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THIS STORY MUST BE TOLD!

N A R R A T I V E

In 1944 in Columbia, SC, 14-year-old George Stinney, Jr. became the youngest person executed in the United States in the 20th century. He was arrested on suspicion of murdering two white girls, Betty June Binnicker, age 11 and Mary Emma Thames, age 8, while they looked for flowers. It is said that the girls stopped at the Stinney’s home to ask if he knew where to find the flower that they were looking for and when George told them no, that they went on their way. But when the girls did not return home, search parties were organized and the bodies of the girls were found the next morning in a ditch filled with muddy water; each with several severe wounds to the head.

 

A few hours later, George was arrested and interrogated in a locked room by two white officers, with no lawyer present. And because his family was forced to leave town in fear of their lives, he did not have the support of his parents. He was left alone to face these accusations and, within a hour, the deputy announced that he had confessed to the crime.

 

On April 24th, Stinney, literally, had his day in court. Jury selection began at 10am and was over by noon; the trial began at 2:30 and just before 5pm the jury was deliberating.  Ten minutes later, they came back with a guilty verdict and he received his sentence to die by electrocution.

 

His defense attorney, a tax attorney with political aspirations, had no intentions of appealing and on June 16, 1944 at 7:30 pm, George Junius Stinney, Jr. was put to death. From the time of his arrest until the time of his execution was only 83 Days.

 

Many believed that he was innocent; that he was made a scapegoat based solely on the fact that he was the last to see them. But to this day, there is no evidence to support that he did it, no record of the confession, outside of what the deputies said, and no record of the court proceedings. It has been purged from the records of history; a buried and forgotten atrocity that no one knows has happened.

 

THE MISSION

 

The primary purpose of this film is to raise awareness to the fact that this travesty did occur and was sanctioned by officials in both Clarendon County and the State of South Carolina at that time. This film will tell the true story of George Stinney Jr’s execution and explore the fabrication that was considered to be the evidence behind the reason for his arrest and conviction. This onscreen dramatization will also serve as an interpretation of a very relevant incident in African American history that has never been discussed. It is a controversial case of subjugated innocence. A skeleton that most thought was buried with those responsible for this atrocity. It is this injustice in South Carolina history during the Jim Crow Era that we propose to share. 

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