You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast.

It's June 16th, 1914, inside the South Carolina State Penitentiary.

A corrections officer is preparing to take an inmate on the long walk to an old rickety chair

where electricity will be used to put this inmate to death.

But that old rickety chair is too big for this inmate.

The harness to the chair is too big because that inmate is too small.

His pants are too small.

Because he's only 95 pounds. because he's just a boy. That inmate is 14 years old. So they do something. They take a holy Bible and place it on the chair so that the boy can fit in the chair and the electricity can properly do its job.

That boy's name is George Steny Jr. And in a few moments, the state of South Carolina

will execute him for a crime that he did not commit. And he'd become the youngest person

put to death in the United States in the 20th century.

But here's something you need to know before we go any further. This episode isn't just about

what happened to George Steny. It's also about why this happened to George Steny.

It's about who could have really committed the crime that George was accused

of and how the state failed this child at every turn and made sure that no one ever found out the

truth. It's how Jim Crow wasn't just about separating water fountains and restrooms. It's how Jim

Crow manufactured verdicts and made it so that

black lives were expendable no matter how young. I'm Andre, and this is redacted history.

In order to fully understand this story, you need to understand three things. One, Jim Crow.

The world that made this miscarriage of justice possible.

The world that made it possible for a little black boy to be executed.

The Jim Crow South is a time period in American history where a 14-year-old child could be brutally executed,

...