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Injustice, South Carolina style, 1944

A liitle black boy
a frightened child
denied meetings with his parents
deprived of an attorney
for nearly three months
incarcerated fifty miles
away from his home and family
in constant danger of being lynched
if they tried to see their little lad.

The child stands trial in a South Carolina courthouse
denied competent legal representation
the verdict a foregone conclusion
from the all-white jury:
the verdict in just ten minutes
guilty of murdering two little girls
the only evidence
a confession signed under duress.

The courtroom packed with white folk
eager to hear unfounded rape allegations
despite the lack of evidence;
black people not allowed to see
the workings of Carolina justice.

Poor little George died in the electric chair
sitting on a bible as a booster seat
his face mask fell off during
the eight minutes of agony
it took him to die
revealing his streaming tears
his smoking teeth and an empty eye socket.
buried in an unmarked grave
the youngest victim of Old Sparky.

By an ironic stroke of fate
American soldiers had landed on Omaha Beach
only ten days before little George’s doom;
I wonder if Adolf Hitler’s show trials
ever sentenced little boys to death
because of the colour of their skin?

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Sadly, every single word of this is true. An appeal against the verdict and sentence was rejected 70 years later. The judge at that hearing "vacated" the trial and said it had been unfairly conducted but refrained from any sort of pardon. The film, "The Green Mile" is loosely based on the case, I believe. The poor chikd remains in an unmarked grave.
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Comments

...but I never knew it was about Urinary Tract Infections.

Especially GREEN ones.

xxx
Edna
Poet(ess) to the Stars

author comment

I only found out about this tragic story last week. Successfully kept out of world news for over 75 years.
.

xxx
Edna
Poet(ess) to the Stars

author comment
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