Willie McGee (convict)

Willie McGee (died 1951) was an African-American from Laurel, Mississippi, who was sentenced to death in 1945 for allegedly raping a white housewife.cite web
url=http://www.slate.com/id/2191902/
title=The Department of Forgetting: How an obscure FBI rule is ensuring the destruction of irreplaceable historical records.
first=Alex
last=Heard
publisher=Slate
date=2008-06-24] In a time of intense racism in the United States, especially in The South, the outcome of McGee's first trial in December 1945 was effectively pre-ordained. It lasted one day, and an all-white jury found him guilty after 2½ minutes of deliberations.

McGee's legal saga became a Cause célèbre. William Faulkner wrote a letter insisting the case against McGee was unproven. [cite book
title=Faulkner: A Biography
first=Joseph Leo
last=Blotner
pages=539
year=2005
publisher=University Press of Mississippi
isbn=1578067324] Other notable people spoke out: Jessica Mitford, Paul Robeson, Albert Einstein, and Josephine Baker. U.S. President Harry Truman came under international pressure to grant McGee a pardon.

McGee spent eight years in Mississippi jails prior to his execution, during which time the Civil Rights Council gained him two new trials and several stays of execution.cite book
title=The Einstein File: J. Edgar Hoover's Secret War Against the the World's Most Famous Scientist
pages=129
first=Fred
last=Jerome
year=2003
publisher=Macmillan
isbn=0312316097] Supreme Court Justice Harold Burton ordered a stay in July 1950; however the full Supreme Court refused to hear McGee's final appeal.

The night before he was electrocuted by the state of Mississippi, he wrote a farewell letter to his wife, Rosalie: cquote|Tell the people the real reason they are going to take my life is to keep the Negro down.... They can't do this if you and the children keep on fighting. Never forget to tell them why they killed their daddy. I know you won't fail me. Tell the people to keep on fighting.

Your truly husband, Will McGee.

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