By: Anna Stevens Bright
Many women across the nation have risen to high ranks in the judicial system, though sometimes very challenging, for various reasons. Therefore, for this special month that we are celebrating, I would like to acquaint you with one of those women. She was born, raised, and educated in her early life right here in Colleton County. She is the Honorable Chief Judge Jennifer Peters Wilson, one of six children born to the late Mr. Nathaniel and Mrs. Charity Smalls Peters. One of her siblings is her twin sister, Ms. Gale Peters Owens, an alumnus of South Carolina State University, who is a retired educator. When they graduated from college, they couldn’t attend each other’s graduation because they both were held on the same day. The same held true for their parents. Their father attended one, and their mother attended the other!
She is a 1973 honor graduate of Walterboro High School. Judge Wilson, an accomplished pianist, has always been musically inclined, following in the footsteps of her mother who was a music teacher at Ruffin High School, and her grandmother, Mrs. Addie Malone, who taught piano lessons in the community for a number of years. She sang in the chorus in high school and was a proud member of the 1972 South Carolina All-State Chorus. I bear that same honor with her, as we both were selected for it the same year; Judge Wilson sang alto, and I sang soprano!
A 1977 cum laude graduate of Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, Judge Wilson received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science. She received her Juris Doctor degree in 1980 from Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey. In 1981, she was admitted to the South Carolina Bar. A former prosecutor and criminal defense attorney, Judge Wilson is the first African American and first female appointed as Chief Judge of Myrtle Beach Municipal Court. After serving 22 years in her capacity as Chief Judge, she retired in 2022.
In an interview with WMBF News in 2019, Judge Wilson explained, “It is because of the constitution and the law of the constitution that I am here.” She went on to say that she grew up in Walterboro, South Carolina, a small town just west of Charleston, and she has vivid memories of segregation as a child. Judge Wilson recalls, “Walking in downtown Walterboro, there was a [local] drug store, and the white kids would go there after school to get sodas and ice cream, and all we could do was just walk by. We weren’t allowed in there. And it had a profound impact on me as a child,” said Wilson. “Going through the back door of the dentist’s office, I could still remember the trees brushing up aside my face as I walked back there to go through the door to go to the separate waiting room.”
Judge Wilson’s experience as a child inspired her to focus on change when she became an adult. She said she would later grab hold of her power while attending college. “I think had I not gone to Spellman College, I would not have found my worth, and my power as a black woman, as a young black woman, and that’s where I learned that I can do anything and be anything,” stated Wilson.
The Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Drum Major for Justice Award, the Omega Psi Phi Community Service Award, and the Conway Branch NAACP Ernest A. Finney, Jr. Historic Achievement Award are among the numerous awards she has received. Some of the organizations to which she belongs are the South Carolina Bar Association, the South Carolina Black Lawyers Association, and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., where she is a diamond life member. Judge Wilson’s church affiliation is Saint Ann’s Episcopal Church in Conway, South Carolina.
She is the proud mother of two children, Hannah and Lucken, and has one granddaughter, Angelina, and two grandsons, Felix and Huey. Judge Wilson’s other siblings are: Dr. Stephen Peters, former Superintendent of Laurens County School District in South Carolina, who is a well-known educator and guest speaker around this country, is also an author. All four of her brothers were highly adept in basketball in both high school and college. Two of her brothers, the late Clinton “Clint” Peters and Ronald “Bubbie” Peters, were graduates of Claflin University and were on the basketball team while attending there. Ronald played semi-professional basketball, and he was also a physical education teacher and a coach. Her other brother is Edward Peters, who was known as a “beast” on the court!
Prior to ending this current interview, Judge Wilson reminisced, “We recently celebrated our 50th Class Reunion. Time has really flown by, because it seems that it was only yesterday that we were walking through the halls of Walterboro High.”
Thank you, Honorable Chief Judge Wilson, for making Colleton County proud of all that you have accomplished in the field of the judiciary by “setting the bar high” for other women who have pursued / are pursuing careers in the judicial system. We proudly salute you as a “Trailblazer” for African American History Month!
