Lena Baker

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

The Georgia execution of inmate Troy Davis created worldwide protest against the death penalty and has brought awareness to other cases where Blacks were mistreated by the legal system in Georgia.
Davis’ execution is one example of Georgia’s unbalanced justice system and many GA residents  have joined the march for truth where there is much doubt in the cases where the state takes a life.

Television Judge Greg Mathis has expressed outrage, stating that Georgia had “blood on it’s hands” for proceeding with the Davis execution.

[WATCH: Judge Greg Mathis Weighs In on Troy Davis ]

Davis is not the first mistake Georgia has made….


Lena Baker, an African-American mother of three holds the esteemed honor of being the only woman electrocuted in Georgia’s electric chair - she was issued a pardon 6 decades after her 1945 death by execution.

Baker was convicted for the fatal shooting of E. B. Knight, a white Cuthbert, Georgia mill operator she was hired to care for after he broke his leg. She was 44 at the time of her execution.
VIDEO: The Lena Baker Story (Trailer)   During her brief trial, Baker testified that Knight held her against her will in a grist mill and threatened to shoot her if she tried to leave. She said she grabbed Knight’s gun and shot him when he raised a metal bar to strike her.

Unfortunately for Baker, her story was insufficient for the justice system in Georgia. She was a Black woman on trial for killing a White man and her fate was sealed.  Accused of such a crime in the segregated south in the 1940’s!

The director of an Americus-based inmate advocacy program known as the Prison and Jail Project, said Knight had kept Ms. Baker as his “virtual sex slave.” She was his paramour, she was his mistress, and, among other things, his drinking partner.
If you read the transcript and have any understanding of black-white relations, Black women were often subjected to the sexual whims of their white masters, their white bosses, or some white man who had control over their lives or the lives of their families. “Here is one who resisted and paid the price.”

Baker was sentenced to death in a one-day trial of an all-white, all-male jury.

Similar to Troy Davis’ final letter to supporters, Lena Baker publicly stated her innocence to the end.

“What I done, I did in self-defense,” she said in her final statement. “I have nothing against anyone. I am ready to meet my God.”

The mother of 3, who had a sixth-grade education was murdered in the State of Georgia’s electric chair at the State Prison in Reidsville.

The undertaker who transported Baker’s body to her hometown, buried her in a grave unmarked for five decades - the congregation of Mount Vernon Baptist Church raised $250 for a concrete slab and marker to finally mark Baker’s grave.

60 years later Baker was granted a posthumous pardon after her family petitioned the State.


The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles said that while they did not find Baker innocent of the crime, they did find that the decision to deny her clemency in 1945 “was a grievous error, as this case called out for mercy.”

“I believe she’s somewhere around God’s throne and can look down and smile,” said Baker’s grandnephew, Roosevelt Curry, who has led the family’s effort to clear her name.

The Lena Baker Story, a novel authored by Lela Bond Phillips, chronicles Baker’s life and struggles on Georgia’s death row. The book was the basis for a screenplay by actor/director Ralph Wilcox filmed in 2007 in Southwest Georgia.

The film, also entitled “The Lena Baker Story”, stars Tichina Arnold in the title role and is now available on DVD.