What happened to the white American Ruby Stroud Floyd more than 70 years ago in a black neighborhood in the small town of Martinsville, Virginia, will probably remain unexplained forever. For the jury who then ruled on the alleged African-American rapist of the thirty-two-year-old, the crime seemed to have been resolved: As the prosecution stated in a sensational trial in early 1951, Francis DeSales Grayson, Frank Hairston, Howard Lee Hairston, James Luther Hairston, Joe Henry had Hampton, Booker Millner and John Clabon Taylor ambushed and brutally raped the alleged victim in the early evening of January 8, 1949. Floyd had previously visited the area known to be dangerous to distribute Jehovah's Witnesses religious writings.
While Ruby Stroud Floyd was being treated in hospital after the alleged rape, police arrested six suspects, and two days later a seventh. Within hours, they admitted to having "sex" with Floyd or admitted to watching their friends have intercourse with the thirty-two-year-old. They were not assigned a lawyer. In addition, some of the "Martinsville Seven", most of them illiterate, were still drunk when they made the alleged confessions.
The circumstances of the following death sentences sparked debates about racism in the judiciary in the United States - and prompted Virginia Governor Ralph Northam to pardon the seven executed African Americans on Tuesday. “The death sentences were racially motivated and would not have been passed on white defendants. These men were executed for being black. That's not right, ”said the Democrat. Four of the Martinsville Seven had died in the electric chair on February 2, 1951, the remaining three a few days later. “Your sentence was not commensurate with the crime. You shouldn't have been executed, ”said Governor Northam.
As the relatives' organization Martinsville 7 Project researched, the seven were among the 45 all-black offenders who were sentenced to death for rape until the death penalty was abolished in Virginia in March 2021. Although the southern state was already admitting African-Americans as a jury member in the early 1950s, the juries in the trials against the Martinsville Seven were only made up of whites. Attempts by the civil rights organization National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to spare men the electric chair then fizzled out. The United States Supreme Court also refused to deal with the case twice.
In December 2020, the members of the Martinsville Seven finally asked Governor Northam to pardon the men, at least posthumously. James Grayson said Tuesday after his father Francis DeSales Grayson's pardon, "It's never too late to correct something wrong."