The Child in the Electric Chair

The Execution of George Junius Stinney Jr. and the Making of a Tragedy in the American South

By: Eli Faber

Narrated by: Beresford Bennett, Karen Chilton

Length: 5 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

At 7:30 a.m. on June 16, 1944, George Junius Stinney, Jr., was escorted by four guards to the death chamber. Wearing socks but no shoes, the 14-year-old Black boy walked with his Bible tucked under his arm. The guards strapped his slight, five-foot-one-inch frame into the electric chair. His small size made it difficult to affix the electrode to his right leg and the face mask, which was clearly too large, fell to the floor when the executioner flipped the switch. That day, George Stinney became, and today remains, the youngest person executed in the United States during the 20th century.

How was it possible, even in Jim Crow South Carolina, for a child to be convicted, sentenced to death, and executed based on circumstantial evidence in a trial that lasted only a few hours? Through extensive archival research and interviews with Stinney's contemporaries - men and women alive today who still carry distinctive memories of the events that rocked the small town of Alcolu and the entire state - Eli Faber pieces together the chain of events that led to this tragic injustice. The first book to fully explore the events leading to Stinney's death, The Child in the Electric Chair offers a compelling narrative with a meticulously researched analysis of the world in which Stinney lived - the era of lynching, segregation, and racist assumptions about Black Americans. Faber explains how a systemically racist system, paired with the personal ambitions of powerful individuals, turned a blind eye to human decency and one of the basic tenets of the American legal system that individuals are innocent until proven guilty.

As society continues to grapple with the legacies of racial injustice, the story of George Stinney remains one that can teach us lessons about our collective past and present. By ably placing the Stinney case into a larger context, Faber reveals how this case is not just a travesty of justice locked in the era of the Jim Crow South but rather one that continues to resonate in our own time.

A foreword is provided by Carol Berkin, Presidential Professor of History Emerita at Baruch College at the City University of New York and author of several books including Civil War Wives: The Lives and Times of Angelina Grimke Weld, Varina Howell Davis, and Julia Dent Grant.

©2021 Eli Faber (P)2021 Recorded Books, Inc.

Great book

The title sounds gruesome however it does catch our attention. This was an eye opening story of how a community was treated in the South, which still continues today all over the United States. Wake up !!!! Make a change !!!

Story worth reading

I had never heard this story and I am saddened greatly by it but it is important to remember the unjust actions of so many. We must remember or else we are doomed to repeat it.

must read!

I was thrilled to find this book. I married into the Stinney family and they do not like to talk about this tragedy or time in their lives, so I didn't know much about this subject. The author definitely put a lot of time, energy, and hard work into researching and writing this book and taking care to preserve the history and tell the story. This is a very ugly piece of our history, but it is an important story that needed to be told. So thank you to Carol, who saw it through.