Exonerated in the After-Life

91 years ago Alexander McClay Williams, a Black teen, became the youngest person ever executed in Pennsylvania — a verse dedicated to his posthumous exoneration.

The only known photo of Alexander McClay Williams from a 1930 edition of New York Daily News; Image source: Twitter

More than 90 years after he became the youngest person to be executed in Pennsylvania's history, charges have been dismissed against a Black teen who was sentenced to death by an all-white jury. via NBC 10 Philadelphia

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Alexander was 16 in 1930, and let’s begin there. Not old enough to enlist in the segregated army. Not old enough to not be able to vote if being able to vote woulda been an option. Not old enough to purchase a pack of smokes or a swig of rot-gut liquor. Alexander was old enough to be considered a murderer. Old enough to be accused of killing a white woman on school grounds. Old enough for a jury of non-peers to decide that his life should be canceled, but young enough for his execution to remain etched in the record books of state history.