These 7 Black Men Were Executed For An Alleged Rape. Now, They Have Been Pardoned

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Actual newspaper clipping from the infamous Martinsville 7 rape case, in which 7 black males convicted of raping a white woman were sentenced to death in 1949. They were executed in 1951 after exhausting their appeals.

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As temperatures drop below freezing, demonstrators march in front of the White House in Washington in 1951, in what they said was an effort to persuade President Harry Truman to halt execution of seven Black men sentenced to death in Virginia on charges of raping a white woman.

Henry Burroughs/AP

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Not all of the defendants were able to read the confessions they signed, and none of them had a lawyer with them as they were questioned.

Nearly two decades after their executions, the Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment for rape was cruel and unusual punishment.

The death penalty in Virginia

Studies have shown that a defendant is more than three times as likely to be sentenced to death if the victim of a crime is white, compared to crimes where the victim is Black.

Prior to abolishing the death penalty earlier this year, the Commonwealth had executed more people than any other state. All 45 of the prisoners executed for rape from 1908 to 1951 in Virginia were Black men, according to the governor’s office.

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A bed is seen through the bars in one of the holding cells near the death chamber at Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Va., earlier this year.

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A bed is seen through the bars in one of the holding cells near the death chamber at Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Va., earlier this year.

Steve Helber/AP

Northam has granted 604 pardons during his time in office. His office said that’s more pardons than the last nine governors combined.

«Pardons should not have to be a part of the process to ensure a fair and equitable justice system, but unfortunately that’s been the case for far too long, Virginia Secretary of the Commonwealth Kelly Thomasson said in a release.