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.
[5][6] 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.
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.
They surrendered, and two of the men were indicted for the murder; Ku Klux Klan members William L. "Spud" Howell, and Roderick Clifton.
[23] 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.
[24][25][8] 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.