![liquornspice:
This is the post I was referring to. **TRIGGER WARNING** for description of execution and my somewhat graphic commentary at the bottom.
quixotess:
Image is a pair of mug shots of the young George Stinney.
riya-noir:
He was 14 yrs. 6mos. and 5 days old —- and the youngest person executed in the United States in the 20th Century.
>
George Junius Stinney, Jr.,
[b. 1929 - d. 1944]
In a South Carolina prison sixty-six years ago, guards walked a 14-year-old boy, bible tucked under his arm, to the electric chair. At 5’ 1” and 95 pounds, the straps didn’t fit, and an electrode was too big for his leg.
The switch was pulled and the adult sized death mask fell from George Stinney’s face. Tears streamed from his eyes. Witnesses recoiled in horror as they watched the youngest person executed in the United States in the past century die.
Now, a community activist is fighting to clear Stinney’s name, saying the young boy couldn’t have killed two girls. George Frierson, a school board member and textile inspector, believes Stinney’s confession was coerced, and that his execution was just another injustice blacks suffered in Southern courtrooms in the first half of the 1900s.
(CLICK THROUGH FOR THE REST OF THE ARTICLE.)
And I’m so glad they had to look at his face as he was killed. To see him crying. To see that, yes, this is a child whose flesh is burning in front of you. And I hadn’t read the rest of the article before my last post, but somehow I knew it:
Without family visits, the 14 year old had to endure the trial and death alone.
I knew they would make him die alone. Without anyone there to tell him they loved him. That he was loved and human and innocent and loved.
I want to avoid the graphic image so I haven’t read the full article so I’m curious to whether his alleged victims were white? If so, I’m honestly surprised he wasn’t lynched. Look up the Emmit Till case if you’ve never heard of it.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lhz8b3qYrE1qzchvao1_500.jpg)
This is the post I was referring to. **TRIGGER WARNING** for description of execution and my somewhat graphic commentary at the bottom.
Image is a pair of mug shots of the young George Stinney.
He was 14 yrs. 6mos. and 5 days old —- and the youngest person executed in the United States in the 20th Century.
>George Junius Stinney, Jr.,
[b. 1929 - d. 1944]
In a South Carolina prison sixty-six years ago, guards walked a 14-year-old boy, bible tucked under his arm, to the electric chair. At 5’ 1” and 95 pounds, the straps didn’t fit, and an electrode was too big for his leg.
The switch was pulled and the adult sized death mask fell from George Stinney’s face. Tears streamed from his eyes. Witnesses recoiled in horror as they watched the youngest person executed in the United States in the past century die.
Now, a community activist is fighting to clear Stinney’s name, saying the young boy couldn’t have killed two girls. George Frierson, a school board member and textile inspector, believes Stinney’s confession was coerced, and that his execution was just another injustice blacks suffered in Southern courtrooms in the first half of the 1900s.
(CLICK THROUGH FOR THE REST OF THE ARTICLE.)
And I’m so glad they had to look at his face as he was killed. To see him crying. To see that, yes, this is a child whose flesh is burning in front of you. And I hadn’t read the rest of the article before my last post, but somehow I knew it:
Without family visits, the 14 year old had to endure the trial and death alone.
I knew they would make him die alone. Without anyone there to tell him they loved him. That he was loved and human and innocent and loved.
I want to avoid the graphic image so I haven’t read the full article so I’m curious to whether his alleged victims were white? If so, I’m honestly surprised he wasn’t lynched. Look up the Emmit Till case if you’ve never heard of it.
