She was the only woman ever executed in Georgia

Lena Baker was a Black woman who worked as a maid. She was put on trial for killing her white employer, Earnest Knight, who she said tried to rape her. Lena claimed she killed him in self-defense, but an all-white, all-male jury convicted her, and she was sentenced to death.

Her trial lasted only one day.

Before she was executed, sitting in the electric chair, she said: “What I done, I did in self defense or I would’ve been killed myself. Where I was, I could not overcome it. I am ready to meet my God.”

Lena was executed on March 5, 1945. She was the only woman ever executed in Georgia. She left behind three children. Her last words, along with her picture, are now displayed near the electric chair at a museum in Georgia State Prison in Reidsville.

Sixty years later, Lena was finally pardoned for her crime.