Entries tagged with “Willie Francis

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Feb 21, 2008

BOOKS: The Execution of Willie Francis”

Author Gilbert King, in his forth­com­ing book The Execution of Willie Francis, details the sto­ry of a young African-American man who endured the elec­tric chair twice before being exe­cut­ed for the mur­der of a white man in Louisiana. In 1946, an all-white jury con­vict­ed Francis, who was 17, and sen­tenced him to death. The first attempt to exe­cute him by elec­tro­cu­tion did not work, and Francis was returned to his death row cell where he remained for almost anoth­er year while the U.S.