Chain-Gang All-Stars

by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Some truly didn’t think about the fact that men and women were being murdered every day by the same government their children pledged allegiance to at school.

It was hard to forget the things that hurt you. You didn’t often forget the shape of your cage.

George Stinney, Jr., actually. Young, Black in South Carolina. Of course, of course. On June 16, 1944, fourteen-year-old George Stinney, Jr., became the youngest person ever executed by the United States. He was charged with the murder of two young white girls who’d been killed by a railroad spike to the head. Seventy years after electricity pulled his life apart, he was exonerated. Since 1973, at least 186 who were wrongly convicted have been sentenced to death.

I thought of how the world can be anything and how sad it is that it’s this.