Lena Baker
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Lena Baker (June 8, 1901 – March 5, 1945) was an African American maid who was executed for murder by the State of Georgia in 1945 for killing her employer, Ernest Knight in 1944. At her trial she claimed that he had imprisoned and threatened to shoot her should she attempt to leave, whereupon she took his gun and shot him.
As a child Baker and her family worked for a farmer named J.A. Cox chopping cotton. They were not paid well and even working in a laundry, the family was poor.
At the age of 20, Baker and a black friend found they could make money by "entertaining gentlemen." This came to attention of the Randolph County sheriff as their clientele were white and interracial relationships were illegal in Georgia. The two were arrested and spent several months in a workhouse. On 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 the town of Cuthbert, Georgia, Knight was viewed as brutal and abusive. He was a failed farmer who ran a gristmill. He 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, Florida 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 Lena Baker went to the house of J.A. Cox, who was now the town coroner and told him that 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 bushes. She bought some whiskey and went to sleep at the nearby convict camp. On waking the next morning she decided to go to the mill and she was sure this was the last place that Knight would go. However this was exactly where Knight was. He held her prisoner for several hours, even though 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 of what happened 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 on August 14, 1944. The all-white male jury convicted her by the end of the afternoon. Her court-appointed counsel filed an appeal but then dropped Baker as a client.
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 the 2000s, members of her family petitioned to have a pardon granted by the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles, seeing the original verdict as racist. This was granted in 2005, with the Parole Board suggesting a verdict of manslaughter would have been more appropriate.
