In the United States, about 13,000 people have been legally executed since the colonial times. The 1930's executed up to 150 people yearly. Due to the lack of support of the death penalty from the public the rate went to nearly zero by 1967. The United States Supreme Court banned the practice in 1972. It was later authorized for resumption in 1976. The book The Death Penalty in America provides a table from 1968 to 1980; the total number of blacks on death row during that period of time was 3,014 verses 3,099, the total number of white men ( Bedau 63-64). One thing to keep in mind is that blacks make up only 12% of our total population.
             Racism is a nasty word, and many people would prefer to look the other way and deny it existence. But not only does it exist, it exists in one of the most sensitive areas of our judicial system: capital punishment. Many African American people believe that race is an important factor in determining who will be sentenced to die and who will receive a lesser punishment for the same crime. Research on the capital sentencing patterns over the past 20 years has shown that race considerations permeate decisions of life and death in the state courts. This topic has created conflict in America and in the courts.
             At the beginning of the twentieth century, most black Americans still lived in the Southern states. These states were white-supremacy states. Black Americans did not vote, and they were suppressed and oppressed in countless ways. The criminal justice system in the South was no friend of the Southern blacks. Gerald C. Brandon, of Natchez, Mississippi, was a rarity among white Southern lawyers; he told the truth about Southern justice. Addressing the Mississippi Bar Association in 1910, Brandon said "we have three classes of homicide, If a nigger kills a white man, that's murder. If a white man kills a nigger, that's justifiable homicide. If a nigger kills another nigger, th...