When we last left off on the topic of black women and capital punishment, I summarized the history of executing black female slaves. During the period of Reconstruction (1865-1877) many fewer black women were officially put to death by the state. According to David V. Parker, “[e]xecution inventories confirm that mostly southern jurisdictions hanged five Black females for murder between 1866 and 1877 (p.73).”

While the number of black women executed decreased dramatically during Reconstruction (for many reasons), it was during this time that two of the youngest Black females were put to death in the U.S.

“Kentucky officials hanged 12-year old Eliza in February 1868 for killing Walter Graves, a 2 year-old White child under her care as a babysitter. Eliza confessed to the killing after the family’s White neighbors threatened her with lynching. Officials arrested and tried Eliza for Walter’s murder. Though the trial judge rendered her confession involuntary and inadmissible given the lynching intimidation, a jury nevertheless convicted Eliza for the White boy’s death.

In another case, Maryland hanged 16-year old Mary Wallis in a country jail yard for poisoning and killing the Read family’s infant. Mary reportedly poisoned the child’s milk. Mary was mentally challenged, and because of her age and mental deficiency the jury recommended leniency for Mary. But as many White trial judges did at the time, this judge overruled the jury’s suggestions and sentenced Mary to death (p.74).”

During Jim Crow (1890-1965), it was open season for the killing of black people both through legal and extralegal means. During that period it is documented that there were more than 8,100 legal and extralegal executions of black people in the U.S. According to Parker, “[t]he White justice system killed 4,707 Black prisoners and White lynch mobs killed another 3,445 Blacks (p.75).” Black women were 3% of the 2,364 Black lynching victims identified in 10 southern states between 1882 and 1930.

In the Jim Crow era, the black women who were executed were usually put to death because they had murdered their White employers. An illustrative example of black female execution during Jim Crow can be found in the case of Corrine Sykes.

“The 1940s saw poor young Black girls from North Philadelphia often standing on street corners in prominent neighborhoods waiting for affluent housewives to hire them as housemaids (Gregory, 2004). In one such case, Freda Wodlinger, an older housewife from a prominent White family in West Oak Lane, hired young Corrine Sykes. Corrine was a shy and petite girl with low intelligence, who was illiterate and inclined to hysteria.

Three days after Corrine’s hire, police found Wodlinger dead from multiple stab wounds; there was a terrific struggle with the killer hacking Wodlinger to death with a heavy kitchen knife. Missing from the house were $50 in cash, $2000 in jewelery, and a sable fur piece. Suspicion immediately turned to Corrine, who police arrested after an extensive search. Corrine gave conflicting stories but in the end signed a written confession despite her illiteracy.

A jury convicted Corrine of first-degree murder and the trial judge sentenced her to death by electrocution. Pennsylvania executed Corrine Sykes in October 1946. Troubled by doubts that Corrine was Wodlinger’s killer, some believe Corrine’s judicial killing was a wrongful execution. For one, immediately on her arrest, Corrine implicated her boyfriend, J.C. Kelly, saying that he had threatened to kill her and her mother if she didn’t steal the valuables for him (Grosvenor, 1998). Others find it strange that when Corrine’s boyfriend learned of her arrest ‘he raced to his boarding house, burned the sable, and dumped the diamonds’ (Grosvenor, 1998). Another point is that Corrine was far too small to have inflicted the severity of the knife wounds that killed Wodlinger. There is also speculation that years after Corrine’s execution, Wodlinger’s husband made a deathbed confession that he had killed his wife.

Whatever happened, Corrine’s execution had a poignant impact on North Philadelphia’s Black community. Some 10,000 people attended Corrine’s viewing although it was open only to family members and close friends. On the day of her execution, most housemaids in the city went home early from their jobs (p.76-77).”

Filmmaker Tina Morton tackles Corrine Sykes’s story in her film Served Souls.