Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, a Democrat, on Tuesday granted posthumous clemency to seven black men who were executed in 1951 for the rape of a white woman.
The group, known as the Martinsville Seven, was convicted by all-white juries in a case that attracted clemency petitions from around the world and that in recent years has been denounced as an example of racial disparity in the application of the death penalty.
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The men were convicted of raping Ruby Stroud Floyd, 32, a white woman who had gone to a predominantly black neighborhood in Martinsville, Virginia, on January 8, 1949, to collect for the clothes she had sold.
Four of the men were executed by electric chair in Virginia on February 2, 1951
.
Three days later, the other three were also electrocuted.
It was the largest group of people executed for a single victim crime in Virginia history.
The seven, most in their teens or twenties, are Grayson, Frank Hairston Jr .;
Howard Lee Hairston;
James Luther Hairston;
Joe Henry Hampton;
Booker Millner;
and John Clabon Taylor, according to the AP news agency.
The governor of Virginia signed the pardon after holding a meeting with relatives of those convicted last Tuesday and after hearing their requests.
Following the decision, family members erupted in applause and several covered their faces and sobbed after hearing the government decision, according to The Washington Post.
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"Seventy years.
Seventy years! "Exclaimed Pamela Hairston, one of the relatives of those sentenced, who had been writing letters to draw attention to the case for almost three decades.
Demonstration outside the White House in Washington against the executions of the seven black men sentenced to death in Virginia for raping a white woman on January 30, 1951.AP Photo / Henry Burroughs
Northam issued a series of "ordinary pardons", in which the guilt or innocence of those convicted is not addressed, but it is recognized that the cases had been treated with "racial inequality" and there were deficiencies in the process, according to his office. The governor has issued more than 600 pardons since taking office in January 2018, exceeding the total number granted by the nine previous Virginia governors, according to his office. The Martinsville case became controversial. Civil rights protection issue shortly after the men were arrested in January 1949. That month, a white woman passed a group of black men drinking along the railroad tracks in the town of Southside, in the state of Virginia when, he stated,one of them accosted her. During a period of approximately two hours the woman testified at the trial that several of the men repeatedly raped her, threatened to kill her if she screamed and dragged her into the forest afterwards, from where she was able to escape, the newspaper reported.
Gov. Ralph Northam during a tour of the Greensville Correctional Center before signing a bill abolishing the state's death penalty in Jarratt, Virginia, on Wednesday, March 24, 2021.AP Photo / Steve Helber
The police quickly detained seven black men and submitted their signed confessions. Although all seven were said to have admitted to having sex or attempting to have sex with the woman, their descriptions of events differed and they all pleaded not guilty to the rape charges.
At the time, rape was a capital crime
.
But Northam noted Tuesday that the execution penalty for rape was applied almost entirely to blacks.
From 1908, when Virginia began using the electric chair, to 1951, state records reveal that all 45 people executed for rape were black, according to the governor.
“These men were executed because they were black and it is not okay.
They shouldn't have been executed, ”Northam said.
Several of the defendants were illiterate and unable to read their own confessions, and none had a lawyer present when they signed the statement.
They were convicted in just eight days by all-white juries and executed by electric chair in February 1951.
The case sparked protests in the White House and highlighted a major inequality in Virginia's criminal justice system - between 1908 and In 1951, 45 men were executed for rape and all were black, the newspaper recalls.
Northam has already granted a total of 604 pardons since taking office in 2018, more than the previous nine governors combined, his administration announced Tuesday.
With information from AP and EFE.
