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The Child in the Electric Chair: the Execution of George Junius Stinney, Jr

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The Child in the Electric Chair: the Execution of George Junius Stinney, Jr The Southeastern Librarian Volume 69 Issue 1 Article 7 Spring 5-7-2021 The Child in the Electric Chair: The Execution of George Junius Stinney, Jr. and the Making of a Tragedy in the American South Tim Dodge Auburn University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/seln Part of the Library and Information Science Commons Recommended Citation Dodge, Tim (2021) "The Child in the Electric Chair: The Execution of George Junius Stinney, Jr. and the Making of a Tragedy in the American South," The Southeastern Librarian: Vol. 69 : Iss. 1 , Article 7. Available at: https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/seln/vol69/iss1/7 This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@Kennesaw State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Southeastern Librarian by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@Kennesaw State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Reviews The Southeastern Librarian Vol. 69, No. 1 Family photographs are also interspersed newspaper and magazine articles of the time. Per- throughout the sections. Mary Martha Greene haps his most valuable primary sources are his shares her joy of cooking and entertaining and interviews, conducted in 2014, with the elderly invites the reader to use the recipes to start their surviving siblings of George Stinney. Faber also own traditions. These recipes can be made by be- consulted interviews conducted by lawyer David L. ginners and seasoned cooks. Recommended for Bruck in 1983 with surviving witnesses and law public and academic libraries. enforcement officers. Among the many strengths of this book is Sarah Grace Glover, University of North Georgia the fascinating socioeconomic analysis of Alcolu, South Carolina Faber employs to set the stage for The Child in the Electric Chair: The this tragic story. It was a small company town Execution of George Junius Stinney, dominated by the lumber mill owned by the Alder- Jr. and the Making of a Tragedy in the man family who had established Alcolu in the American South. 1880s. Until the double murder and the conviction of George Stinney in 1944, there had, generally, been little racial tension according to Charles Stin- Eli Faber ney, brother of George (p. 10). Columbia: University of South On March 24, 1944 two white girls, 11- Carolina Press, 2021 year old Betty June Binnicker and 7-year old Mary ISBN: 9781643361949 Emma Thames, took a bicycle ride together on one 192p. $29.99 (Hbk) bicycle, to pick flowers on the outskirts of the small town. Their bodies were found in a water- In many ways, this is a timely filled ditch, underneath the partially disassembled book. The struggle by African bicycle. Their heads had been bashed in by some Americans to seek justice in an type of metal object (variously reported as a rail- unjust criminal justice system is perpetual but has road spike or a piece of metal pipe). become even more urgent in recent years as the The identification of George Stinney as nation has grappled with the racially motivated the murder suspect is somewhat mysterious. killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and Among those investigating was state trooper Sid- George Floyd, to name only three of the most ney J. Pratt. According to his 1983 interview with prominent cases. The guilt or innocence of five- David Bruck, Pratt recalled encountering an Afri- foot one-inch 95-pound 14-year old George Junius can American man who responded to Pratt’s ques- Stinney, Jr. remains unclear but the travesty of the tioning by stating that “The meanest fellow in this South Carolina criminal justice system of 1944 in community is a boy by the name of George Stin- action as it rapidly rushed to judgment and then ney” (p. 30). Faber states in the lengthy endnote executed Stinney has been made clear thanks to that this anonymous informant (referred to as Eli Faber’s fascinating and disturbing investiga- John Doe) needs to be kept anonymous: tion in The Child in the Electric Chair. “Revealing Doe’s identity even now could cause Sadly, Eli Faber (1943-2020), a professor harmful and damaging consequences to relatives of History at the John Jay College of Criminal Jus- who are still alive” even though Doe is now de- tice, died before completing this book. His long- ceased (p. 137). time friend, Carol Berkin, has successfully com- In any event, Stinney was arrested and pleted the task. Because Stinney’s case was not jailed. He apparently (without a lawyer being pre- appealed to a higher court, there was no existing sent) confessed to the murders and included the trial transcript for Faber to consult in his research incendiary information that he had sexually mo- on the case. However, Faber was able to locate a lested the older girl after she was dead. Incendiary number of primary sources in South Carolina ar- because in the Deep South of 1944 accusation of chives plus microfilmed documents produced by rape or sexual assault upon a white female made the Commission on Interracial Cooperation and against an African American male was the most the NAACP (National Association for the Advance- frequent justification given for lynching. Accord- ment of Colored People), along with a number of ingly, Stinney was spirited away from the Claren- 23 Reviews The Southeastern Librarian Vol. 69, No. 1 don County jail to the jail in nearby Sumter Coun- ground that” the courts have failed in a capital ty. case to discharge their proper functions with due Stinney was brought back to Clarendon regard to the constitutional safeguards in the ad- County for a speedy trial and conviction. Aside ministration of justice” (p. 122-123). from what may have been a coerced confession, Recommended for both academic and Stinney was also ill-served by the two lawyers ap- public libraries collecting in the areas of criminal pointed by the court to represent him: James W. justice, African American studies, and South Caro- Wideman and Charles N. Plowden. Both had polit- lina/southern history. ical ambitions and both knew that if they provided a vigorous defense, they would be viewed unfavor- Tim Dodge, Auburn University ably by the local white electorate, thus, they essen- tially did nothing for Stinney during his trial. Jumping the Broom: The Surprising Some members of local law enforcement also had Multicultural Origins of a Black political ambitious and Faber argues that this too Wedding Ritual contributed to the damning testimony they pro- vided during the trial. Tyler D. Parry Although the trial received surprisingly Chapel Hill: The University of little publicity, the relative inaction of the South North Carolina Press, 2020 Carolina Conference of the NAACP and, in turn, ISBN: 9781469660868 the national office of the NAACP, is dismaying. 320 p. $27.50 (Pbk) Faber determines that it was both a matter of in- adequate financial resources plus the fact that the This newly published book en- NAACP was at that very moment in 1944 heavily titled Jumping the Broom: The engaged in an ultimately successful attempt to win Surprising Multicultural Origins of a Black Wed- equal pay for African American teachers in South ding Ritual, Parry reveals an historical, cultural, Carolina public schools. social and international tradition referred to as a Finally, Governor Olin Johnston proved “broomstick wedding”. Parry tells us how the mar- unreceptive to the numerous appeals to commute ginalized of society found comfort and honor in “a George Stinney;s death sentence because, he, too, broom stick wedding”. The act to clarify and for- had further political ambitions. Indeed, Johnston malize their wedding vows by jumping over a defeated longtime incumbent Ellison D. “Cotton broomstick became a ritual as these acts traveled Ed” Smith to become a U.S. Senator. Both Smith across the continents. Erica Ball cites, “ranging and Johnston were ardent white supremacists (p. from eighteenth-century England, Scotland, and 95). Commuting the death sentence of an African Wales, through the nineteenth and twentieth- American male convicted of raping and killing two century United States to the contemporary United young white girls was, obviously, not in Johnston’s States and Caribbean, this book offers a compel- best political interests. ling and illuminating account of a quintessential Eli Faber has succeeded in publishing an product of transatlantic exchange—the broomstick important historical account of a grave racially- wedding” (Cover leaf). based injustice. While George Stinney’s actual The broomstick wedding came to be a cul- guilt or innocence probably can never be deter- tural exchange between African and European mined, what can be said is that the manner in peoples. Parry explains “how the simple act of which the murders were investigated, and the pro- jumping the broom” became so loved and replicat- gress of his case through the South Carolina crimi- ed as groups of people traveled the globe and in- nal justice system, and, finally, his execution via cluded it in their wedding rites. the electric chair, were an egregious example of Parry leads the reader through a series of the Jim Crow criminal justice system in action. examples of countries, religious groups, advocacy The case was revived in 2013 and 2014 and, while groups, and differing sexual orientations where he not ruling on the guilt or innocence of Stinney, the gives examples of research in which court “vacated the judgment” of 1944 on the “marginalized” peoples made decisions to alter or 24 .
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