The last public execution in the United States happened less than a century ago in Kentucky. Rainey Bethea, a Black man accused of raping a white woman, was hanged in 1936. Now his death is at the ...
A new book examines the racist background of the last public hanging in the U.S., when tens of thousands of people came to watch in a small Kentucky town.
The U.S. code does not say that “public hanging” is a punishment for treason, contrary to a video shared online that claims offenders will be taken to the “nearest busy intersection” and executed by ...