The last to be arrested, Joe Hampton, was taken into custody on January 10. No animated GIFs, photos with additional graphics (borders, embellishments. "Their punishment did not fit the crime. Weve updated the security on the site. ", The lawyers used the figures in their clemency petition to Gov. Northam said some of the defendants were impaired at the time of their arrests or unable to read confessions they signed. 20072023 Blackpast.org. The remaining three were electrocuted on February 5. http://revcom.us/a/098/martinsville7-en.html, http://www.blackpast.org/aah/martinsville-seven-1949-1951. Do I see a pattern here? Despite the efforts put forth by the NAACP, four of the Martinsville Seven were electrocuted on February 2, 1951. African American History: Research Guides & Websites, Global African History: Research Guides & Websites, African American Scientists and Technicians of the Manhattan Project, Envoys, Diplomatic Ministers, & Ambassadors, Foundation, Organization, and Corporate Supporters. In this period of the second Red Scare, Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee had raised alarms about purported communist influence in government and society. The "Martinsville Seven," as the men became known, were all convicted of raping 32-year-old Ruby Stroud Floyd, a white woman who had gone to a predominantly Black neighbourhood in Martinsville, Va., on Jan. 8, 1949, to collect money for clothes she had sold. There had been no threats of lynching before the trials and no disturbances after the executions. While we can't change the past, I hope today's action brings them some small measure of peace. Whittle.[7]. Resend Activation Email, Please check the I'm not a robot checkbox, If you want to be a Photo Volunteer you must enter a ZIP Code or select your location on the map. COPYRIGHT (C) 2017 - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED - BLACK THEN It is a priority for CBC to create products that are accessible to all in Canada including people with visual, hearing, motor and cognitive challenges. Please check your email and click on the link to activate your account. Please login and add some widgets to this sidebar. The campaign included picket lines, post cards and telegrams, a demonstration by hundreds rallying in Richmond to try to persuade Gov. At age 37, World War II veteran Francis DeSales Grayson was the oldest of the defendants. The mass executions were the largest in Virginia in modern times. If you notice a problem with the translation, please send a message to [emailprotected] and include a link to the page and details about the problem. You can directly shop your flowers on Amazon. Learn about how to make the most of a memorial. Share this memorial using social media sites or email. "Booker T. gave the little colored boy a quarter and told him to go (away)," Hampton told police. [2], Judge Kennon Whittle told the attorneys: "this case must and will be tried in such a way as not to disturb the kindly feeling now, locally, existing between the races. Before their executions, protesters picketed at the White House, and the governor's office received letters from around the world asking for mercy. "My daddy was Hampton's uncle," she said. It has been stated by several residents of Martinsville, Virginia that Grayson and Floyd were in a sexual relationship. [14], After exhausting the appeals process, with the US Supreme Court twice declining to hear the case, the NAACP and CRC began to appeal to executive offices. Suggest Edits . The photographer is unknown. Defense lawyers claimed that the initial confessions were forced by the local sheriff. It's even worse than that. Three worked in a sawmill, one was a plasterer's helper, one a stonecutter and one a foundry man. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Required fields are marked *. They argued for lesser sentences, but Battle resisted their pleas. Verify and try again. Hampton said he, Howard Hairston, Booker T. Millner and Frank Hairston Jr., were drinking wine near some railroad tracks that Saturday night. All of them were tried by all-White juries. To view a photo in more detail or edit captions for photos you added, click the photo to open the photo viewer. Both African American newspapers, the Richmond Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide concluded the national and international crusades by the CRC hurt the defendants' chances for clemency. In Richmond, more than 200 people, most wearing black armbands, marched to Capitol Square from a memorial meeting at Third Street Bethel AME Church. The seven were charged with the rape of Ruby Stroud Floyd in a black neighborhood of Martinsville, Virginia on January 8, 1949. In denying appeals to commute the Martinsville 7 death sentences, Virginias Governor John S. Battle said, that the wave of messages that flooded his desks was cosponsored by the Civil Rights Congress and the Communist Party. The Seven were executed at the Virginia State Penitentiary in early February 1951. "We all deserve a criminal justice system that is fair, equal, and gets it rightno matter who you are or what you look like. And the real victim Ruby Stroud Floyd didn't even get a mention from those coon descendants of her rapists ! The group of young men soon got the name The Martinsville Seven. From 1908 when Virginia began using the electric chair to 1951, state records show that all 45 people executed for rape were Black, he said. When search suggestions are available use up and down arrows to review and enter to select. Another who believes the past is best left alone is Charlie Martin, the young boy who accompanied the victim and repeatedly testified at the trials. If you have questions, please contact [emailprotected]. Try again later. The Martinsville 7, seven African American men sentenced to death for the rape of a white woman in Virginia are shown on a flyer published by the Civil Rights Congress in 1950. Search above to list available cemeteries. Pickets parade in front of the White House Jan. 30, 1951, in an effort to persuade President Truman to halt execution of seven black men sentenced to death in Virginia on charges of raping a white woman. Include gps location with grave photos where possible. Eric W, Rise, an associate professor at the University of Delaware who wrote a 1995 book on the case,The Martinsville Seven: Race, Rape, and Capital Punishment,said Floyd told police she was raped by a large group of Black men and testified at all six trials. Efforts by the defense team to change the trial's venue from the Martinsville Circuit Courton the grounds that sensationalist press about the events made a fair trial impossiblewere unsuccessful. Please ensure you have given Find a Grave permission to access your location in your browser settings. And, he asserts, it is "the most dramatic example of how the American judicial system has simply refused to face the facts about race and capital punishment.". You are using an out of date browser. He resented being under so much pressure. But Hodge-Muse, Millner and others also believe that not all the facts came out during the trials and that there are many unanswered questions. "The Martinsville Seven were not given adequate due process 'simply for being black,' they were sentenced to death for a crime that a white person would not have been executed for 'simply for being black,' and they were killed, by the Commonwealth, 'simply for being black,'" the advocates wrote in their letter to Northam. Please if you have any form of concern, suggestions, or query as regards this publication, kindly contact us. One of the convicted men's parents contacted the CRC directly and asked one of its lawyers to defend their son DeSales Grayson. The preliminary hearing occurred about a month later, and the grand jury two months after that. The next morning, a Friday, 75 people were praying at the Capitol when several blocks away at the penitentiary on Spring Street, Department of Corrections records show that Hampton, 21, was seated in the electric chair at 8:04 a.m. By using this form you agree with the storage and handling of your data by this website. They would soon be handling the volatile case of seven black men charged with raping a white woman, and Whittle admonished them that the accused "will be tried as though both parties were members of the same race. Tensions between the CRC and the NAACP characterized the relationship where the NAACP accused the CRC of using the case for its own ends. In this January 30, 1951 file photo, as temperatures drop below freezing, demonstrators march in front of the White House in Washington, in what they said was an effort to persuade President Harry Truman to halt execution of seven Black men sentenced to death in Virginia on charges of raping a white woman. At the time of their arrest, all but one were between the ages of 18 and 23. Washington and Lee University law professor David Bruck said that even if the trials were fair and the men guilty, "the idea that you could have a 45-to-nothing ratio and that does not prove anything tells you that this was simply a judicial system that was not prepared to do the right thing.". Sorry! Save to. NAACP officials focused national attention to the case, hoping to delay or overturn the death penalty judgment. Martin A. Martin and other NAACP attorneys defended the men on appeals, attempting to ensure fair trials, set due process precedents, and gain clemency or sentence reductions. 7 Black men were executed for an alleged rape in 1951. Are you sure that you want to delete this memorial? Another person who wants to learn more is Denise Grayson, 46, of Raleigh, N.C., a granddaughter of Francis Grayson. Although it was dark, Floyd testified in all six trials identifying each of the seven. [8] The day before the youngest of the seven was executed, he said, "God knows I didn't touch that woman and I'll see y'all on the other side. There were no black jurors because the prosecution vetoed all potential black jurors. Oh boo, fricking hoo look what they do to criminals in their Afreakan homeland. John S. Battle. All they are celebrating is the dismantling of White laws, laws which have held the civilised West together like glue, that once gone will herald the arrival of a new singular law, the law of the jungle the only law niggers know, and which can be perfectly summed up by Crowleys satanic epithet do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. The propaganda emanating from these sources bears no semblance of truth and is designed for no other purpose than to foment ill feeling between the races and to mislead those who have no knowledge of the true fact of these cases.. Ruby Stroud Floyd obituary is not public at the time, we will share more as we learn about the obituary and possibly the funeral. ), As far as Hodge-Muse and many others are concerned, the case "was just such an evil miscarriage of justice.". NAACP lawyers argued on appeal that Virginias legal code was hardly race-neutral since whites convicted of rape seldom if ever received the death penalty. ", Hodge-Muse says, "This community does not have a hateful attitude that would lend itself to violence that's not our culture, and I think it speaks well of the black and white community that we have never had that type of meanness.". In a news release, Northam said the pardons were not about whether the men were guilty, but it was "recognition from the Commonwealth" that the men did not receive adequate due process. . Floyd identified Grayson and Hampton as her rapists but struggled to identify the others because the attack happened at night. The Spotsylvania County Sheriffs Office has decided to end its participation on a national television show, at least for now. Tony L. Millner, vice president of the Martinsville NAACP chapter, said he was a child when it happened. Another, from China, called the sentence a "barbaric" example of American "fascist hooliganism". They should not have been executed," he added. Howard Lee Hairston, age 20, denied having sex with Floyd. Four of the men were executed in Virginia's electric chair on February 2, 1951. He sobbed loudly when Northam told the family members he would grant the pardons after meeting with them Tuesday. The trial transcripts show that on the evening of Saturday, Jan. 8, 1949, Ruby Stroud Floyd, the 32-year-old wife of a department-store manager, entered a black area of the city to collect. And website in this browser for the next time I comment open the photo to open the photo.! 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