Willie McGee Executed for Alleged Rape of White Woman in Mississippi

Willie McGee, a Black man from Mississippi, is executed on May 8, 1951 after three trials for the alleged rape of Willette Hawkins, a white woman. McGee maintained the relationship was consensual and that he was being coerced. International protests from labor unions and civil rights groups fail to stop the execution. McGee is electrocuted in a portable electric chair set up in the county courthouse. His case illustrates how rape law was applied almost exclusively against Black men in the South regardless of circumstances.