A Pardon For Lena Baker
by TChris
It's easy to understand why Lena Baker shot her employer.
In her one-day trial, Ms. Baker, who was black, testified that E. B. Knight, a white man she had been hired to care for, had held her against her will and threatened to shoot her. She said she grabbed a gun and shot him when he raised a metal bar to strike her.
Sadly, it's also easy to understand why, in 1945, she was convicted.
She was convicted by an all-white, all-male jury.
Sixty years after she was electrocuted, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles granted her a pardon. While that decision comes sixty years too late to benefit Baker, it may help ease the pain for family members who have labored to clear her name. More information about Lena Baker can be found here and here.
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