Happy Chandler last US governor to sign public execution papers

 

Tomi Johnson interviews Governor Albert "Happy" Chandler in early 1980s.
(Photo by William Douglas Smith, Sr., Versailles, Ky.)
 

Factoid:  Kentucky Governor A.B. Chandler signed the papers for the last public execution in the US. It was 1936, and the person hanged in front of thousands for raping a 70 year old white woman was Rainey Bethea, a black man, from Owensboro, Ky.

Chandler also credited himself for helping integrate baseball in 1947 while he was Commissioner by admitting Jackie Robinson into the major leagues.

Chandler died in disgrace in 1991 after allegedly making a racial slur in a 1989 interview: "... most of the Zimbabweans were niggers and they are niggers."