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The Martinsville Seven: Race, Rape, and Capital Punishment (Constitutionalism and Democracy)
by Eric W. Rise
Product Group: Book
Publisher: University of Virginia Press (1995-06)
ISBN: 0813915678
EAN: 9780813915678
Dewy Decimal #: 347.7305
Hardcover: 216 pages
SKU: U1024-7.9
Condition: New
Comments: New book, new condition. Plastic sealed. 5 star service. Ships same day or next in a bubble mailer. Enjoy.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
In January 1949 a thirty-two-year-old white woman in Martinsville, Virginia, accused seven young black men of raping her. Within two days state and local police had rounded up all the suspects and extracted confessions from them. In a series of trials that lasted eleven days, all were found guilty and sentenced to death - a sentence that was carried out, amid a storm of protest from civil-rights advocates and death-penalty opponents, in February 1951. Here is the first comprehensive treatment of the Martinsville case. Covering every aspect of the proceedings, from the commission of the crime through two sets of appeals, Eric Rise reexamines common assumptions about the administration of justice in the South. Although racial prejudice undeniably contributed to the outcome of the case, so did concerns for due process, crime control, community stability, judicial restraint, and domestic security. The success of the due process campaign by groups such as the NAACP helped curb the most egregious abuses of authority, but it did little to help defendants who conceded their guilt but protested unusually severe sentences. The author focuses on the efforts of the attorneys for the Martinsville Seven, who, rather than citing procedural errors, directly attacked the discriminatory application of the death penalty. It was the first case in which statistical evidence was used to substantiate systematic discrimination against blacks in capital cases.
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Customer Reviews
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Not informative enough
Rating  (1)
Date: 2008-11-26
I ordered this book to try to understand this controversy and I am anti death penalty also. First, unless you are a civil rights law professor, this book was not an interesting read.
I gathered these men were completely guilty, hard to sympathize with them from how this book is written.
Might have helped if the accuser families, victim's family, towns people or politicians were interviewed for this book. There is much mystery around the victim Mrs. Floyd. I can understand not wanting to be the poster girl for rape especially in the 1950's but a more sympathetic look at her life would have enriched the book from a literary standpoint.
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A look at judiciary during Jim Crow days
Rating  (5)
Date: 2007-07-18
1 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
This was required reading for a graduate course in American history.
In 1951, seven black men were convicted and executed for the brutal rape of a white woman. This case, like so many rape cases in the early 20th century in the South, saw semi-illiterate black defendants on trial for the rape of a prominent white woman. Ruby Stroud Floyd went on an errand in the "black section" of the community in her hometown of Martinsville Virginia. She was 32 years old, and a Jehovah Witness. Despite warnings, she traveled by herself at night. At 7:30 pm, she knocked on the door of one Mary Wade and her husband, a black couple. She was in obvious distress, bruised, dirty and hair tangled. Eventually, she told police that she was raped by seven black men. The police rounded up the suspects and each suspect signed an un-coerced confession. Ruby was examined by a doctor and was found to have various abrasions, scrapes and bruises on her elbows, legs, chest, back and buttocks. She had to be treated for an inflammatory mass on her pelvis caused by violent penetration of the vagina or rectum.
Yet, this case differed from other notorious rape cases. First of all, it occurred in the peripheral South as opposed to the Deep South. Secondly, it occurred in 1949, at a time when attitudes toward race were changing, albeit slow, but a gradual change was taking place. The prosecutors and the state lawmakers wanted it to at least appear as if a fair had been given, and in many respects, it was a fair trial, at least more fair than previous rape trials. However, the author examines the fairness of this trial, and he maintains that despite its apparent fairness, especially when compared to other trials, it still smacked of injustice, yet in more subtle, hidden ways.
The most obvious difference of this trial compared to others is the guilt of the defendants. The seven men were guilty of a heinous multiple rape. However, the author contends that the innocence or guilt of the defendants was not the issue at hand, but rather the fairness of the trial. The guilty verdict was not delivered under any mob pressure; in fact all of the trials took place in a clam atmosphere. The defendants were not tortured into giving their confessions. The defendants also had adequate counsel for their trials. Governor Tuck of Virginia stated that he wanted to prove that the South was fair to all, both black and white.
And yet, despite there seemingly fair trial, the author points to many subtle injustices during the course of the trial. Jury selection was biased. Although blacks were in the jury pool, none were selected to jury. Any juror that did not advocate the death penalty if the victims were convicted was not chosen. Despite the absence of mobs, the trial was held in Martinsville, where the jurors were subjected to negative and biased attitudes towards the defendants. Despite a request for a change a venue, this request was denied. Support garnered for the defendants was always subjected to anti-communist propaganda, as were many civil rights pleas during the 1940s. The author contends that these subtle but powerful measures made this seemingly fair trial just another sham while giving it an appearance of legitimacy. After the civil war, lynching was a method of crime control and wider black oppression; it enabled whites to keep "order" over blacks. The author cites the fact that although lynchings declined after World War Two, blacks were still subjected to oppression and extralegal processes.
The author also explores the phenomena of "red-baiting." Southern opponents of civil rights many times invoked communist propaganda, or "red-baiting," to counter civil rights as anti-American, because they aimed un-American utopian visions. Red-baiting was used to destroy the credibility of various civil rights organizations. Specifically, in the Martinsville cases, the defendant lawyers and the NAACP did not want to associate with agencies that were describes as having communist sympathies, such as the CRC, which was given a limited role. Anti-communist sentiment was manipulated to stymie civil rights movements. The author examines the notion of "legal lynching," or the conviction and execution of blacks in a seemingly legitimate way. And I believe this to be the author's thesis. He tries to expose the "unwritten law" that blacks in the south were subjected to, even in seemingly fair trials. The author points out that from 1908 until 1951, 45 blacks were executed for rape in the South while no whites were executed. White defendants usually received life sentences, but never the death penalty. "Justice" for Southern blacks had not changed, only its form. Gone were the lynch mobs, but the courts took their place. The author believes that lawyers learned how to enforce racism by using the new constraints and laws. And I think herein lies the lesson for the modern reader. When we see a trial, or any public occurrence, we cannot simply assume justice has been done. A true intellectual, and especially a historian, must examine all aspects and motives of any occurrence to accurately determine if the outcome was warranted, or only seemingly legit.
Recommended reading for anyone interested in American history, civil rights history.
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Martinsville Seven: The untold story
Rating  (3)
Date: 2006-07-31
1 out of 5 customers found this reveiw helpful
The true story of the Martinsville Seven will soon be told and hopefully, it will become a Hollywood movie. The real victims were the Seven. Peace.
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Skeletons are Still in the Closets
Rating (5)
Date: 2002-05-03
1 out of 6 customers found this reveiw helpful
Over this book and the actual story itself there are many skeletons in the closets of Martinsville families over the tragic end of seven young lives. Seems that the victim wasn't really so innocent after all, but the lives of those men cannot be replaced, even now when we know the truth. Vengeance is mine saith the Lord, and yes, even those who falsely point fingers shall reap the rewards of doom.
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The Martinsville Seven is great book
Rating (5)
Date: 2000-01-18
2 out of 5 customers found this reveiw helpful
I think Rise did a great job but me a Martinsville resident think that someone from Martinsville should have made a book about it and it seems like everyone wants to keep it a secret but I want to know.
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