Discrimination, Death, and Denial: Race and the Death Penalty

The death penalty is a direct descendant of lynching and other forms of racial violence and racial oppression in America. From colonial times until the Civil War, the criminal law in many states expressly differentiated between crimes committed by and against blacks and whites. ¹ For example, Georgia law provided that the rape of a white female by a black man was punishable by death, while the rape of a white female by anyone else was punishable by a prison term not less than two nor more than twenty years. ² The rape of a black woman was punishable “by fine and imprisonment, at the discretion of the court.” ³