Loading...It was the event that forever ended the spectacle of public executions in the United States. And it happened right here in Kentucky.
The date was August 14, 1936.
The scene was a parking lot in Owensboro.
There was a cast of thousands...
Newspapers from around the country sent writers and photographers to cover the event. Here is a sampling of what they had to say...
The Boston Daily Record reported: "Cheering, booing, eating, joking, 20,000 persons witnessed the public execution of Rainey Bethea, 22, frightened Negro boy, at Owensboro, KY, yesterday. In callous, carnival spirit, the mob charged the gallows after the trap was sprung, tore the executioner's hood from the corpse, chipped the gallows for souvenirs. Mothers attended with babes in arms, hot dog venders hawked their wares and a woman across the street held a 'necktie breakfast' for relatives from surrounding towns. .."
The New York Herald Tribune reported: "Town Gay for Public Hanging." The Philadelphia Record wrote: "They Ate Hot Dogs While a Man Died on the Gallows." One other Boston paper boasted a headline that read, "Children Picnic as Killer Pays."
True Story of the Last Public Execution in America, A Dramatic Reading
Interfaith Paths to Peace and the Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty invite you to this one hour extraordinary event:
"This powerful one-hour program will relate the dramatic true events of the last 24 hours in the life of Rainey Bethea, who was hanged in the last public execution in the United States on August 14, 1936 in Owensboro, Kentucky.
The events that took place in that 24-hour period were so outrageous that they led to the end of public executions across the country."
The readers will include Mitzi Friedlander, Donald Vish, Jill Fox, Hannah Jones Thomas, Ken and Shiela Pyle, and Terry Taylor
When: 10am - 11am, Saturday, August 14
Location: Jefferson Park at 6th and Liberty, across from the Old Jail Building. (Rain locationis Bishops Hall at Christ Church Cathedral, 421 S. 2nd Street).
