WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.230 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.230 --> 00:00:03.930 align:middle line:84% I don't know how long the picture is going to stay up. 00:00:03.930 --> 00:00:10.410 align:middle line:84% But maybe if we just have it at the beginning since-- 00:00:10.410 --> 00:00:12.450 align:middle line:90% and you have to remember it, OK. 00:00:12.450 --> 00:00:15.120 align:middle line:84% You have to remember it as I read this piece 00:00:15.120 --> 00:00:17.970 align:middle line:84% that I have never read before, which is a little scary. 00:00:17.970 --> 00:00:20.870 align:middle line:90% 00:00:20.870 --> 00:00:21.440 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:00:21.440 --> 00:00:25.690 align:middle line:90% 00:00:25.690 --> 00:00:30.070 align:middle line:84% This is called "Black Boy with Cow-- 00:00:30.070 --> 00:00:33.760 align:middle line:84% Black Boy with Cow: A Still Life-- 00:00:33.760 --> 00:00:36.100 align:middle line:90% A Still Life." 00:00:36.100 --> 00:00:39.130 align:middle line:84% "A still life"-- this is the epigraph. 00:00:39.130 --> 00:00:41.170 align:middle line:84% "A still life can be a celebration 00:00:41.170 --> 00:00:44.530 align:middle line:84% of material pleasures such as food and wine 00:00:44.530 --> 00:00:48.190 align:middle line:84% or often a warning of ephemerality of these pleasures 00:00:48.190 --> 00:00:50.360 align:middle line:90% and the brevity of human life." 00:00:50.360 --> 00:00:52.030 align:middle line:90% I was staring at a-- 00:00:52.030 --> 00:00:55.870 align:middle line:84% was in the museum before I came here several months ago, 00:00:55.870 --> 00:01:01.510 align:middle line:84% and I was trying to figure out what I wanted to say about him. 00:01:01.510 --> 00:01:04.360 align:middle line:90% And I settled-- 00:01:04.360 --> 00:01:07.120 align:middle line:84% I flew to this idea of a still life 00:01:07.120 --> 00:01:10.840 align:middle line:84% when I saw still life in the museum. 00:01:10.840 --> 00:01:15.280 align:middle line:84% "Black Boy with Cow: A Still Life." 00:01:15.280 --> 00:01:17.080 align:middle line:90% "We gather before him. 00:01:17.080 --> 00:01:20.650 align:middle line:84% The bowl of his eyes in the frame on the screen. 00:01:20.650 --> 00:01:22.510 align:middle line:90% No fruit in the picture. 00:01:22.510 --> 00:01:25.060 align:middle line:84% Only the bowl itself, empty for now. 00:01:25.060 --> 00:01:27.880 align:middle line:84% The bowl of his desires wanting to be filled, 00:01:27.880 --> 00:01:30.040 align:middle line:90% he looks sideways at us. 00:01:30.040 --> 00:01:31.600 align:middle line:90% Can you see him? 00:01:31.600 --> 00:01:33.670 align:middle line:84% We could fill his bowl with thousands 00:01:33.670 --> 00:01:37.330 align:middle line:84% of drawings of airplanes and automobiles, at the very least. 00:01:37.330 --> 00:01:39.370 align:middle line:84% At the very least, we could fill it 00:01:39.370 --> 00:01:42.640 align:middle line:84% with his cow and the document I've been searching for. 00:01:42.640 --> 00:01:45.190 align:middle line:84% South Carolina Penitentiary record 00:01:45.190 --> 00:01:47.890 align:middle line:90% of George J. Stinney Jr., age-- 00:01:47.890 --> 00:01:50.710 align:middle line:90% 14, height-- 5 feet, weight-- 00:01:50.710 --> 00:01:52.540 align:middle line:90% 95 pounds, hair-- 00:01:52.540 --> 00:01:55.780 align:middle line:90% Negro, eyes-- dark maroon. 00:01:55.780 --> 00:02:00.310 align:middle line:90% Repeat, eye-- dark maroon. 00:02:00.310 --> 00:02:04.720 align:middle line:84% Alcolu-- rural, South Carolina-- town, 1944. 00:02:04.720 --> 00:02:06.640 align:middle line:84% There are Black churches and white churches, 00:02:06.640 --> 00:02:10.000 align:middle line:84% Black schools and white schools, white girls, Black boys. 00:02:10.000 --> 00:02:11.710 align:middle line:90% There are railroad tracks. 00:02:11.710 --> 00:02:13.630 align:middle line:84% There are always railroad tracks when 00:02:13.630 --> 00:02:15.940 align:middle line:84% there are white girls and Black boys living 00:02:15.940 --> 00:02:18.790 align:middle line:90% within 200 feet of each other. 00:02:18.790 --> 00:02:20.620 align:middle line:90% It is the Jim Crow South. 00:02:20.620 --> 00:02:22.870 align:middle line:84% If you are Black and riding in a car, 00:02:22.870 --> 00:02:25.210 align:middle line:84% then you must first look and make sure the car 00:02:25.210 --> 00:02:30.040 align:middle line:84% you are passing-- passing does not contain white people. 00:02:30.040 --> 00:02:32.770 align:middle line:84% This is what they call the law of the land. 00:02:32.770 --> 00:02:36.610 align:middle line:84% Passing white people in a car is illegal if you are Black. 00:02:36.610 --> 00:02:40.720 align:middle line:84% You may look quickly to see if they are there, 00:02:40.720 --> 00:02:42.700 align:middle line:90% but don't look too long. 00:02:42.700 --> 00:02:44.890 align:middle line:84% If you're walking, you must not walk near 00:02:44.890 --> 00:02:48.640 align:middle line:84% or brush against a white person who is also walking. 00:02:48.640 --> 00:02:51.670 align:middle line:84% Touching a white person is illegal if you are Black. 00:02:51.670 --> 00:02:55.120 align:middle line:84% If you are lost and need to ask a white person how to get home, 00:02:55.120 --> 00:02:57.940 align:middle line:84% you best stay lost and not ask because you 00:02:57.940 --> 00:03:02.650 align:middle line:84% might be arrested for asking a white person for directions. 00:03:02.650 --> 00:03:06.460 align:middle line:84% No matter what you do if you are a Black person, 00:03:06.460 --> 00:03:11.300 align:middle line:84% white people are never to be looked at in the eye. 00:03:11.300 --> 00:03:13.900 align:middle line:84% This is the story of a Black boy with a cow 00:03:13.900 --> 00:03:18.400 align:middle line:84% and a handful of pencils drawing out his still life. 00:03:18.400 --> 00:03:20.500 align:middle line:84% This is the bowl of George J. Stinney 00:03:20.500 --> 00:03:25.420 align:middle line:84% Jr. Friday, March 23, two girls are last seen on one bike. 00:03:25.420 --> 00:03:27.700 align:middle line:84% They were out looking for maypops. 00:03:27.700 --> 00:03:32.890 align:middle line:84% Saturday, March 24, 1944, the bodies of the two girls, 00:03:32.890 --> 00:03:36.580 align:middle line:84% who are white, Betty June Binnicker, 11, Mary Emma 00:03:36.580 --> 00:03:40.570 align:middle line:84% Thames, seven, are found side-by-side on their backs 00:03:40.570 --> 00:03:41.980 align:middle line:90% in 3 inches of water. 00:03:41.980 --> 00:03:43.990 align:middle line:84% The bike they were seen riding the day 00:03:43.990 --> 00:03:47.200 align:middle line:84% before has now been laid across their bodies 00:03:47.200 --> 00:03:49.690 align:middle line:90% like a paperweight. 00:03:49.690 --> 00:03:53.350 align:middle line:84% Someone reports George Junius Stinney Jr., 14, 00:03:53.350 --> 00:03:56.560 align:middle line:84% to be the last person to see the girls. 00:03:56.560 --> 00:03:59.890 align:middle line:84% Does he mean last to look at the two girls who 00:03:59.890 --> 00:04:04.810 align:middle line:84% were out looking for maypops, and stopped and asked him 00:04:04.810 --> 00:04:05.810 align:middle line:90% for directions? 00:04:05.810 --> 00:04:07.630 align:middle line:84% I don't know how the someone knows this. 00:04:07.630 --> 00:04:10.270 align:middle line:84% But the census of the Jim Crow South 00:04:10.270 --> 00:04:14.830 align:middle line:84% shows there were thousands of mystics alive at the time. 00:04:14.830 --> 00:04:17.769 align:middle line:84% People who saw things that never were. 00:04:17.769 --> 00:04:21.250 align:middle line:84% The girls stopped to ask George and his sister, Amie, 00:04:21.250 --> 00:04:22.990 align:middle line:90% if they had seen any maypops. 00:04:22.990 --> 00:04:24.820 align:middle line:90% And if so, where? 00:04:24.820 --> 00:04:27.130 align:middle line:84% In the Jim Crow South, Black children 00:04:27.130 --> 00:04:30.400 align:middle line:84% know one word answers are best and make for less trouble. 00:04:30.400 --> 00:04:32.290 align:middle line:90% Black children are taught this. 00:04:32.290 --> 00:04:34.870 align:middle line:84% This is inside information that I do not 00:04:34.870 --> 00:04:37.960 align:middle line:84% have to research in order to write this poem that I have 00:04:37.960 --> 00:04:41.530 align:middle line:84% been asked to write and bring to you along with the bowl 00:04:41.530 --> 00:04:43.360 align:middle line:90% of his eyes. 00:04:43.360 --> 00:04:46.810 align:middle line:90% Amie answers for them both, no. 00:04:46.810 --> 00:04:49.960 align:middle line:84% A maypop is the fruit of the passion flower. 00:04:49.960 --> 00:04:52.420 align:middle line:84% When it turns from bright green to yellow orange, 00:04:52.420 --> 00:04:54.580 align:middle line:84% it is succulent and ready to eat. 00:04:54.580 --> 00:04:57.460 align:middle line:84% When you step on a maypop before it is ready, 00:04:57.460 --> 00:05:00.010 align:middle line:90% it makes a popping sound. 00:05:00.010 --> 00:05:02.050 align:middle line:84% The bodies of the two girls were found 00:05:02.050 --> 00:05:05.560 align:middle line:84% on the Black side of town, beaten to death with a railroad 00:05:05.560 --> 00:05:07.180 align:middle line:90% tie or a hammer. 00:05:07.180 --> 00:05:11.500 align:middle line:84% Both skulls smashed, both hymens intact. 00:05:11.500 --> 00:05:15.010 align:middle line:84% The 11-year-old had a bruise, and they think 00:05:15.010 --> 00:05:17.690 align:middle line:90% there is semen on her thigh. 00:05:17.690 --> 00:05:19.300 align:middle line:90% Think? 00:05:19.300 --> 00:05:22.600 align:middle line:84% The language of rape has now entered the community 00:05:22.600 --> 00:05:23.980 align:middle line:90% switchboard. 00:05:23.980 --> 00:05:27.880 align:middle line:84% All operators are busy not standing by. 00:05:27.880 --> 00:05:31.480 align:middle line:84% The bowl, which previously only had a cow and the boys drawing 00:05:31.480 --> 00:05:33.550 align:middle line:90% pencils, now has a crack. 00:05:33.550 --> 00:05:35.230 align:middle line:84% It is a crack that stretches back 00:05:35.230 --> 00:05:37.870 align:middle line:84% hundreds of years to the great camp meeting 00:05:37.870 --> 00:05:40.510 align:middle line:84% that was held where skin of different colors 00:05:40.510 --> 00:05:43.960 align:middle line:84% was peeled and measured and weighed on a scale. 00:05:43.960 --> 00:05:47.890 align:middle line:84% And different size craniums were lined up with 00:05:47.890 --> 00:05:52.900 align:middle line:84% and cataloged by protractor, sundial, caliper and measuring 00:05:52.900 --> 00:05:54.310 align:middle line:90% tape. 00:05:54.310 --> 00:05:55.900 align:middle line:84% The word-of-mouth, over the fence, 00:05:55.900 --> 00:05:58.540 align:middle line:84% long playing record that the operators are spinning 00:05:58.540 --> 00:06:00.940 align:middle line:84% is the very reason there are railroad tracks 00:06:00.940 --> 00:06:03.130 align:middle line:84% in southern towns and different people living 00:06:03.130 --> 00:06:06.730 align:middle line:84% on different sides of them playing this one song all night 00:06:06.730 --> 00:06:08.060 align:middle line:90% long. 00:06:08.060 --> 00:06:10.060 align:middle line:84% There will never be any legal evidence 00:06:10.060 --> 00:06:12.400 align:middle line:84% to support the song that is playing. 00:06:12.400 --> 00:06:15.730 align:middle line:84% This song that is playing is one of the Republic's greatest 00:06:15.730 --> 00:06:16.660 align:middle line:90% hits. 00:06:16.660 --> 00:06:19.210 align:middle line:84% It's an LP, a long playing record. 00:06:19.210 --> 00:06:22.480 align:middle line:84% It has now been placed in the bowl 00:06:22.480 --> 00:06:24.790 align:middle line:90% with the Black boy and the cow. 00:06:24.790 --> 00:06:27.770 align:middle line:90% This is his still life. 00:06:27.770 --> 00:06:29.620 align:middle line:84% The man who found the girls reports 00:06:29.620 --> 00:06:32.620 align:middle line:84% there was not much blood at or around the ditch itself. 00:06:32.620 --> 00:06:35.470 align:middle line:84% Adding, it looks as if they were killed elsewhere and moved. 00:06:35.470 --> 00:06:37.750 align:middle line:84% But no one looks for where the girls might 00:06:37.750 --> 00:06:41.170 align:middle line:84% have been killed because the long playing record is hitting 00:06:41.170 --> 00:06:44.260 align:middle line:84% its high notes and getting smoother and smoother 00:06:44.260 --> 00:06:46.840 align:middle line:90% and easier to hear. 00:06:46.840 --> 00:06:49.870 align:middle line:84% Before George Jr. was instructed to take off his Saturday 00:06:49.870 --> 00:06:54.460 align:middle line:84% t-shirt and his blue jeans, the clothes he had just 00:06:54.460 --> 00:06:58.810 align:middle line:84% walked the cow in, and put on blue prison stripes and now 00:06:58.810 --> 00:07:01.450 align:middle line:84% turn forward and, yes, to the side 00:07:01.450 --> 00:07:04.900 align:middle line:90% to show off his maroon eyes. 00:07:04.900 --> 00:07:06.910 align:middle line:90% George was in the seventh grade. 00:07:06.910 --> 00:07:09.010 align:middle line:84% A good student who routinely told 00:07:09.010 --> 00:07:11.740 align:middle line:84% his mother, who was a cook in the Jim Crow South, 00:07:11.740 --> 00:07:15.010 align:middle line:84% that he wanted to be an artist when he grew up. 00:07:15.010 --> 00:07:18.490 align:middle line:84% For practice, George drew airplanes and automobiles 00:07:18.490 --> 00:07:20.530 align:middle line:84% on every piece of paper he could find. 00:07:20.530 --> 00:07:22.570 align:middle line:84% Airplanes and automobiles, as you know, 00:07:22.570 --> 00:07:25.270 align:middle line:90% fly and move very fast. 00:07:25.270 --> 00:07:26.980 align:middle line:84% Do you think he knew these are machines 00:07:26.980 --> 00:07:30.730 align:middle line:84% that might help him one day escape the Jim Crow South? 00:07:30.730 --> 00:07:31.930 align:middle line:90% I do. 00:07:31.930 --> 00:07:35.950 align:middle line:84% This bowl holding these kinds of desires of boys with Negro hair 00:07:35.950 --> 00:07:39.400 align:middle line:84% that supposedly have no future to care about or speak of 00:07:39.400 --> 00:07:40.880 align:middle line:90% has been seen before. 00:07:40.880 --> 00:07:44.230 align:middle line:84% It will be seen again in the life of the son he will never 00:07:44.230 --> 00:07:49.960 align:middle line:84% have and in the life of your other Black sons. 00:07:49.960 --> 00:07:52.750 align:middle line:84% Four large men, not with Negro hair, 00:07:52.750 --> 00:07:55.330 align:middle line:84% arrive at the house that is owned by the lumber company 00:07:55.330 --> 00:07:57.070 align:middle line:84% where the father and mother work. 00:07:57.070 --> 00:08:00.460 align:middle line:84% Amie, George's youngest sister, sees the men coming 00:08:00.460 --> 00:08:02.320 align:middle line:84% and runs to hide in the chicken coop. 00:08:02.320 --> 00:08:05.500 align:middle line:84% She is surrounded by warm eggs and cackling hens 00:08:05.500 --> 00:08:09.250 align:middle line:84% as she watches George's drawing hands handcuffed. 00:08:09.250 --> 00:08:12.070 align:middle line:84% She watches the men who live on the other side of the track 00:08:12.070 --> 00:08:14.830 align:middle line:84% walk her George outside and put him 00:08:14.830 --> 00:08:18.460 align:middle line:84% in the back of one of two long black cars. 00:08:18.460 --> 00:08:20.595 align:middle line:84% She sees they have guns and Billy clubs. 00:08:20.595 --> 00:08:21.970 align:middle line:84% She sees that she has broken some 00:08:21.970 --> 00:08:24.280 align:middle line:84% of the eggs the family needs to live by. 00:08:24.280 --> 00:08:25.730 align:middle line:90% Amie is eight years old. 00:08:25.730 --> 00:08:27.130 align:middle line:90% She idolizes George. 00:08:27.130 --> 00:08:29.650 align:middle line:90% George calls her his shadow. 00:08:29.650 --> 00:08:33.309 align:middle line:84% 70 years after being in the chicken coop, 00:08:33.309 --> 00:08:35.919 align:middle line:84% she will remember yelling out for her brother. 00:08:35.919 --> 00:08:38.770 align:middle line:90% Oh, George, are you leaving me? 00:08:38.770 --> 00:08:41.110 align:middle line:90% Oh, George, where are you going? 00:08:41.110 --> 00:08:45.220 align:middle line:84% George Junius Stinney Jr., at 5 feet tall and 95 pounds, 00:08:45.220 --> 00:08:46.820 align:middle line:90% is taken away. 00:08:46.820 --> 00:08:48.370 align:middle line:90% There is no physical evidence. 00:08:48.370 --> 00:08:50.590 align:middle line:84% There are no witnesses to the murders of the girls. 00:08:50.590 --> 00:08:53.680 align:middle line:84% The only physical evidence ever written down in this story 00:08:53.680 --> 00:08:55.960 align:middle line:90% is what George looks like. 00:08:55.960 --> 00:08:58.930 align:middle line:84% This is the refrain of the song that plays on the long playing 00:08:58.930 --> 00:08:59.470 align:middle line:90% record-- 00:08:59.470 --> 00:09:01.600 align:middle line:90% Negro hair, maroon eyes. 00:09:01.600 --> 00:09:04.600 align:middle line:84% This is what spins around the record player in Alcolu 00:09:04.600 --> 00:09:07.540 align:middle line:84% and surrounding counties in South Carolina all night. 00:09:07.540 --> 00:09:10.480 align:middle line:84% George Junius Stinney Jr., 14, dreamer 00:09:10.480 --> 00:09:12.160 align:middle line:90% of airplanes and automobiles. 00:09:12.160 --> 00:09:15.370 align:middle line:84% And anything else with a wing had a life in motion 00:09:15.370 --> 00:09:18.100 align:middle line:90% and now he has a still life. 00:09:18.100 --> 00:09:21.550 align:middle line:84% His life is interrupted, interrogated for many hours 00:09:21.550 --> 00:09:24.550 align:middle line:84% with no attorney present, no family present. 00:09:24.550 --> 00:09:27.880 align:middle line:84% After spending half the night in a small room with large men 00:09:27.880 --> 00:09:30.040 align:middle line:84% with silk hair holding Billy clubs 00:09:30.040 --> 00:09:31.780 align:middle line:84% and dangling pistols from their hips, 00:09:31.780 --> 00:09:33.370 align:middle line:84% from the other side of the tracks, 00:09:33.370 --> 00:09:35.890 align:middle line:90% he confesses to the crime. 00:09:35.890 --> 00:09:38.020 align:middle line:84% Well, they say he confesses to the crime. 00:09:38.020 --> 00:09:39.880 align:middle line:84% A written confession, a signed confession 00:09:39.880 --> 00:09:42.213 align:middle line:84% will never be seen by the world because there will never 00:09:42.213 --> 00:09:43.330 align:middle line:90% be one in the world. 00:09:43.330 --> 00:09:45.850 align:middle line:84% There will only be the word of four men 00:09:45.850 --> 00:09:48.820 align:middle line:84% against one 14-year-old boy who would give anything 00:09:48.820 --> 00:09:52.270 align:middle line:84% to see his mother and walk his cow again. 00:09:52.270 --> 00:09:54.280 align:middle line:84% The boy with Negro hair and maroon eyes 00:09:54.280 --> 00:09:57.220 align:middle line:90% is charged with capital murder. 00:09:57.220 --> 00:10:00.370 align:middle line:84% The confession changes several times to fit the prosecution. 00:10:00.370 --> 00:10:02.110 align:middle line:84% The confession changes several times 00:10:02.110 --> 00:10:03.850 align:middle line:90% to fit the elements involved. 00:10:03.850 --> 00:10:05.770 align:middle line:84% The murder weapon has changed at will. 00:10:05.770 --> 00:10:08.290 align:middle line:84% First it is a hammer, then it is a railroad tie. 00:10:08.290 --> 00:10:10.330 align:middle line:84% Anything at all is changed in whatever 00:10:10.330 --> 00:10:13.570 align:middle line:84% manner is beneficial to the law enforcement and the ball that 00:10:13.570 --> 00:10:15.850 align:middle line:84% rests in the middle of the velvet canvas that 00:10:15.850 --> 00:10:18.790 align:middle line:90% shows the ephemerality of life. 00:10:18.790 --> 00:10:22.060 align:middle line:84% Materials being looked for-- oranges, apples, maypops, 00:10:22.060 --> 00:10:23.110 align:middle line:90% muscadines. 00:10:23.110 --> 00:10:25.850 align:middle line:84% All we have now is a cow and some pencils. 00:10:25.850 --> 00:10:28.210 align:middle line:90% It's 1944, the Jim Crow South. 00:10:28.210 --> 00:10:30.790 align:middle line:84% One word answers are best, two at most. 00:10:30.790 --> 00:10:34.090 align:middle line:84% George later tells his cellmate, while waiting for his trial, 00:10:34.090 --> 00:10:36.280 align:middle line:84% that he was so afraid while in the room with the men 00:10:36.280 --> 00:10:37.720 align:middle line:84% from the other side of the track, 00:10:37.720 --> 00:10:41.620 align:middle line:84% that he would have said anything because he wanted to go home. 00:10:41.620 --> 00:10:44.110 align:middle line:84% I wasn't there in 1944, but I do not 00:10:44.110 --> 00:10:46.810 align:middle line:84% have to do any research on this particular reasoning 00:10:46.810 --> 00:10:49.720 align:middle line:84% that Black children of the South are taught, then and now. 00:10:49.720 --> 00:10:53.140 align:middle line:84% Just after the afterbirth has dried behind our ears, 00:10:53.140 --> 00:10:56.410 align:middle line:84% we are taught the two words that just might keep us alive. 00:10:56.410 --> 00:10:58.450 align:middle line:90% Yes, sir. 00:10:58.450 --> 00:11:01.630 align:middle line:84% But not even, yes, sir is foil proof. 00:11:01.630 --> 00:11:04.910 align:middle line:84% There was never a transcript of the trial. 00:11:04.910 --> 00:11:06.490 align:middle line:90% There was no written confession. 00:11:06.490 --> 00:11:10.030 align:middle line:84% There was only the one long playing vinyl song 00:11:10.030 --> 00:11:14.080 align:middle line:84% of the Black boy who looked at two white girls looking 00:11:14.080 --> 00:11:16.210 align:middle line:90% for maypops. 00:11:16.210 --> 00:11:17.770 align:middle line:84% An appeal is made to the governor 00:11:17.770 --> 00:11:21.580 align:middle line:84% of South Carolina for clemency because of George's tender age. 00:11:21.580 --> 00:11:23.830 align:middle line:84% The governor responds in writing. 00:11:23.830 --> 00:11:27.040 align:middle line:84% Finally, something has been written down. 00:11:27.040 --> 00:11:29.260 align:middle line:84% Quote, "It may be interesting for you 00:11:29.260 --> 00:11:32.050 align:middle line:84% to know that Stinney killed the smaller girl to rape the larger 00:11:32.050 --> 00:11:33.400 align:middle line:90% one," the governor writes. 00:11:33.400 --> 00:11:36.340 align:middle line:84% "Then he killed the larger girl and raped her dead body. 00:11:36.340 --> 00:11:38.320 align:middle line:84% 20 minutes later, he returned and attempted 00:11:38.320 --> 00:11:40.900 align:middle line:84% to rape her again, but her body was too cold. 00:11:40.900 --> 00:11:43.150 align:middle line:84% All of this, he admitted," the governor said. 00:11:43.150 --> 00:11:45.982 align:middle line:84% Admitted, how does he know any of this? 00:11:45.982 --> 00:11:46.690 align:middle line:90% He was not there. 00:11:46.690 --> 00:11:47.830 align:middle line:90% There was no confession. 00:11:47.830 --> 00:11:49.330 align:middle line:90% There was nothing written down. 00:11:49.330 --> 00:11:53.170 align:middle line:84% Mystics do talk to each other though. 00:11:53.170 --> 00:11:56.290 align:middle line:84% Furthermore, are there those who get 00:11:56.290 --> 00:11:58.690 align:middle line:84% to just say what they want to say 00:11:58.690 --> 00:12:01.817 align:middle line:84% when there are no facts to abide by? 00:12:01.817 --> 00:12:03.400 align:middle line:84% None of these assertions are supported 00:12:03.400 --> 00:12:06.010 align:middle line:84% by any evidence on the medical examiner's report. 00:12:06.010 --> 00:12:07.840 align:middle line:84% George had an alibi that could have 00:12:07.840 --> 00:12:11.590 align:middle line:84% been used if he did not have Negro hair and maroon eyes. 00:12:11.590 --> 00:12:14.380 align:middle line:84% His sister, who also has Negro hair and maroon eyes, 00:12:14.380 --> 00:12:16.640 align:middle line:84% was with him that day, but she didn't count. 00:12:16.640 --> 00:12:18.700 align:middle line:84% She was not in this particular bowl. 00:12:18.700 --> 00:12:23.590 align:middle line:84% There would be another bowl reserved for her still life. 00:12:23.590 --> 00:12:25.840 align:middle line:84% He was with his sister when the two girls were killed. 00:12:25.840 --> 00:12:28.330 align:middle line:84% They were both watching the family cow eat grass and chew 00:12:28.330 --> 00:12:30.250 align:middle line:84% its cud, but nobody from the other side 00:12:30.250 --> 00:12:32.150 align:middle line:90% wants to follow this fact out. 00:12:32.150 --> 00:12:34.840 align:middle line:84% Remember those mystics and those Jim Crow rules? 00:12:34.840 --> 00:12:36.820 align:middle line:90% Apply them now. 00:12:36.820 --> 00:12:38.440 align:middle line:84% George's court-appointed lawyer was 00:12:38.440 --> 00:12:40.780 align:middle line:84% busy running for a seat at the State house. 00:12:40.780 --> 00:12:42.610 align:middle line:84% He needed every vote in the county, 00:12:42.610 --> 00:12:44.590 align:middle line:84% so he called no witnesses, and waved 00:12:44.590 --> 00:12:47.290 align:middle line:84% at the men who were his neighbors who arrested George 00:12:47.290 --> 00:12:49.900 align:middle line:90% as he pulls into his driveway. 00:12:49.900 --> 00:12:52.070 align:middle line:84% They live across the street from each other. 00:12:52.070 --> 00:12:54.310 align:middle line:84% He questions no police officers at the trial. 00:12:54.310 --> 00:12:56.200 align:middle line:84% And he sits there for all of 10 minutes 00:12:56.200 --> 00:12:59.650 align:middle line:84% until the all-white male jury comes back with their verdict. 00:12:59.650 --> 00:13:01.810 align:middle line:84% The 14-year-old known for getting his friends 00:13:01.810 --> 00:13:04.870 align:middle line:84% to sing along to the radio in the yard near the chicken coop 00:13:04.870 --> 00:13:07.810 align:middle line:84% after he has walked and watered the family cow, the 95 00:13:07.810 --> 00:13:10.450 align:middle line:84% pounder who wants to go and finish the seven grade so 00:13:10.450 --> 00:13:13.660 align:middle line:84% that he can one day be known as a painter of cars and airplanes 00:13:13.660 --> 00:13:17.140 align:middle line:84% is ordered to the electric chair. 00:13:17.140 --> 00:13:19.730 align:middle line:84% No appeal is ever filed by the attorney running for the State 00:13:19.730 --> 00:13:20.230 align:middle line:90% house. 00:13:20.230 --> 00:13:21.970 align:middle line:84% In jail, waiting to die, George is 00:13:21.970 --> 00:13:24.910 align:middle line:84% put into a cell with an older man, Johnny. 00:13:24.910 --> 00:13:28.300 align:middle line:84% Johnny is George's only sounding board for 83 days 00:13:28.300 --> 00:13:30.850 align:middle line:84% while his 14-year-old mind contemplates what does 00:13:30.850 --> 00:13:33.220 align:middle line:90% it mean to be electrocuted. 00:13:33.220 --> 00:13:35.860 align:middle line:84% George asks Johnny, why would they charge me 00:13:35.860 --> 00:13:37.450 align:middle line:90% with something I didn't do? 00:13:37.450 --> 00:13:39.610 align:middle line:84% George asks Johnny, why would someone 00:13:39.610 --> 00:13:43.000 align:middle line:84% want to kill me for something I don't know anything about? 00:13:43.000 --> 00:13:46.270 align:middle line:84% Johnny is twice George's age and has no bowl, 00:13:46.270 --> 00:13:51.130 align:middle line:84% and is of the generation of still life men before George. 00:13:51.130 --> 00:13:53.020 align:middle line:84% There will be many generations of men 00:13:53.020 --> 00:13:57.310 align:middle line:84% after him, still lives waiting in a bowl of iron. 00:13:57.310 --> 00:14:00.820 align:middle line:84% In 1944, a reporter for the state newspaper 00:14:00.820 --> 00:14:04.360 align:middle line:84% in South Carolina writes that George J. Stinney 00:14:04.360 --> 00:14:07.990 align:middle line:84% Jr. was walked to the death chamber with a Bible 00:14:07.990 --> 00:14:10.510 align:middle line:90% beneath his arm. 00:14:10.510 --> 00:14:15.410 align:middle line:84% He was orderly, polite, obeying the men as he was told to do. 00:14:15.410 --> 00:14:18.010 align:middle line:84% I wonder did he walk like he was back in school 00:14:18.010 --> 00:14:21.490 align:middle line:84% and headed to the library to return a book. 00:14:21.490 --> 00:14:23.500 align:middle line:84% The reporter writes that George J. Stinney 00:14:23.500 --> 00:14:27.130 align:middle line:84% Jr. was made to sit on the Bible he 00:14:27.130 --> 00:14:30.700 align:middle line:84% was made to carry into the death chamber 00:14:30.700 --> 00:14:33.700 align:middle line:84% because the chair had been made for men 00:14:33.700 --> 00:14:38.710 align:middle line:84% and he was just a boy with a mother, a father, two 00:14:38.710 --> 00:14:43.600 align:middle line:84% sisters, one brother and one cow waiting for him to come back 00:14:43.600 --> 00:14:45.010 align:middle line:90% home. 00:14:45.010 --> 00:14:48.400 align:middle line:84% Not even the mystics of Jim Crow had thought ahead 00:14:48.400 --> 00:14:49.850 align:middle line:90% to this moment. 00:14:49.850 --> 00:14:53.410 align:middle line:84% What George would need to die, what they 00:14:53.410 --> 00:14:57.430 align:middle line:84% would give him to make up the difference in his body's age. 00:14:57.430 --> 00:15:01.090 align:middle line:84% The reporter wrote that the guards had difficulty strapping 00:15:01.090 --> 00:15:04.060 align:middle line:84% the 14-year-old into the chair because he was 00:15:04.060 --> 00:15:06.520 align:middle line:90% so small and slight of build. 00:15:06.520 --> 00:15:09.590 align:middle line:84% The electrodes were too big for his legs. 00:15:09.590 --> 00:15:12.430 align:middle line:84% And when the switch was flipped the first time, 00:15:12.430 --> 00:15:16.810 align:middle line:84% the 2,400 volts of electricity caused convulsions, 00:15:16.810 --> 00:15:21.730 align:middle line:84% and the convulsions knocked the large steel mask off his head, 00:15:21.730 --> 00:15:24.850 align:middle line:84% exposing his tearful face and maroon 00:15:24.850 --> 00:15:28.090 align:middle line:90% eyes to the witnessing crowd. 00:15:28.090 --> 00:15:31.660 align:middle line:84% Two more jolts of 2,400 volts of electricity 00:15:31.660 --> 00:15:35.170 align:middle line:84% took four more minutes to run, screaming through his body 00:15:35.170 --> 00:15:37.720 align:middle line:84% before the boy who loved to draw airplanes 00:15:37.720 --> 00:15:42.640 align:middle line:84% and those long 1940s cars with wings was pronounced dead. 00:15:42.640 --> 00:15:45.460 align:middle line:84% It took 83 days for George Junius Stinney 00:15:45.460 --> 00:15:48.040 align:middle line:84% Jr. whose middle name, Junius, sounds 00:15:48.040 --> 00:15:51.220 align:middle line:84% more and more like a newly found planet to me 00:15:51.220 --> 00:15:53.650 align:middle line:84% where boys with Negro hair and maroon eyes 00:15:53.650 --> 00:15:56.950 align:middle line:84% might be teleported to safety, was walked out of his mother's 00:15:56.950 --> 00:15:59.230 align:middle line:84% house in the jewelry of the State 00:15:59.230 --> 00:16:02.260 align:middle line:84% and walked to the oversized seat of the electric chair. 00:16:02.260 --> 00:16:06.370 align:middle line:84% But not before stopping to grab a Bible for him 00:16:06.370 --> 00:16:11.530 align:middle line:84% to sit on in order that his tiny wanting to live body and maroon 00:16:11.530 --> 00:16:13.480 align:middle line:90% eyes be denied. 00:16:13.480 --> 00:16:17.530 align:middle line:84% Nothing further would ever be added to his bowl. 00:16:17.530 --> 00:16:22.390 align:middle line:84% His life is smoldering and still. 00:16:22.390 --> 00:16:24.250 align:middle line:90% Part two. 00:16:24.250 --> 00:16:26.920 align:middle line:84% It takes 70 years before anyone will 00:16:26.920 --> 00:16:30.370 align:middle line:84% give the last living members of the Stinney family 00:16:30.370 --> 00:16:32.690 align:middle line:90% what they want. 00:16:32.690 --> 00:16:36.070 align:middle line:84% We do not want an apology, they tell the newspapers. 00:16:36.070 --> 00:16:38.950 align:middle line:90% We want coram nobis. 00:16:38.950 --> 00:16:40.390 align:middle line:90% It's the best we can get. 00:16:40.390 --> 00:16:42.580 align:middle line:84% Coram nobis will tell the State and the world 00:16:42.580 --> 00:16:44.530 align:middle line:90% that mistakes were made. 00:16:44.530 --> 00:16:47.080 align:middle line:84% Therefore, we petitioned the state of South Carolina 00:16:47.080 --> 00:16:48.700 align:middle line:90% to hear our plea. 00:16:48.700 --> 00:16:53.830 align:middle line:84% January 21, 2014, Sumter, South Carolina-- the court hearing 00:16:53.830 --> 00:16:54.910 align:middle line:90% begins at 11:00. 00:16:54.910 --> 00:16:56.860 align:middle line:90% But I'm in the parking lot now. 00:16:56.860 --> 00:16:58.960 align:middle line:84% I made the hour's drive from Columbia, 00:16:58.960 --> 00:17:01.930 align:middle line:84% where I live, to Sumter where after 83 days, 00:17:01.930 --> 00:17:05.260 align:middle line:84% George Junius Stinney found guilty of capital murder 00:17:05.260 --> 00:17:06.460 align:middle line:90% was electrocuted. 00:17:06.460 --> 00:17:11.020 align:middle line:84% Here, in Sumter, is where George and I both were raised. 00:17:11.020 --> 00:17:13.660 align:middle line:90% In 1944, he was 14. 00:17:13.660 --> 00:17:15.400 align:middle line:90% My father was 13. 00:17:15.400 --> 00:17:18.460 align:middle line:84% News of the hearing has been in the air for over a month. 00:17:18.460 --> 00:17:20.140 align:middle line:90% Daddy is 83 now. 00:17:20.140 --> 00:17:23.250 align:middle line:84% George J. Stinney should be 84, but he's not. 00:17:23.250 --> 00:17:25.920 align:middle line:84% I am waiting my turn at the metal detector. 00:17:25.920 --> 00:17:28.770 align:middle line:84% My hard-bound journal book is deep in my bag. 00:17:28.770 --> 00:17:30.780 align:middle line:84% There are three purple pens in my purse. 00:17:30.780 --> 00:17:33.180 align:middle line:84% I tested them for strength early this morning. 00:17:33.180 --> 00:17:35.520 align:middle line:84% Most of the people waiting with me are Black. 00:17:35.520 --> 00:17:38.670 align:middle line:84% We say good morning with a clear and deliberate sadness. 00:17:38.670 --> 00:17:41.610 align:middle line:84% My journal book is pulled out and turned over a few times, 00:17:41.610 --> 00:17:44.670 align:middle line:90% opened up even the pages thumb. 00:17:44.670 --> 00:17:46.410 align:middle line:90% No cell phones in the courtroom. 00:17:46.410 --> 00:17:48.150 align:middle line:90% I can pick it up when I leave. 00:17:48.150 --> 00:17:50.820 align:middle line:84% I tell this Sheriff I need my pens. 00:17:50.820 --> 00:17:53.130 align:middle line:84% She tells me I cannot write in the courtroom during 00:17:53.130 --> 00:17:55.290 align:middle line:84% the hearing unless I am a reporter. 00:17:55.290 --> 00:17:58.770 align:middle line:84% She tells me I can keep my pens because pens aren't what 00:17:58.770 --> 00:17:59.880 align:middle line:90% they are looking for. 00:17:59.880 --> 00:18:02.820 align:middle line:90% She adds, pens aren't dangerous. 00:18:02.820 --> 00:18:04.050 align:middle line:90% I half smile. 00:18:04.050 --> 00:18:05.310 align:middle line:90% I walk in the courtroom. 00:18:05.310 --> 00:18:07.650 align:middle line:84% I look around and the four members of the Stinney family 00:18:07.650 --> 00:18:09.180 align:middle line:90% are directly across from me. 00:18:09.180 --> 00:18:11.430 align:middle line:84% I get up from my seat, I walk across, 00:18:11.430 --> 00:18:12.930 align:middle line:90% I say good morning to them. 00:18:12.930 --> 00:18:17.250 align:middle line:90% 00:18:17.250 --> 00:18:20.700 align:middle line:84% I am diagonally across from the portrait of Sumter County 00:18:20.700 --> 00:18:23.700 align:middle line:84% Judge, Ernest A. Finney Jr., who presided 00:18:23.700 --> 00:18:26.580 align:middle line:84% in this courtroom for many years in this Sumter town 00:18:26.580 --> 00:18:30.510 align:middle line:84% where I was raised after George J. Stinney Jr. was electrocuted 00:18:30.510 --> 00:18:33.060 align:middle line:84% for having Negro hair and maroon eyes. 00:18:33.060 --> 00:18:35.910 align:middle line:84% I have not seen daddy's portrait since it 00:18:35.910 --> 00:18:38.220 align:middle line:90% was hung 25 years before. 00:18:38.220 --> 00:18:40.110 align:middle line:84% I remember coming home from college 00:18:40.110 --> 00:18:43.440 align:middle line:84% to watch and help with the unveiling of a Black man 00:18:43.440 --> 00:18:46.260 align:middle line:84% wearing the monumental black robe in a town that 00:18:46.260 --> 00:18:48.300 align:middle line:90% still honored the Confederacy. 00:18:48.300 --> 00:18:51.960 align:middle line:90% Daddy's eyes hold me in place. 00:18:51.960 --> 00:18:55.980 align:middle line:84% The courtroom has filled up quickly. 00:18:55.980 --> 00:18:57.810 align:middle line:84% We are all of different generations, 00:18:57.810 --> 00:19:00.900 align:middle line:84% but our stories involve fear and the scent of impending trouble 00:19:00.900 --> 00:19:02.940 align:middle line:84% always rising and sometimes falling. 00:19:02.940 --> 00:19:05.640 align:middle line:84% The perception of being a person made of trouble, 00:19:05.640 --> 00:19:08.400 align:middle line:84% aimed for trouble because of something we come in the door 00:19:08.400 --> 00:19:11.190 align:middle line:84% with, something like Negro hair and maroon eyes. 00:19:11.190 --> 00:19:14.110 align:middle line:84% There is more trouble for some, less trouble for others. 00:19:14.110 --> 00:19:15.240 align:middle line:90% I look across the aisle. 00:19:15.240 --> 00:19:17.280 align:middle line:84% The two men on the Stinney family pew 00:19:17.280 --> 00:19:18.580 align:middle line:90% have their arms folded. 00:19:18.580 --> 00:19:20.190 align:middle line:90% The Stinney women are quiet. 00:19:20.190 --> 00:19:22.890 align:middle line:84% This is not church, but the wooden seats in the courthouse 00:19:22.890 --> 00:19:26.040 align:middle line:84% have a certain resemblance-- the institution of law, 00:19:26.040 --> 00:19:27.780 align:middle line:90% the institution of religion. 00:19:27.780 --> 00:19:30.330 align:middle line:84% It is not Sunday, but it is 11 o'clock, 00:19:30.330 --> 00:19:32.310 align:middle line:90% that most segregated of hours. 00:19:32.310 --> 00:19:36.120 align:middle line:84% Two attorneys-- young, white with kind faces and silk hair, 00:19:36.120 --> 00:19:37.620 align:middle line:90% hired by the Stinney family-- 00:19:37.620 --> 00:19:41.430 align:middle line:84% have agreed to work pro bono to seek this writ of coram nobis. 00:19:41.430 --> 00:19:43.680 align:middle line:84% They have taken their place at the defense table 00:19:43.680 --> 00:19:45.810 align:middle line:84% directly in front of daddy's portrait. 00:19:45.810 --> 00:19:48.240 align:middle line:84% The judge is young, white and female. 00:19:48.240 --> 00:19:50.760 align:middle line:84% All month long in the South Carolina newspapers, 00:19:50.760 --> 00:19:53.100 align:middle line:84% she has been called courageous, even a maverick. 00:19:53.100 --> 00:19:55.020 align:middle line:84% She does not have to hear this case. 00:19:55.020 --> 00:19:57.190 align:middle line:90% After all, it's been 70 years. 00:19:57.190 --> 00:19:59.250 align:middle line:84% She does not have to allow for this hearing. 00:19:59.250 --> 00:20:02.970 align:middle line:84% After all, this is still South Carolina, still the deep South. 00:20:02.970 --> 00:20:06.390 align:middle line:84% Jim Crow has a little gray hair, but he's not dead. 00:20:06.390 --> 00:20:08.910 align:middle line:84% The Confederate flag is still flying over this Statehouse 00:20:08.910 --> 00:20:11.970 align:middle line:84% for now and still stuck on pickup trucks and motorcycles 00:20:11.970 --> 00:20:12.870 align:middle line:90% and t-shirts. 00:20:12.870 --> 00:20:16.110 align:middle line:84% She addresses the court as soon as she sits. 00:20:16.110 --> 00:20:19.200 align:middle line:84% Not much was done for this child, she says, 00:20:19.200 --> 00:20:22.590 align:middle line:84% and I am not here to rule on his guilt or his innocence. 00:20:22.590 --> 00:20:25.690 align:middle line:84% As far as I'm concerned, he could have committed the crime. 00:20:25.690 --> 00:20:29.430 align:middle line:84% I am here only to rule whether he received a fair trial. 00:20:29.430 --> 00:20:32.010 align:middle line:90% 00:20:32.010 --> 00:20:34.710 align:middle line:90% The whole row seems to cringe. 00:20:34.710 --> 00:20:36.780 align:middle line:84% She is the matriarch of the old guard 00:20:36.780 --> 00:20:40.050 align:middle line:84% that still remains in our community, Mrs. Julia Bowen. 00:20:40.050 --> 00:20:43.170 align:middle line:84% She was on the front lines of the movement back in the day. 00:20:43.170 --> 00:20:45.030 align:middle line:84% She pulls out her handkerchief to touch 00:20:45.030 --> 00:20:47.280 align:middle line:90% the corners of her eye. 00:20:47.280 --> 00:20:50.550 align:middle line:84% When the judge adds, we now have safeguards against this ever 00:20:50.550 --> 00:20:53.040 align:middle line:84% happening again, the hands of all the Black people 00:20:53.040 --> 00:20:55.620 align:middle line:84% on my row with Negro hair and maroon eyes 00:20:55.620 --> 00:20:58.590 align:middle line:84% lift and levitate and hold on to each other. 00:20:58.590 --> 00:21:00.750 align:middle line:84% The bailiff turns to look at our noisy row, 00:21:00.750 --> 00:21:03.030 align:middle line:90% he gives us the evil eye. 00:21:03.030 --> 00:21:06.090 align:middle line:84% Defense counsel, this is your motion, so make your plea. 00:21:06.090 --> 00:21:08.880 align:middle line:84% Your Honor, George J. Stinney was 14 years old, 00:21:08.880 --> 00:21:13.260 align:middle line:84% and he was the youngest person ever electrocuted 00:21:13.260 --> 00:21:14.790 align:middle line:90% in this country. 00:21:14.790 --> 00:21:17.640 align:middle line:84% We believe wrongfully convicted and wrongfully executed, 00:21:17.640 --> 00:21:20.340 align:middle line:84% a writ of coram nobis is requested, Your Honor. 00:21:20.340 --> 00:21:23.010 align:middle line:84% This is procedure when someone falls through the cracks 00:21:23.010 --> 00:21:25.530 align:middle line:90% of the law as we assert he did. 00:21:25.530 --> 00:21:30.090 align:middle line:84% In addition, Your Honor, in file, 70, 50, 30 years old, 00:21:30.090 --> 00:21:31.830 align:middle line:84% we found hundreds of letters of support 00:21:31.830 --> 00:21:36.990 align:middle line:84% for George Stinney asking for him to receive due process. 00:21:36.990 --> 00:21:39.270 align:middle line:84% The lawyer reports another governor went so far 00:21:39.270 --> 00:21:41.640 align:middle line:84% as to say this moment will never die 00:21:41.640 --> 00:21:44.730 align:middle line:84% and this is shame and disgrace for the state of South 00:21:44.730 --> 00:21:45.450 align:middle line:90% Carolina. 00:21:45.450 --> 00:21:49.650 align:middle line:90% 00:21:49.650 --> 00:21:51.540 align:middle line:84% The lawyer states for the record the story 00:21:51.540 --> 00:21:53.760 align:middle line:84% of the crime that the bodies of the two young girls 00:21:53.760 --> 00:21:56.610 align:middle line:90% were found on March 23, 1944. 00:21:56.610 --> 00:21:57.700 align:middle line:90% I scribble fast. 00:21:57.700 --> 00:21:59.100 align:middle line:90% How did I miss this? 00:21:59.100 --> 00:22:01.920 align:middle line:90% This my father's 13th birthday. 00:22:01.920 --> 00:22:05.520 align:middle line:84% My eyes lift and fly across the room to daddy's judicious face. 00:22:05.520 --> 00:22:09.480 align:middle line:84% His Negro hair is back lit, his maroon eyes shining. 00:22:09.480 --> 00:22:12.700 align:middle line:84% The court does not care about this factoid, but I do. 00:22:12.700 --> 00:22:15.240 align:middle line:84% My father was a 13-year-old and George Stinney 00:22:15.240 --> 00:22:16.560 align:middle line:90% was a 14-year-old. 00:22:16.560 --> 00:22:20.220 align:middle line:84% In 1944, my father, Ernest Finney, was on his way 00:22:20.220 --> 00:22:25.420 align:middle line:84% to South Carolina in a car with wings from Baltimore, Maryland. 00:22:25.420 --> 00:22:27.600 align:middle line:84% My grandfather, Ernest Adolphus Finney Sr., 00:22:27.600 --> 00:22:30.270 align:middle line:84% was beginning a career in education 00:22:30.270 --> 00:22:32.610 align:middle line:84% as Dean of students, first, at Voorhees College 00:22:32.610 --> 00:22:35.550 align:middle line:84% and then Claflin University, both small Black historical 00:22:35.550 --> 00:22:37.710 align:middle line:84% colleges in Orangeburg, South Carolina. 00:22:37.710 --> 00:22:40.710 align:middle line:84% George Stinney Jr. was a son of George Stinney 00:22:40.710 --> 00:22:44.910 align:middle line:84% Sr., a man who owned one cow and could not read or write. 00:22:44.910 --> 00:22:46.740 align:middle line:84% This still life that I am drawing out 00:22:46.740 --> 00:22:49.080 align:middle line:84% in this courtroom of my father is clearly 00:22:49.080 --> 00:22:51.220 align:middle line:84% about Negro hair and maroon eyes. 00:22:51.220 --> 00:22:53.340 align:middle line:84% But it is also clearly about poverty 00:22:53.340 --> 00:22:56.880 align:middle line:84% and complete disenfranchisement and the fear that accompanies 00:22:56.880 --> 00:22:58.560 align:middle line:90% that state of being. 00:22:58.560 --> 00:23:00.115 align:middle line:90% The solicitor finally speaks. 00:23:00.115 --> 00:23:01.740 align:middle line:84% Your Honor, the state of South Carolina 00:23:01.740 --> 00:23:04.740 align:middle line:84% maintains George J. Stinney was guilty and deserved the death 00:23:04.740 --> 00:23:06.310 align:middle line:90% penalty. 00:23:06.310 --> 00:23:08.483 align:middle line:84% The bailiff moves and stands in the aisle near me. 00:23:08.483 --> 00:23:09.150 align:middle line:90% I don't look up. 00:23:09.150 --> 00:23:11.442 align:middle line:84% I have not come to make a scene with the state of South 00:23:11.442 --> 00:23:12.130 align:middle line:90% Carolina. 00:23:12.130 --> 00:23:14.580 align:middle line:84% I've come to be George J. Stinney's poet. 00:23:14.580 --> 00:23:17.700 align:middle line:84% The poet that James Baldwin spoke of 50 years ago 00:23:17.700 --> 00:23:20.160 align:middle line:84% when he said, quote, "only the poets can tell us 00:23:20.160 --> 00:23:23.490 align:middle line:84% what it is like to die and what it is like to feel pain 00:23:23.490 --> 00:23:26.580 align:middle line:84% and what it is like to love," end quote. 00:23:26.580 --> 00:23:27.750 align:middle line:90% The solicitor continues. 00:23:27.750 --> 00:23:30.180 align:middle line:84% Your Honor, this is about standing and timeliness. 00:23:30.180 --> 00:23:33.060 align:middle line:84% One of the problems of this case is that it is 70 years old. 00:23:33.060 --> 00:23:36.390 align:middle line:84% It is clear the defendant had a constitutional right to counsel 00:23:36.390 --> 00:23:37.740 align:middle line:90% and that he had counsel. 00:23:37.740 --> 00:23:40.920 align:middle line:84% A writ of habeas corpus is the only other remedy that exists. 00:23:40.920 --> 00:23:43.110 align:middle line:90% Habeas corpus? 00:23:43.110 --> 00:23:45.750 align:middle line:84% I was raised around lawyers, I know what this means-- 00:23:45.750 --> 00:23:47.530 align:middle line:90% to bring the body forward. 00:23:47.530 --> 00:23:48.510 align:middle line:90% The defense objects. 00:23:48.510 --> 00:23:49.860 align:middle line:90% Coram nobis, Your Honor. 00:23:49.860 --> 00:23:51.990 align:middle line:84% Your Honor, the State's hands are dirty. 00:23:51.990 --> 00:23:55.260 align:middle line:84% I circle dirty and underscore it in my journal book. 00:23:55.260 --> 00:23:57.390 align:middle line:84% At the very least, he says twice, 00:23:57.390 --> 00:24:00.240 align:middle line:84% the State must say a mistake was made. 00:24:00.240 --> 00:24:02.850 align:middle line:84% I am scribbling so loudly that the bailiff moves over 00:24:02.850 --> 00:24:04.140 align:middle line:90% to my row again. 00:24:04.140 --> 00:24:07.320 align:middle line:84% The solicitor is wrong and the defense is not accurate. 00:24:07.320 --> 00:24:09.660 align:middle line:90% Yes, please, habeas corpus. 00:24:09.660 --> 00:24:12.030 align:middle line:84% Bring his body forward, South Carolina. 00:24:12.030 --> 00:24:14.880 align:middle line:84% Let us see the body that his sister and mother and father 00:24:14.880 --> 00:24:18.000 align:middle line:84% could not recognize in the casket at his funeral. 00:24:18.000 --> 00:24:20.640 align:middle line:84% Bring the body forward, and let us see the 95 pound 00:24:20.640 --> 00:24:23.820 align:middle line:84% boy whose last act as a 14-year-old human being 00:24:23.820 --> 00:24:26.970 align:middle line:84% was to position his 5 feet strategically 00:24:26.970 --> 00:24:30.330 align:middle line:84% on top of the Holy Bible that waited between him 00:24:30.330 --> 00:24:32.310 align:middle line:84% and the wooden chair that finally reached him 00:24:32.310 --> 00:24:36.060 align:middle line:84% up high enough in the air that the electricity could finally 00:24:36.060 --> 00:24:37.680 align:middle line:90% do its job. 00:24:37.680 --> 00:24:42.540 align:middle line:84% The State's hands are not dirty, they are covered in blood. 00:24:42.540 --> 00:24:44.490 align:middle line:90% At the very least-- 00:24:44.490 --> 00:24:47.580 align:middle line:84% at the very least, the State walked a boy, 00:24:47.580 --> 00:24:49.860 align:middle line:90% a child to the electric chair-- 00:24:49.860 --> 00:24:54.990 align:middle line:84% a boy who walked his cow every day and wanted to be a painter. 00:24:54.990 --> 00:24:56.760 align:middle line:84% My heart is pounding through my chest 00:24:56.760 --> 00:25:00.690 align:middle line:84% when Katherine Stinney, 79, sister of George J. Stinney, 00:25:00.690 --> 00:25:01.590 align:middle line:90% takes the stand. 00:25:01.590 --> 00:25:02.970 align:middle line:90% Do you solemnly swear? 00:25:02.970 --> 00:25:04.140 align:middle line:90% I do. 00:25:04.140 --> 00:25:06.930 align:middle line:84% What do you remember about South Carolina in 1944? 00:25:06.930 --> 00:25:10.800 align:middle line:90% Nothing good, she says. 00:25:10.800 --> 00:25:15.660 align:middle line:84% And may I also say that a maypop is a fruit, not a flower, sort 00:25:15.660 --> 00:25:17.070 align:middle line:90% of like a lemon. 00:25:17.070 --> 00:25:19.260 align:middle line:90% She was 9, idolized her brother. 00:25:19.260 --> 00:25:20.340 align:middle line:90% He liked to draw. 00:25:20.340 --> 00:25:25.125 align:middle line:84% She says, she and her brother should be growing old together. 00:25:25.125 --> 00:25:32.780 align:middle line:90% 00:25:32.780 --> 00:25:36.440 align:middle line:84% The long-drawn trauma people with Negro hair and maroon eyes 00:25:36.440 --> 00:25:40.250 align:middle line:84% have to endure that is 500 years old and older than that. 00:25:40.250 --> 00:25:43.370 align:middle line:84% The long-drawn trauma of not being on the voting list 00:25:43.370 --> 00:25:45.530 align:middle line:84% or not on the jury list or not having 00:25:45.530 --> 00:25:49.610 align:middle line:84% to depend on only one cow or not being able to read or own 00:25:49.610 --> 00:25:50.600 align:middle line:90% your own house. 00:25:50.600 --> 00:25:52.970 align:middle line:84% Or the trauma of intimidation by Billy club 00:25:52.970 --> 00:25:54.680 align:middle line:90% and the backseat of black cars. 00:25:54.680 --> 00:25:58.670 align:middle line:84% Or terrified because 1,500 white people of the Jim Crow South 00:25:58.670 --> 00:26:01.850 align:middle line:84% or the urban Midwest or the California metro system 00:26:01.850 --> 00:26:03.530 align:middle line:84% have gathered to not allow you safe 00:26:03.530 --> 00:26:08.030 align:middle line:84% passage as you try to fill your still life with motion. 00:26:08.030 --> 00:26:10.910 align:middle line:84% You are 14 years old and in the seventh grade, 00:26:10.910 --> 00:26:13.850 align:middle line:84% and you haven't seen your mother in 83 days or your father. 00:26:13.850 --> 00:26:16.100 align:middle line:84% And there are no other Black people in the courthouse, 00:26:16.100 --> 00:26:19.370 align:middle line:84% but you and your 14-year-old Black-eyed beautiful self. 00:26:19.370 --> 00:26:22.580 align:middle line:84% And there are 1,000 people with silk hair sitting behind you 00:26:22.580 --> 00:26:25.430 align:middle line:84% in your rearview waiting for you to take your last breath. 00:26:25.430 --> 00:26:28.370 align:middle line:84% And you're only one boy with maroon eyes among many 00:26:28.370 --> 00:26:29.960 align:middle line:84% who have been taught by his people 00:26:29.960 --> 00:26:31.710 align:middle line:84% that there is always less trouble when you 00:26:31.710 --> 00:26:34.250 align:middle line:90% keep your hands in plain sight. 00:26:34.250 --> 00:26:36.860 align:middle line:84% There is a pathologist report on the two girls. 00:26:36.860 --> 00:26:38.390 align:middle line:90% It is not an autopsy. 00:26:38.390 --> 00:26:41.840 align:middle line:90% An autopsy was not done. 00:26:41.840 --> 00:26:43.460 align:middle line:90% It is not a forensic report. 00:26:43.460 --> 00:26:45.350 align:middle line:90% It is only an external exam. 00:26:45.350 --> 00:26:47.420 align:middle line:90% The family doctor is called. 00:26:47.420 --> 00:26:50.420 align:middle line:84% Who gets to have a family doctor and who doesn't is 00:26:50.420 --> 00:26:51.350 align:middle line:90% what I scribble. 00:26:51.350 --> 00:26:53.270 align:middle line:90% I write with my head down. 00:26:53.270 --> 00:26:55.130 align:middle line:84% No defensive wounds, says the man 00:26:55.130 --> 00:26:57.050 align:middle line:90% reading the pathologist report. 00:26:57.050 --> 00:26:59.330 align:middle line:84% The attack was unexpected, and I believe 00:26:59.330 --> 00:27:01.550 align:middle line:84% he would have to have been a larger person 00:27:01.550 --> 00:27:03.170 align:middle line:90% to do this kind of damage. 00:27:03.170 --> 00:27:06.140 align:middle line:84% Photography-- no photographs were taken at the scene. 00:27:06.140 --> 00:27:08.270 align:middle line:84% There should have been a lot of blood at the scene 00:27:08.270 --> 00:27:10.640 align:middle line:84% because there were so many blood vessels in the scalp. 00:27:10.640 --> 00:27:12.830 align:middle line:84% Unusual that there was not a lot of blood. 00:27:12.830 --> 00:27:14.415 align:middle line:84% Perhaps they were not killed there. 00:27:14.415 --> 00:27:16.040 align:middle line:84% Perhaps they were killed someplace else 00:27:16.040 --> 00:27:18.050 align:middle line:84% and dragged there across the tracks 00:27:18.050 --> 00:27:19.490 align:middle line:90% to the Black side of town. 00:27:19.490 --> 00:27:23.600 align:middle line:84% Daddy's portrait is 500 feet in front of me. 00:27:23.600 --> 00:27:28.250 align:middle line:84% This thing called law is sticky, I whispered to him 00:27:28.250 --> 00:27:29.570 align:middle line:90% during the recess. 00:27:29.570 --> 00:27:31.850 align:middle line:84% He believed in the law so deeply. 00:27:31.850 --> 00:27:36.290 align:middle line:84% He would walk through the house saying, the law works, girl. 00:27:36.290 --> 00:27:38.330 align:middle line:84% Dear daddy, you taught me everything 00:27:38.330 --> 00:27:42.140 align:middle line:84% I know about justice, but the law does not always work. 00:27:42.140 --> 00:27:43.790 align:middle line:90% The law is not a flower. 00:27:43.790 --> 00:27:44.870 align:middle line:90% It's a fruit. 00:27:44.870 --> 00:27:46.970 align:middle line:84% And sometimes when that fruit is stepped on, 00:27:46.970 --> 00:27:48.980 align:middle line:90% it makes a popping sound. 00:27:48.980 --> 00:27:50.450 align:middle line:90% The law is slow. 00:27:50.450 --> 00:27:54.020 align:middle line:84% The law can hide behind so many things like hair texture 00:27:54.020 --> 00:27:56.390 align:middle line:84% and the perception of another's eyes. 00:27:56.390 --> 00:27:59.690 align:middle line:84% It's more like a lemon than anything else. 00:27:59.690 --> 00:28:02.870 align:middle line:84% The law makes people with Negro hair and maroon eyes 00:28:02.870 --> 00:28:06.200 align:middle line:84% and one cow wait 100 years for peace. 00:28:06.200 --> 00:28:07.370 align:middle line:90% Nothing changes. 00:28:07.370 --> 00:28:10.940 align:middle line:84% Negro haired people get jobs that silky haired people used 00:28:10.940 --> 00:28:11.600 align:middle line:90% to have. 00:28:11.600 --> 00:28:14.780 align:middle line:84% They are taught the rules of the same old book because 00:28:14.780 --> 00:28:16.460 align:middle line:90% of fear, status quo. 00:28:16.460 --> 00:28:18.650 align:middle line:84% Somebody has to be on top, somebody 00:28:18.650 --> 00:28:19.970 align:middle line:90% has to be on the bottom. 00:28:19.970 --> 00:28:23.390 align:middle line:84% George J. Stinney Jr. liked to read and whistled and read 00:28:23.390 --> 00:28:25.080 align:middle line:90% comic books and draw airplanes. 00:28:25.080 --> 00:28:26.220 align:middle line:90% He was a good writer. 00:28:26.220 --> 00:28:27.950 align:middle line:84% He wrote letters for his mother whenever 00:28:27.950 --> 00:28:29.390 align:middle line:90% she needed a letter written. 00:28:29.390 --> 00:28:31.730 align:middle line:84% But more than any of this, he was a child, 00:28:31.730 --> 00:28:33.950 align:middle line:84% and children-- all children come with things 00:28:33.950 --> 00:28:36.410 align:middle line:84% that should be recognized more than hair texture 00:28:36.410 --> 00:28:37.850 align:middle line:90% and strange eye colors. 00:28:37.850 --> 00:28:40.560 align:middle line:84% His 14-year-old brain knew he was going to die. 00:28:40.560 --> 00:28:41.930 align:middle line:90% He didn't understand why. 00:28:41.930 --> 00:28:44.690 align:middle line:84% He died with a sea of questions surrounding his body. 00:28:44.690 --> 00:28:48.050 align:middle line:84% The State made his family live the next 70 00:28:48.050 --> 00:28:50.870 align:middle line:90% years without any answers. 00:28:50.870 --> 00:28:53.300 align:middle line:84% His still life was never filled in. 00:28:53.300 --> 00:28:57.290 align:middle line:84% He had 83 days alone as a 14-year-old to imagine what 00:28:57.290 --> 00:28:59.090 align:middle line:90% electrocution would feel like. 00:28:59.090 --> 00:29:01.880 align:middle line:84% He had 83 days to wonder why he was being punished 00:29:01.880 --> 00:29:03.450 align:middle line:90% for something he did not do. 00:29:03.450 --> 00:29:06.200 align:middle line:84% He died with chaos and confusion in his heart. 00:29:06.200 --> 00:29:09.350 align:middle line:84% His family had to live and raise other children 00:29:09.350 --> 00:29:12.740 align:middle line:84% with that same passed on chaos and confusion, 00:29:12.740 --> 00:29:14.360 align:middle line:90% never finding an answer. 00:29:14.360 --> 00:29:16.040 align:middle line:84% All the way to the end of his life, 00:29:16.040 --> 00:29:19.250 align:middle line:84% he kept asking his cellmate, why? 00:29:19.250 --> 00:29:23.450 align:middle line:84% We had an open casket, his sister, the shadow, testified. 00:29:23.450 --> 00:29:26.420 align:middle line:84% He was burned so badly, hardly recognizable. 00:29:26.420 --> 00:29:29.120 align:middle line:84% But we buried him in an unmarked grave. 00:29:29.120 --> 00:29:29.780 align:middle line:90% Why? 00:29:29.780 --> 00:29:33.530 align:middle line:84% So no one would ever hurt him again. 00:29:33.530 --> 00:29:35.880 align:middle line:90% The cow is sold. 00:29:35.880 --> 00:29:39.110 align:middle line:84% The three room house shut, the chicken coop empty. 00:29:39.110 --> 00:29:40.790 align:middle line:84% No one in the Stinney family ever 00:29:40.790 --> 00:29:43.730 align:middle line:84% wants to hear the word maypop again. 00:29:43.730 --> 00:29:45.860 align:middle line:84% What is violently and systematically 00:29:45.860 --> 00:29:49.130 align:middle line:84% done to human beings who do not look like the State 00:29:49.130 --> 00:29:52.340 align:middle line:84% or the Republic wants them to look from the day they are born 00:29:52.340 --> 00:29:56.780 align:middle line:84% does not go away after the State makes them sit on a Bible 00:29:56.780 --> 00:29:58.940 align:middle line:90% before pulling the fire lever. 00:29:58.940 --> 00:30:02.150 align:middle line:84% It does not go away or stay below the ground 00:30:02.150 --> 00:30:04.640 align:middle line:84% because their family is forced to bury them 00:30:04.640 --> 00:30:06.080 align:middle line:90% in an unmarked grave. 00:30:06.080 --> 00:30:11.210 align:middle line:84% What the State has done stays in the air like a fine powder. 00:30:11.210 --> 00:30:13.670 align:middle line:84% It follows the ones involved in the doing 00:30:13.670 --> 00:30:15.540 align:middle line:90% for the rest of their lives. 00:30:15.540 --> 00:30:18.470 align:middle line:84% The State does not only kill the 14-year-old, 00:30:18.470 --> 00:30:20.270 align:middle line:90% but the family too. 00:30:20.270 --> 00:30:23.400 align:middle line:84% The electricity is sent through the mother, the father, 00:30:23.400 --> 00:30:27.080 align:middle line:84% the brother, the shadow, the cow. 00:30:27.080 --> 00:30:28.700 align:middle line:90% There was no evidence. 00:30:28.700 --> 00:30:31.770 align:middle line:84% The people who lied have all died now. 00:30:31.770 --> 00:30:35.010 align:middle line:84% The man who did this to the two girls is dead too. 00:30:35.010 --> 00:30:37.230 align:middle line:84% People with Negro hair and maroon eyes 00:30:37.230 --> 00:30:40.710 align:middle line:84% or mystic hair or foreign eyes have always, 00:30:40.710 --> 00:30:44.220 align:middle line:84% always have to wait for everybody who wrongly hurt 00:30:44.220 --> 00:30:46.800 align:middle line:84% them, who took everything out of their bowl 00:30:46.800 --> 00:30:51.570 align:middle line:84% to die first before there can be a conversation. 00:30:51.570 --> 00:30:54.780 align:middle line:84% A writ of coram nobis is the best we can get. 00:30:54.780 --> 00:30:57.420 align:middle line:84% Mistakes are often made in the hands 00:30:57.420 --> 00:30:59.130 align:middle line:90% of every State in this union. 00:30:59.130 --> 00:31:02.580 align:middle line:84% Cruel and unusual doesn't even come close. 00:31:02.580 --> 00:31:04.950 align:middle line:90% The conviction is overturned. 00:31:04.950 --> 00:31:07.710 align:middle line:84% And the mother with Negro hair has almost 00:31:07.710 --> 00:31:09.840 align:middle line:90% lost her mind with worry. 00:31:09.840 --> 00:31:12.690 align:middle line:84% The Black boy who could have been the artist 00:31:12.690 --> 00:31:16.570 align:middle line:84% is unrecognizable in his casket to his family. 00:31:16.570 --> 00:31:20.010 align:middle line:84% The family sits for their family portrait. 00:31:20.010 --> 00:31:26.220 align:middle line:84% It is a still life just like the son's portrait in prison blue. 00:31:26.220 --> 00:31:30.780 align:middle line:84% The sister says her brother's name has been finally cleared. 00:31:30.780 --> 00:31:33.720 align:middle line:90% She is 80 years old. 00:31:33.720 --> 00:31:35.670 align:middle line:90% She is overjoyed. 00:31:35.670 --> 00:31:39.180 align:middle line:84% There is a strange afterglow to her. 00:31:39.180 --> 00:31:43.590 align:middle line:84% We are supposed to be delighted that day in the courtroom. 00:31:43.590 --> 00:31:47.490 align:middle line:84% No, we are the ones who survived this horror. 00:31:47.490 --> 00:31:52.380 align:middle line:84% We are the ones with the dust of his life all over us. 00:31:52.380 --> 00:31:56.340 align:middle line:84% We are the ones who must live to tell the story of what 00:31:56.340 --> 00:32:00.660 align:middle line:84% it is like to wear Negro hair, to have maroon eyes, 00:32:00.660 --> 00:32:05.670 align:middle line:84% to die and be buried in an unmarked grave, to know pain 00:32:05.670 --> 00:32:07.425 align:middle line:90% and also to know love." 00:32:07.425 --> 00:32:10.560 align:middle line:90% 00:32:10.560 --> 00:32:12.380 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:32:12.380 --> 00:32:26.000 align:middle line:90%