Stinney supporters: Memorial stone represents 'hope'

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Wrongfully convicted, illegally executed by South Carolina.

Those are the words etched in a black marble stone dedicated today on U.S. 521 near Alcolu to the memory of a 14-year-old boy executed 70 years ago.

Monday marks the 70th anniversary of the day that George J. Stinney Jr. was led to Old Sparky and executed for the murders of 11-year-old Betty June Binnicker and 8-year-old Mary Emma Thames. He had been arrested for the murders a little more than 80 days earlier.

Stinney's second-cousins and other supporters came together Saturday at a home at 6812 Sumter Highway to dedicate the monument.

“We have come here today to finally place a memorial and let the world know that he was wrongly convicted and unjustly executed,” said second-cousin Irene Lawson-Hill. “It is a stain on the judicial record of South Carolina, and it must be removed.”

Attorneys for and family members of the boy petitioned a circuit court judge during a two-day hearing in January for a new trial, saying Stinney's first was tainted by a coerced confession and lack of adequate legal defense. Judge Carmen Mullins has yet to release a decision.

“No matter what her decision might be, we know the truth,” said George E. Frierson, president of the group A New Day, which set up the memorial stone.

The Rev. Delbert Singleton, pastor of Green Hill Missionary Baptist Church, the very church the Stinney family attended in the early 20th century and up until they fled the state after George Stinney’s arrest, said the stone stood for many different things.

“This memorial stone stands for justice misplaced,” Singleton said. “This memorial stone stands for truth denied … for a gross rush to judgment … for compassion abandoned. Most importantly, this stone stands for us to say that there is hope still yet alive.”

Singleton said the stone – which can be seen clearly by passersby on U.S. 521 driving between Manning and Sumter – is meant to make drivers question its true meaning.

“We shouldn’t be naïve enough to think that it won’t mean to some that the memory of two young girls is being dishonored,” Singleton said.

Frierson said he hoped the monument stands for truth in the entire case.

“I have said it before and will say it again: If George Stinney did not commit these terrible crimes, and we believe he did not, then the families of those young girls still do not know the truth themselves,” Frierson said before the ceremony. “That is an injustice, too, just as much as it is an injustice that George Stinney was falsely accused and unjustly executed for these crimes.”

Frierson said he first became interested in the Stinney case upon reading about the 60th anniversary in 2004.

"It's been a part of me all my life, because I grew up in Alcolu," he said. "But I was reminded through readings on the 60th anniversary."

"I was sent by my country as a young man to fight for the rights of people I didn't know, and who didn't know me," Frierson continued. "I believe through that service that an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. This was an injustice."

Singleton said the monument represents "hope chiseled out of a mountain of despair."

“It represents hope for all those who find themselves falsely accused … wrongfully executed … who are waiting for their innocence to be proved … who are waiting for the truth that will tear back the darkness of light.”

“Hope is what we mean by this stone!” Singleton concluded.

Stinney’s siblings will be at a rally on State House grounds at 12:30 p.m. Monday for a rally to mark the 70th anniversary of the execution.

Check Thursday’s edition of The Manning Times for more.