In the late summer of 1966, Atlanta’s image as a “city too busy to hate” was shattered. The story of Hulet Varner Jr.’s murder and the trial of William Haywood James captures a revealing moment in Atlanta’s mid-century history, one that challenges the city’s carefully cultivated image as a beacon of racial moderation and progress. Just days after riots had already shaken the city’s sense of calm, the Varner Jr. killing unfolded against a backdrop of optimism and tension. Yet the events that followed the murder of a Black teenager by a white man in a predominantly Black neighborhood exposed the limits of that promise. The episode forced Atlanta to confront an uncomfortable truth: progress in rhetoric did not always translate into justice in practice.

Losing Hulet Varner Jr. 

Days after a police shooting of a Black suspect sparked riots near the newly built Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, tensions between Black residents and white authorities ran high. Only four days later, that fragile calm broke again when a white carpenter named William Haywood James drove into a Black neighborhood and killed a teenage boy named Hulet Varner Jr. James and his wife, Edna Ruth, had earlier argued with a group of Black teenagers who they believed had called out to Mrs. James. 

When they later drove through Boulevard, then a predominantly Black neighborhood, James saw another group of boys standing outside an apartment building. Convinced they were the same youths, he backed up his car, shouted at them, and opened fire through the window. Six shots rang out. Sixteen-year-old Hulet Varner Jr. was struck in the eye and killed instantly, while another boy, Roy Wright, was wounded. The incident reignited unrest, marking Atlanta’s second outbreak of racial violence in less than a week.

Justice for Varner’s Family

Mayor Ivan Allen Jr., who had built a national reputation as a racial moderate and had supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964, personally visited the Varner and Wright families, expressing sympathy and pledging justice. He offered a $10,000 reward for the killer’s conviction, hoping the case would prove Atlanta’s commitment to fairness. Within days, police arrested William and Edna Ruth James. James already had a lengthy criminal record and was out on bond for another violent crime.

In February 1967, an all-white Fulton County jury heard the case. Prosecutor George McPherson faced a daunting challenge: persuading white jurors in the Deep South to convict a white man for killing a Black teenager. James testified that he acted in self-defense, claiming he feared for his life amid supposed “riotous conditions.” Multiple witnesses contradicted him, saying the shooting was unprovoked. In a striking moment of moral appeal, McPherson urged jurors to prove that Georgia was not like Alabama or Mississippi, states notorious for letting white killers of Black victims go free.