_Sarah Rubinstein is a freshman Journalism major at MU. She is an opinion columnist who writes about politics and societal observations for The Maneater._
Less than two years after the first colonists settled into the colony of Jamestown, Virginia, the first execution by the death penalty took place on U.S. soil. Since Captain George Kendall’s execution in 1608, Virginia has executed “another 1,389 people..more than any other state,” according to The Virginian Pilot. Now, Virginia is set to abolish the death penalty.
Virginia lawmakers voted Feb. 3 to abolish the death penalty. Gov. Ralph Northam plans to sign the legislation, writing on his website “I look forward to signing this bill into law.” Following the state’s decision to end its prolonged and cruel history of capital punishment, fellow Southern states should pay attention and follow suit.
Virginia would be the first Southern state to abolish the death penalty. The South is responsible for the majority of the executions in the U.S. and should be responsible for abolishing its system.
The United States is well into a new wave of a Civil Rights movement. Between unjust policing, disenfranchisement of Black voters and gentrification, racism was never eliminated in the 1960s but rather evolved. The recent expansion of the Black Lives Matter movement displays American’s exhaustion with their country’s oppressive roots. Abolishing broken systems such as policing, private prisons and for-profit healthcare has become increasingly popular over reformation.
Abolishing the death penalty is one of many significant steps in addressing the country’s systemic racism. Virginia was once home to the capital of the Confederacy and must not ignore how its history plays into the present.
According to The Washington Post, the Southern counties with the most lynchings during the Jim Crow era are responsible for more death sentences than any other region. The connection between the two is obvious: capital punishment is used to secretly meet the needs of the modern-day mob.
Former President Trump echoed this moblike mentality in 1989 when he took out a newspaper ad calling for New York to reinstate the death penalty for the infamous Central Park Five case. The falsely accused Black and Latino boys were between 14 and 16 years old. Trump’s aggression draws parallels to the lynching of Emmett Till in 1955, who was brutally murdered for allegedly flirting with a white woman.
In the report “Lynching in America” by the Equal Justice Initiative, Southern state governments used capital punishments as an alternative to lynchings, but “could serve the same purpose as vigilante violence: satisfying the lust for revenge.” The modern-day death penalty appears to do just that, where a study done by the University of Maryland concludes that those convicted are more likely to be executed if they have killed a white person.
One of the first steps for the South to work past its prejudiced past is to abolish any system that continues to oppress people of color. This past summer, we saw Mississippi change its official state flag from the flag of the Confederacy to one covered in magnolia blossoms. In the 2020 Georgia Senate runoffs, the state elected its first Black senator.
The outcry for racial justice has only gotten louder, and the South cannot ignore it. After watching more minorities get fair access to the polls and voting for progressive change, it is clear that citizens would like to move forward. People are tired of being stuck in a system that mostly benefits the wealthy and white when 58% of the Black U.S. population resides in the South.
If the South is willing to abolish the death penalty, they are on track to addressing the many other institutions of racism within their states. Virginia’s decision marks a reckoning for addressing its racist foundation. It is up to the remaining Southern states to do the same.
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_Edited by Sofi Zeman | szeman@themaneater.com_