South Carolina Department of Archives and History
George Junius Stinney, Jr.
George Stinney, Jr., was 14 years old when he was accused of murdering two young white girls. He was 5 feet, 1 inch and weighed all of 95 pounds. But he was black, and this was South Carolina in 1944.
George was sentenced to die in the electric chair -- the youngest ever executed in America during the 20th century -- after a confession that may have been elicited by a promise of ice cream. My friend Zerlina Maxwell wrote about this incredible story in theGrio:
George Junius Stinney was even part of the search crew and told a bystander simply that he had seen the girls earlier that day. This claim was enough probable cause for the South Carolina police to arrest Stinney for the double murder, even though, the idea of him being strong enough to kill not one but two girls is a stretch. Despite this fact, the police hauled Stinney into the station for hours of intense interrogation, without the presence of either of his parents. Reports claim the police offered Stinney ice cream if he confessed to them that he committed the double murder.
The article goes on into greater detail about the doubt surrounding George's case: no existing written record of his confession; no physical evidence linking him to the murder; no paper record of his conviction. An attorney is requesting that the current Clarendon County solicitor re-open the case.
More advocates for his exoneration are also speaking out. Wendell Pierce, activist and star of HBO's "The Wire" and "Treme," is backing a play about George's story. NBC Nightly News profiled the case last night, and today theGrio follows up, interviewing George's youngest brother, Charles.
Mr. Stinney, now 79 and pastor of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ in Brooklyn, had some words of caution for advocates of the death-penalty:
"Before you take someone's life, you should make sure, [you] have two or three witnesses, not just one witness, but two or three witnesses and some evidence or something to make sure [...]" Stinney said "[Because] you're taking somebody's life like that, you can't bring [them] back..."
"[George] already paid with his life and nothing will...even if they take it [off the state's official records], it will still not bring him back."
The video of his interview with theGrio's Todd Johnson is embedded after the jump.
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why is the south killing young Black men with overwhelming evidence of innocence. two in less than 30 days. are they retaliating with the fear of political disconnection, if they are overthrown, and imminent loss of position, or trying to reassure the radical right they are still faithful to their hate agenda? nothing has changed but the people in power who are still openly killing Blacks this time with the best wishes of the state.
You're aware this took place in 1944, right? This isn't a recent story.
no not till now, thank you for pulling my coat guess i'm still a victim of failure to scroll down. i need to pay stricter attention when thinking of posting i have a brain tumor sometimes i fall short but people like yourself help me by bringing it to my attention and allowing me to realize i need to push the reset button thank you again my apologies to all for my bad. stay strong God Bless
Just looked in for the first time in ages and saw this post. I hope you get better and soon. My best friend had a brain tumor removed last week.
Teaching people that killing is wrong by killing is morally bankrupt.
This poor kid was put to death because he wanted an ice cream cone.
One more reason to vote for Pres. Obama.
@ Crackhead, you're totally right! Vote for the first president to openly assassinate an American citizen! Idiot.
If they were innocent of the crimes they were convicted for, not to worry. They're all guilty as hell of something that the didn't get caught for. It's a wash.
This is another example of why the death penalty really needs to be abolished.
Ditto.
This is just yet another reason why our country needs to get rid of the death penalty. If there is even a question that we executed an innocent man in 1944 and another possibly innocent man in 2011 who's to say that we haven't executed hundreds of innocent people? It is time to join the rest of the western civilized nations and get rid of the death penalty.
I think that killing a 14 year old boy is absolutely barbaric. Those who twisted his case and were responsible for having him executed should have been brought up on charges of murder. However, let's not compare the racially motivated killing of a child to the execution of a man who was indeed responsible for shooting a man in the face (which Troy Davis, at very least, did). Davis claimed he was innocent, like lots of other people on death row, but a 14 year old absolutely does not have the autonomy or maturity to understand allegations of this magnitude. Don't corrupt the memory of a victim by peppering it with the hollow claims of a vicious man who was brought to justice.
hello Chris i am on that side of the street where there was no evidence and recanted testimony and jurors change of mind, and all those who pleaded with he GA officials who give a damn about a Black life or public opinion. i think this is what made me not realize that the other case was in '44, and my failure to scroll down. shameless God Bless
just heartbreaking! This child should not have paid the ultimate price because he mentioned he had seen the girls that day. We are now paying attention to what's been going on for decades, even centuries. I pray all the state lawmakers can see the errors of the past and choose to not repeat, by abolishing the death penalty.
The one documented case where ice cream didn't make everything all better.
It is indeed time to rid our nation of the death penalty. It is barbaric, and at a time when there is so much hand-wringing about Shariah law, should we as a nation pause and look in the mirror before we cast stones?
Warren on the one my brother stay strong God Bless
The idea that the collateral damage of occasionally executing an innocent person is an acceptable risk, as long as the ultimate penalty is meted out to the truly guilty, is a crime in and of itself. This attitude has dominated and tainted our national character, both in war and peace. We must, ultimately, rise to a higher moral plane, by finally realizing that it is more important to protect the innocent than to punish the guilty.
they will do to you, what they are saying you did that warrants your killing. so by doing this to you legally i am next on the block cause i did it to you and on and on. till the last one standing has to take his own life for doing to you what he's killing you for. revenge justice> extinction God Bless us all, save us from us
Hey Codespace, Troy Davis' murder just happened a few days ago. It's STILL a recent story.....
thank you Dawn good lookin' out but i was wrong to include both in same time frame. much love stay strong and God Bless
May I suggest a Lee Greenwood country song for the documentary background music, maybe a light volume of "God Bless the USA" would be appropriate?
I worked with a guy who used a personal experience as an argument agains the death penalty. When he was in college, his class went to the local court house to observe trials. The first trial was an embezelment and fraud case. The defendant was represented by a large team of high priced lawyers. In the second trial, and young black man was on trial for murder, represented by a lone public defender who looked younger than his client.
We have seen way too many cases where, with enough money, people can get away with murder and many other offenses.
His crime was being black in America, in 1944. It's not much better today.
Remember Sacco and Vanzetti?
Hey Dawn, codespace was only responding to the incorrect assessment of the prior post that the south executed two men within 30 days. He just missed the time reference. No need to be nasty, sometimes people get the jist of a story and are motivated to write before being sure of the details. Case in point.
Nonetheless, this was a child they executed in 1944. Racist agenda overriding intelligence and reason.
Lo that is what happened i coined the term scroll down syndrome as to address just that. i think Dawn was just lookin' out for my bad remembering this latest atrocity of just us not justice, don't think there was any animosity intended. be strong God Bless
I feel that in cases of racial injustice, primitive emotions over-ride ability to reason.
The 1944 unspeakable execution of that young boy is a case in point. And all the other injustices that happen against black people, or any people for that matter, with a different ethnic background.
It's difficult to listen to George's brother speak and watch the emotions of loss and injustice swell within him. Once a life is taken, it can never be given back. Very sad indeed.
He Was my uncle and I am very hurt by the way he was treated and we still believe in his innocence and one day it will come to light. GOD sits high and looks down low he has the last say.
He could have lived to be 81 years old today.
Uh, Troy Davis never shot anyone in the face. Learn about the cace please, before you comment on it.
This disgusting, tragic, heartbreaking story may be decades in the past, but it should serve as a warning to modern day Americans. The death penalty is still in use in america today and being used to kill dozens of criminals every year. Like in Rick Perry's Texas, many of those executed may not have been guilty of any crime, let alone one that would lead to their death. It is high time that Americans question the legitimacy and wisdom of the death penalty now that we know how fallible the system is. http://www.sunstateactivist.org
Perry is the worse kind of legal killer he had no discrimination he killed potentially innocent Whites as well as Blacks and Hispanics.
Greetings! Rachel
The death penalty should be abolished and declared unconstitutional in these United States considering the various cases of the wrong person being executed, racial bias, and it goes against the sacredness of life which all reasonable people should honour. Those whom advocate the death penatly have no heart and are concerned about their own feelings rather than the sacredness of a human life. I pity this country known as the United States and do pray for the most High to move this country to abolish this barbaric practice.
Peace be unto you!
Marquest Burton
By far, the story of George Stinney is the most horrid of the racist south history. Find me another story more abhorrent and I will eat crow for dinner tonight.
The Scottsboro Boys?
The Story of Mary Turner. This came from a memorial website someone made in her honor at http://www.maryturner.org.
In May of 1918, Hampton Smith, a 31 year old White plantation owner in Brooks County, Georgia, was shot and killed by one of his Black workers named Sydney Johnson. Hampton Smith was known for abusing and beating his workers to the point few people in the area would work for him. To solve this labor shortage, Smith turned to the debt peonage system of the day and found a ready labor pool. He used that system by bailing people out of jail, people typically arrested for petty offenses, who would then work off their debt to him on his plantation. Nineteen year old Sydney Johnson, arrested for "rolling dice" and fined thirty dollars, was one such person.
After a few days of work on Smith's plantation, and shortly after being beaten by Smith for not working while he was sick, Sidney Johnson shot and killed Hampton Smith. What ensued after the shooting was a mob driven manhunt for Johnson and others thought to be involved in his decision to kill Hampton Smith. That manhunt lasted for more than a week and resulted in the deaths of at least 13 people, with some historical accounts suggesting a higher number of persons killed. One of the people killed was a woman named Mary Turner.
Twenty year-old Mary Turner, 8 months pregnant at the time and whose husband had been killed in this "lynching rampage" on Sunday, May 19th, made the mistake of publicly objecting to her husband's murder. She also had the audacity to threaten to swear out warrants for those responsible. Those "unwise remarks," as the area papers put it, enraged locals. Consequently, Mary Turner fled for her life only to be caught and taken to a place called Folsom's Bridge on the Brooks and Lowndes Counties' shared border. To punish her, at Folsom's Bridge the mob tied Mary Turner by her ankles, hung her upside down from a tree, poured gasoline on her and burned off her clothes. One member of the mob then cut her stomach open and her unborn child dropped to the ground where it was reportedly stomped on and crushed. Her body was then riddled with gunfire from the mob. Later that night she and her baby were buried ten feet away from where they were murdered. The makeshift grave was marked with only a "whiskey bottle" with a "cigar" stuffed in its neck.
Three days after the murder of Mary Turner and her baby, three more bodies were found in the area and Sydney Johnson was killed in a shoot out with police on South Troup Street in Valdosta, Georgia. Once killed, the crowd of more than 700 people cut off his genitals and threw them into the street. A rope was then tied to his neck and he was drug to Campground Church in Morven, Georgia, 16 miles away. There, what remained of his body was burned. During and shortly after this chain of events, it is reported that more than 500 people fled Lowndes and Brooks Counties in fear for their lives.
Some may ask, why bring up "the past" and these atrocities now? "It happened so long ago." We think we should bring them up and face them for many reasons. We should bring them up to acknowledge the lives lost, along with the reality that no justice has ever occurred for the victims, families and many others affected by these events. We should bring them up because few in the region speak publicly about these events yet wonder why race relations in the area are often so strained. We should bring them up because to date these events remain one of the most gruesome cases of racism and racial terrorism in this nation's history, yet they are omitted from the history we teach our children. We should bring them up because Mary Turner's murder remains one of the most horrific crimes committed against a human being in this nation's history. We should bring them up because so far not one historical marker or grave stone is in place to acknowledge these events and the lives lost during that week of terror in May of 1918. And last but not least, we should bring these events up so we can face our collective past in order to see how it might affect our collective present and future. Please help us do that.
Now.......would you like hot sauce to go with your crow?! :) j/k
I never heard of Stinney's case until yesterday. I have been consumed with emotion as though it is just happening. Imagine the horror of the little boy standing alone in that courtroom confused and possibly crying for his parents who were already chased out of town! If you are a parent, like I have a ten year old, imagine that were your child facing such an injustice. I weep for his memory and may God forgive America's past!
You are so right his family was run out of town and not allowed to see him for fear of what would happen to them. The family suffered a lot during this time I know because He was my uncle I feel this personally everytime this is brought up I sometimes cant rest at night for feeling him crying out for his name to be cleared. God blessed his soul and took him home with him because we should not suffer the little children.
Delete
I support the death penalty but I would not, generally speaking, support the idea of executing a 14 year old kid. That is not to say I would never support doing so.
Oh My God!
Jasmine-1862666 Oh My God! There is no bottom to human's madness!
I started a comment, but my throat is choked with tears and rage, and my mind is reeling. It's incomprehensible that so-called humans can act this way.....