Biography
Rainey Bethea was a Black man, reported as twenty-two, publicly executed by hanging at Owensboro, Kentucky on August 14, 1936. The contemporary Daily Worker described the case as a racial injustice, alleging that his confession was obtained through torture and that Black people were excluded from the jury. Its August 18 photograph caption describes the charge as raping and slaying a seventy-year-old white woman; its August 18 page 6 account describes his conviction as rape. These are the newspaper’s descriptions of the prosecution and its criticisms of the trial, not an independent finding of innocence or a claim that homicide was the legally operative capital conviction. The International Labor Defense, through acting national secretary Anna Damon, condemned the public execution as an official lynching and urged protests to Governor Chandler. The photograph and caption report a crowd of about twenty thousand and spectators trying to obtain souvenirs from his body. Execution is not recorded as release, and the source does not establish the arrest day, admission day or exact custody duration. Source: Daily Worker, August 18, 1936, pages 5–6 and 8, https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1936/v13-n198-NY-aug-18-1936-DW-Q.pdf#page=5
