Martinsville 7 Are Pardoned by Virginia 70 Years After Execution for Rape

Seven Black men who were executed 70 years agone for the rape of a achromatic pistillate were posthumously pardoned connected Tuesday by Virginia’s governor, who said that the group, known arsenic the Martinsville Seven, was denied owed process due to the fact that of race.

In a meeting with descendants of respective of the men successful Richmond, Va., Gov. Ralph S. Northam said that the men were recovered blameworthy by all-white juries of raping a pistillate successful 1949 successful Martinsville, successful confederate Virginia, and were sentenced to decease wrong 8 days.

The sentencings touched disconnected protests good beyond Virginia, with demonstrators successful Washington and Harlem urging President Harry S. Truman to halt the executions. The president would not get involved, and the politician of Virginia astatine the clip denied a last-minute plea for a stay. The men were executed successful 1951.

The pardon’s supporters said that successful contrast, determination was nary grounds of a achromatic suspect being executed for rape unsocial successful Virginia’s modern history.

Mr. Northam, a Democrat who has emphasized that helium has granted much pardons than the erstwhile 9 governors of Virginia combined, said that the men did not merit the decease penalty.

Stopping abbreviated of saying that the men were innocent, Mr. Northam noted that each 45 radical executed successful the electrical seat for rape successful Virginia from 1908 to 1951 were Black. The pardons came 5 months aft Mr. Northam signed a measure that abolished the death penalty successful Virginia, making it the first Southern authorities to extremity superior punishment.

“These men were executed due to the fact that they were Black, and that’s not right,” Mr. Northam said. “Today, we’re present to admit the incorrect that was done to these 7 men.”

The men were Francis DeSales Grayson, Frank Hairston Jr., Howard Lee Hairston, James Luther Hairston, Joe Henry Hampton, Booker T. Millner and John Clabon Taylor. Most of them were successful their precocious teens oregon aboriginal 20s.

For decades, their descendants had called for a solution to what they termed a miscarriage of justice. They said that the men had been forced into confessing that they had raped Ruby Stroud Floyd, a 32-year-old achromatic pistillate who had been visiting a predominantly Black conception of Martinsville, which is astir 50 miles southbound of Roanoke, Va.

The pardon’s supporters sent a petition to Mr. Northam past December seeking clemency for the 7 men. In July, the Martinsville City Council issued a resolution asking Mr. Northam to commute the decease sentences.

“The transgression justness strategy of the Commonwealth of Virginia, it failed them,” Mr. Northam said. “They did not person owed process. Their punishment did not acceptable the crime.”

A fewer descendants of the men wept connected Tuesday aft Mr. Northam announced the pardons, including James Grayson, the lad of Francis DeSales Grayson.

“Thank you, Jesus,” Mr. Grayson said.

Moments earlier, helium said that the state’s acknowledgment of the injustice was overdue.

“I’m looking for closure,” helium said. “I’m looking for forgiveness. I cognize that a mistake has been made, and it’s clip present that that mistake indispensable beryllium rectified.”

Rudolph McCollum Jr., a erstwhile Richmond politician who antecedently served connected the state’s parole board, said Virginia was making progress. His great-uncle was Francis DeSales Grayson, and his uncle was Booker T. Millner.

“You person pushed to determination Virginia into the 21st century, a period wherever there’s greater opportunities for equity and accidental for each Virginians, and we convey you for that,” helium told Mr. Northam.

Mr. Northam, who announced steps successful May to streamline the pardon process, has granted 604 pardons since taking bureau successful 2018.

“For excessively agelong successful Virginia,” Mr. Northam said, “racism and favoritism were woven into the cloth of our systems, particularly our transgression justness system.”