Americus Group Believes Woman was Wrongly Executed 60-Years Ago

Lena Baker, the only woman to die in Georgia 's electric chair, was honored at a gravesite memorial Saturday in Cuthbert , Georgia at Mount Vernon Baptist Church. Baker was executed March 5, 1945 , at Georgia penitentiary in Reidsville. John Cole Vodicka, director of the Prison & Jail Project, an organization in Americus , Ga. , that speaks out about civil rights abuse of prisoners. He said Baker was a victim of racial injustice in the judicial system. "This black woman who was wrongfully prosecuted and executed because she was defending herself against a white man who repeatedly sexually abused her," Cole Vodicka said. "Lena Baker was tried without proper legal representation." Vodicka said Baker killed a white man in March 1945, who tried to rape her. He said Baker final words were, “I did in self-defense, or I would have killed myself..." Baker was convicted by an all white male jury in a one-day trial. On Saturday, about 30 death penalty opponents gathered at Baker's grave outside Cuthbert to remember her death and ponder its implications. "We sang some spirituals and read from Scripture and spent some time reflecting on what her case means for reform of our state's criminal justice system," said John Cole Vodicka, director of the Prison and Jail Project, a group that monitors civil rights abuses of prisoners. Last year, Vodicka and Baker's family formally requested a pardon for Baker in the fatal shooting of Ernest B. Knight, a mill owner she was hired to care for. But posthumous pardons are rare in Georgia, and the request is still being considered by the state Board of Pardons and Paroles, Vodicka said. He hopes that a new play about Baker will raise public awareness of the case.  [more] and [more]

• Pictured above: Georgia's Electric chair [more]
  
• A Day in Court [more]