Will Ralph Northam Give Posthumous Pardons to Seven Black Rapists?
Chris Roberts, American Renaissance, December 15, 2020
On January 8, 1949, a white woman named Ruby Stroud Floyd was raped in a black part of Martinsville, Virginia. At a hospital where she was examined for internal injuries, she told police that a group of black men raped her. Police soon arrested, Frank Hairston, Jr. and Booker Millner. Their confessions led to the arrest of five more blacks: Howard Hairston, James Hairston, John Taylor, Francis Grayson, and Joe Hampton. All seven were charged with rape and aiding and abetting rape, and all confessed at least to being present at the crime. At the time, rape and accessory to rape were punishable by death in Virginia, which is what prosecutors proposed for the “Martinsville Seven.” The six trials (two of the seven men were tried together) all returned guilty verdicts with death sentences. Four of the men were executed on February 2, 1951, and three on February 5.