RSS Feed |
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Lena Baker Story filming underway
The movie, based on a true story, is being produced by Schuster's Cash LLC at the Jokara-Micheaux Production Studio in Colquitt. The film will feature Peter Coyote, an accomplished actor who has appeared in over 90 films. An article for a casting call for persons to fill several roles in the movie appeared in the Oct. 10 issue of the Early County News. And, last Thursday the studio called DFACS in Blakely seeking "extras" for the weekend scenes. The story follows the life, trial and execution of the first and only woman to be executed in Georgia's electric chair. The movie will explore the issues behind her trial and conviction. The executive producer of the film, from a script by Dr. Lela Phillips, a professor at Andrew College in Cuthbert, is Ralph Wilcox. According to Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia, Lena Baker was an African American maid executed for murder in 1945 for killing her Randolph County employer, Ernest Knight, in 1944. At her trial she claimed he had imprisoned and threatened to shoot her if she attempted to leave, whereupon she took his gun and shot him. As a child Baker and her family worked chopping cotton for J.A. Cox. At the age of 20, Baker and a black friend found they could make money by "entertaining gentlemen." This came to the attention of the Randolph County sheriff as their clientele was white and interracial relationships were illegal in Georgia in the 1940s. The two were arrested and spent several months in a workhouse. Upon release she was ostracized by the black community, leading her to become an alcoholic. In 1941, Baker was hired by Knight to care for him after a fall broke his leg. In Cuthbert Knight was viewed as brutal and abusive. He was a failed farmer who ran a gristmill and always had a pistol strapped to his chest. A relationship developed between the two. Knight would provide Baker with alcohol in return for sex, and the whole town knew of it. Knight was persuaded by his oldest son to move to Tallahassee in an effort to break up the pair, but Baker came with him. Knight's oldest son then gave Baker an ultimatum to leave. She did, but Knight followed her back to Cuthbert. On the night of April 30, 1944, Baker went to the house of Cox, who was now the town coroner and told him she had shot Knight. Cox told Baker to go to the sheriff, while he would go to gristmill where Baker said Knight's body was. Baker did not go to the sheriff, but instead went home. She was picked up by the sheriff later that night, but was cooperative. He gave her two days to sleep off the affects of the alcohol in her system. Baker then told her version of events. Knight had come to her house drunk and asked her to come to the mill. She did not want to, but knew better than to refuse the drunk man. She tried stalling him by asking for money to go buy some whiskey. He gave her some money and she went to the tavern but found it closed. She waited there for a while hoping that Knight would leave her house. She returned, but found he was still there. She was forced to accompany him to the mill, but escaped and hid in some nearby bushes. She bought some whiskey and went to sleep at the nearby convict camp. On waking the next morning she went to the mill thinking this was the last place that Knight would go. However, this was exactly where Knight was. He held her prisoner for several hours, even through several hours of his absence. He returned and told Baker he would kill her before she would ever leave again. A struggle ensued. With Baker being the only living witness the details are sketchy at best but Baker managed to get hold of Knight's pistol, which went off, hitting him in the head, instantly killing him. Although Knight was not liked in the town, a white man had been killed by a black woman, something that was intolerable to the segregationist townsfolk. Lena Baker was charged with capital murder and stood trial August 14, 1944. The all-white male jury convicted her by the end of the afternoon. Her courtappointed counsel filed an appeal but then dropped Baker as a client. The 1940s Randolph County courthouse lost to fire, the trial scenes for the movie will be shot in the courtroom of the Baker County courthouse in Newton. On entering the execution chamber, Baker calmly sat in the electric chair and said, "I have nothing against anyone. I'm ready to meet my God." She was buried at Mount Vernon Baptist Church in Randolph County.
A petition by family members for a pardon based on the racist 1945 verdict was granted by the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles in 2005. The Parole Board suggested a verdict of manslaughter would have been more appropriate.
|
for larger version       |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
)
