‘Martinsville 7’ Granted Posthumous Pardons 70 Years After Their Executions

Virginia Governor Ralph Northam has posthu­mous­ly par­doned sev­en young Black men who were sen­tenced to death by all-white juries and exe­cut­ed in Virginia sev­en decades ago on charges of rap­ing a white woman. Following years of advo­ca­cy from fam­i­ly mem­bers and oth­er advo­cates who pushed for guber­na­to­r­i­al action, Northam announced the posthu­mous par­dons on August 31, 2021, sur­pris­ing the fam­i­ly mem­bers and advo­cates who had come to the capi­tol expect­ing to per­son­al­ly meet with the gov­er­nor to plead their case.

Northam issued sep­a­rate par­dons for each of the sev­en men (pic­tured) — Francis DeSales Grayson, Frank Hairston Jr., Howard Hairston, James Luther Hairston, Joe Henry Hampton, Booker T. Millner, and John Clabon Taylor. ​“It was one of the best days of my life,” said Pam Hairston, who is relat­ed to sev­er­al of the men and has spent decades advo­cat­ing on their behalf.

Acknowledging that the exe­cu­tions of the men, who came to be known as the ​“Martinsville 7,” was a prod­uct of sys­temic racism, Northam said, ​“This is about righting wrongs.”

Rudy McCollum, a for­mer may­or of Richmond who is relat­ed to two of the men, said that “[t]his action has been long over­due for a wound for the fam­i­lies which can final­ly heal with the clo­sure of this mat­ter through the recog­ni­tion by the com­mon­wealth that these men were denied their due process under law sole­ly because of the col­or of their skin.”

The Martinsville 7 were accused of rap­ing a white woman in 1949 and inter­ro­gat­ed by police with­out the appoint­ment of legal coun­sel. Under threats that they would be released to a lynch mob, each con­fessed to involve­ment in the rape. After a suc­ces­sion of per­func­to­ry tri­als before all-white, all-male juries, each was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death. They were exe­cut­ed in 1951 in the largest mass exe­cu­tion for rape in U.S. history.

In a January 2021 Discussions With DPIC pod­cast, McCollum (pic­tured) told DPIC Managing Director Anne Holsinger: ​“The pur­pose of lynch­ings, and I believe the pur­pose of even state action such as this, were to send a mes­sage to the Black com­mu­ni­ty. … This was just one more action to send a mes­sage that if you cross the line, we are going to ensure that … the entire com­mu­ni­ty rec­og­nizes that … there will be consequences.”

“I’ve heard some peo­ple say, ​‘Why are we dig­ging this up?’” said Faye Holland, the exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Martinsville 7 Initiative, which has been advo­cat­ing for the par­dons. ​“We’re not dig­ging it up. It’s been up [for] 70 years, nobody’s ever did any­thing with it.”

“While these par­dons do not address the guilt of the sev­en, they serve as recog­ni­tion from the Commonwealth that these men were tried with­out ade­quate due process and received a racial­ly biased death sen­tence not sim­i­lar­ly applied to white defen­dants,” Northam’s state­ment read. ​“We all deserve a crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem that is fair, equal, and gets it right — no mat­ter who you are or what you look like. I’m grate­ful to the advo­cates and fam­i­lies of the Martinsville Seven for their ded­i­ca­tion and perseverance.”

In response to the par­dons, the Virginia NAACP issued a state­ment say­ing that “[d]ecades after the Commonwealth tried and exe­cut­ed these young men with­out due process, today’s long-over­due announce­ment is a step in the right direc­tion towards justice.”

From 1900 until the U.S. Supreme Court pro­hib­it­ed the death penal­ty in 1977 for crimes in which no one was killed, Virginia exe­cut­ed 73 Black men or boys on charges of rape, attempt­ed rape, or rob­bery. In that same time peri­od, no white per­son was exe­cut­ed for any of those crimes. And in its entire his­to­ry, Virginia has nev­er exe­cut­ed any white man for rap­ing a Black woman or girl.

McCollum told DPIC, ​“If we tru­ly want to move for­ward as a soci­ety, we need to rec­og­nize that when wrongs are com­mit­ted that they need to be cor­rect­ed. But they can’t be cor­rect­ed, unless there’s an admission.” 

DPIC exec­u­tive direc­tor Robert Dunham called the exe­cu­tions of the Martinsville 7 ​“a man­i­fes­ta­tion of racial ter­ror lynch­ing through the legal sys­tem.” ​“The sham tri­als of the Martinsville Seven in front of all-White, all-male juries epit­o­mized the use of the death penal­ty as a White suprema­cist instru­ment of racial oppres­sion and embod­ied the link between lynch­ing, seg­re­ga­tion, and the death penal­ty,” Dunham told UPI.

“Virginia’s abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty was an his­toric event in end­ing the lega­cy of these racial injus­tices going for­ward,” Dunham said. ​“But the case of the Martinsville 7 is impor­tant in anoth­er way — the par­don is a for­mal apol­o­gy and an acknowl­edg­ment that the lives of the peo­ple who were vic­tims of the ulti­mate racial oppres­sion, their fam­i­ly mem­bers’ lives, and the lives of every­one in the Black com­mu­ni­ty have val­ue. Their lives mat­ter. And the act of acknowl­edg­ing this mat­ters, too.”