Save the Martinsville 7: 1951
The Civil Rights Congress pickets the White House January 30, 1951 demanding President Harry Truman stop the execution of the Martinsville 7 – seven African American men sentenced to death for the rape of a white woman in Virginia.
The seven were charged with the rape of Ruby Stroud Floyd in a black neighborhood of Martinsville, Virginia on January 8, 1949. After a long legal battle led by the NAACP and a grassroots campaign led by the Civil Rights Congress, the seven were executed in 1951 on February 2nd and February 5th.
The mass executions were the largest in Virginia in modern times. Every single one of the 45 men executed by Virginia’s electric chair for rape at that point in time were African American men charged with assaulting white women.
For more information and other images, see www.flickr.com/photos/washington_area_spark/sets/72157643...
Photo by Washington Daily News. Courtesy of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.
Save the Martinsville 7: 1951
The Civil Rights Congress pickets the White House January 30, 1951 demanding President Harry Truman stop the execution of the Martinsville 7 – seven African American men sentenced to death for the rape of a white woman in Virginia.
The seven were charged with the rape of Ruby Stroud Floyd in a black neighborhood of Martinsville, Virginia on January 8, 1949. After a long legal battle led by the NAACP and a grassroots campaign led by the Civil Rights Congress, the seven were executed in 1951 on February 2nd and February 5th.
The mass executions were the largest in Virginia in modern times. Every single one of the 45 men executed by Virginia’s electric chair for rape at that point in time were African American men charged with assaulting white women.
For more information and other images, see www.flickr.com/photos/washington_area_spark/sets/72157643...
Photo by Washington Daily News. Courtesy of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.