On Friday, May 7, NPR​’s Radio Diaries will fea­ture a half-hour doc­u­men­tary enti­tled, ​“Willie McGee and the Traveling Electric Chair.” The doc­u­men­tary focus­es on the life of Willie McGee who was exe­cut­ed in Mississippi dur­ing the Jim Crow era after being con­vict­ed by an all-white jury of rap­ing a white woman. During that time in Mississippi, the state used a portable elec­tric chair, which the state trans­port­ed from coun­ty to coun­ty. According to NPR, it was not just the portable elec­tric chair that made McGee’s exe­cu­tion unusu­al, but the unprece­dent­ed live radio cov­er­age that accom­pa­nied it. The doc­u­men­tary includes excerpts of the live cov­er­age from McGee’s exe­cu­tion, broad­cast from out­side the cour­t­house where the exe­cu­tion took place.

(L. Rohter, ​“The Echoes of an Execution Reverberate Loud and Clear,” New York Times, May 6, 2010). Go here for excerpts from the radio doc­u­men­tary. See also Race and History of the Death Penalty.

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