He was just a boy. Fourteen years old, barely five feet tall, and weighing no more than a bag of flour. His name was George, and in the spring of 1944, his world ended.
The sun was bright that day in Alcolu, South Carolina. It was the kind of day where the air was sweet with the smell of blooming flowers, and the dirt roads felt warm beneath bare feet. George and his little sister were outside, playing near the railroad tracks when two girls rode by on their bicycles, laughing, their braids bouncing with each pedal.
“Where can we find maypops?” they asked. Just four children, talking about flowers under the open sky. No one could have known that this innocent exchange would seal George’s fate.
Later that day, the girls didn’t come home. They were found the next morning in a ditch, their small bodies broken and still. A town grieved, and anger turned to suspicion. Someone had to pay for the crime. Someone had to be blamed.
They came for George. A black boy in the Jim Crow South, living in a town divided by race and fear. He was taken away, handcuffed and alone, without his parents, without anyone to protect him. They said he confessed, but no one wrote it down. No one recorded his words. They just said he did it, and that was enough.
His family had to flee, threatened by mobs who wanted blood. They ran, leaving George behind, a scared child facing the world’s cruelty all alone.
The trial lasted two hours. Not even long enough for the sun to shift in the sky. No witnesses were called for him. No evidence was shown. An all-white jury took ten minutes to decide his fate.
Ten minutes. That’s all it took to end a child’s life.
He sat in a cell, waiting. The days were long, the nights longer. Did he cry? Did he call out for his mother, hoping she would come and make the nightmare end? Or did he sit in silence, knowing no one would answer?
On June 16, 1944, they took him to the electric chair. His feet barely touched the floor. They had to prop him up on a Bible because he was so small.
The leather straps swallowed his skinny arms and legs. They placed the mask over his face, but it was too big, slipping off when the current hit. His eyes were wide with terror, his body shaking with pain.
A child, dying in front of men who looked on without mercy.
Then it was over. The room was silent. They took his body away, and the world kept turning, indifferent to the life that had just been stolen.
For seventy years, his name was whispered in shadows, a painful memory that refused to fade. Until the truth finally came to light. The witnesses recanted. The evidence was questioned. They said he didn’t do it. They said the confession was a lie.
But it was too late. George was gone, buried with his innocence.
He was just a boy. Fourteen years old, with dark eyes and a soft voice. He didn’t get to grow up. He didn’t get to live.
They took everything from him. His name, his future, his life.
All that’s left is his story. And it’s one that must never be forgotten.
– Ed, never incarcerated
Stories can be published anonymously, with a first name, or with more details if you choose. Your story, your choice.