The Travelling Electric Chair

19 May 2010

Originally produced by Joe Richman for NPR's 'All Things Considered', and part of the celebrated 'Radio Diaries' project - 'The Travelling Electric Chair' is due to be rebroadcast on the BBC World Service on Wednesday 2nd June.

It tells the extraordinary story of a black man named Willie McGee who was accused of raping a white woman and subsequently sentenced to death in Mississippi. His case sparked international protests and appeals from luminaries such as Albert Einstein, William Faulkner, Paul Robeson and Josephine Baker. In 1951, McGee was executed in Mississippi's travelling electric chair - the only one of its kind in the country.

This story is told as an audio diary by Bridgette McGee Robinson, the granddaughter of Willie McGee. Bridgette was never told the history of why her family left the South. It was only by accident, while sorting through some papers under her mother's bed, that she found old news clippings of the Willie McGee case. She is now retracing the history of her grandfather's trial and execution, uncovering the truth behind an episode shrouded in mystery.

To learn more about the 'Radio Diaries' project please visit www.radiodiaries.org