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When Lena Mae Baker Was Executed, No Woman Had Ever Been Sent to Georgia’s Electric Chair
She Killed the White Man Trying to Rape Her
“What I done, I did in self-defense, or I would have been killed myself. Where I was I could not overcome it. God has forgiven me. I have nothing against anyone. I picked cotton for Mr. Pritchett, and he has been good to me. I am ready to go. I am one in the number. I am ready to meet my God. I have a very strong conscience.” — Lena Baker
Lena Baker grew up in a family of sharecroppers on a farm in Randolph County, Georgia, chopping cotton for a farmer named J. A. Cox. Baker’s family ultimately moved to the county seat of Cuthbert, with a current population of 3,143.
While in her twenties, Baker and a friend sometimes took money for entertaining white men. That put her on the radar of the Randolph County Sheriff because interracial relationships were illegal in Georgia. Baker was arrested and spent several months in a workhouse. Upon her release, she was ostracized by the Black community of her small town. Baker drifted into alcoholism.
