American traveling casket salesman and landowner, who was shot and lynched by a group of about 20 members of the Ku Klux Klan in Lyons, Toombs County, Georgia. The people charged with his murder were acquitted by an all-white jury.

## Biography
### Prior life

Robert Childs Mallard was born c. 1911. He was a traveling casket salesman working for the Standard Products Company. Mallard lived on a 35-acre farm he gained from his wife, Amy James Mallard's, white stepfather-in-law on the banks of the Altamaha River with Amy and their 2-year-old son, John. Amy worked as an elementary school teacher.

### Death

On the night of November 20, 1948, 2 weeks after he voted in the 1948 Georgia gubernatorial 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. 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, and the group shot the vehicle with pistols, which killed Mallard. When sheriff R. E. Gray arrived to the scene, they searched Amy's pocketbook and the vehicle.

## Aftermath

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 spread the information.
Former Georgia governor Herman Talmadge did not order an investigation by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Instead, Talmadge sent two agents to Mallard's funeral on November 27, 1948. There, they arrested Amy and charged her for the murder.
After the news became nationwide, Joseph Goldwasser, a Jewish businessman from Cleveland, Ohio, began an unofficial investigation. His investigation led police to five people. They surrendered, and two of the men were indicted for the murder; Ku Klux Klan members William L. "Spud" Howell, and Roderick Clifton. After the surrenders, fires broke out in the local black business area.

## Trial

The trial for the murder of Mallard began in the Toombs County Courthouse on January 11, 1949. At the beginning of the trial, Toombs County solicitor William L. Lanier presented Amy as his only piece of evidence. Amy argued that she recognized Howell and Clifton's car during the event. Amy then fell from her chair to the floor and began sobbing. Howell and Clifton's lawyer, Thomas Ross Sharpe, argued that Amy was armed at the time of the killing. He also used character evidence in two ways: first, a subpoena to Joseph Golwasser to testify, and sending two jurors to testify, a move that " defied the notions of jurisprudence". After 25 minutes of deliberation, Howell was acquitted by an all-white jury, and the charges against Clifton, who was severed from the trial, were subsequently dropped in a case of Nolle prosequi.

## Legacy

After the trial, Amy took her two children, Doris Byron and John Mallard, went to Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, D.C. with members of the NAACP to protest the decision. On July 4, 1949, Mallard's home in Lyons was allegedly burnt down by Ku Klux Klan members.
Mallard's death led to the creation of the Atlanta Negro Voters League.
Mallard was also included in the We Charge Genocide petition. Amy and Doris were both signers.