JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Lena Baker’s legacy of resilience lives on through her great-granddaughter, KaMillion, a Jacksonville rapper, songwriter, actress, and filmmaker who has used her platform to highlight her family’s story during Black History Month.
Baker was the only woman and the last person to die by the electric chair in Georgia, and in 2005, she was pardoned posthumously by the state Board of Pardons and Paroles.
In 1941, Baker, who was Black, worked for Earnest Knight, a white man, as he recovered from a broken leg in the small rural town of Cuthbert, Ga. Knight was a heavy drinker and Baker said he would often sexually assault her and threaten her with violence to hold her against her will. There were times when she wouldn’t go home to see her family and children for days, she testified.
On April 30, 1944, Baker had enough of Knight’s drunken episodes. She said she told him that she was leaving the mill where he kept her imprisoned and that she wasn’t going to see him again. Knight took exception and threatened to shoot her as he often did to force her to stay, she testified.
“I’m tired of you pointing that pistol at me,” Baker said in The Lena Baker Story book written by Lela B. Philips. “You mean to kill me, go ahead, but I’m going home to my children.”
She said she pushed back against Knight and wrestled the pistol away from him and tried to leave again. He grabbed an iron bar near the door, but she was able to grab his arm in desperation before he could swing it, she testified. That was when the gun went off.
The bullet hit Knight in the head and he sank to the floor. Baker ran home to her mother, then the next day she told the coroner about Knight’s death. She was later charged with murder and pleaded not guilty. Her trial only took four hours and the all-white male jury deliberated for approximately 30 minutes before finding her guilty.
Less than a year later, on March 5, 1945, Baker was transported to a state prison where she was executed by the electric chair. There were nearly 300 executions by the electric chair in Georgia since the first one, and Baker was the only woman.
In her final statement, she had come to terms with her fate.
“What I done, I did in self-defense, or I would have been killed myself,” Baker said. “Where I was I could not overcome it. God has forgiven me, I have nothing against anyone. I am ready to go, I am one in the number. I am ready to meet my God. I have a very strong conscience.”
Sixty years after Baker was executed, the state posthumously pardoned her. A proclamation was presented to her descendants, including her grandnephew, Roosevelt Curry, who led the charge to clear her name.
KaMillion told News4JAX she wants to continue Baker’s legacy through a film that she’s working on called “Deon.”
“She was defending herself and that cost her her life ultimately,” KaMillion said. “Her courage didn’t die with her because her DNA lives on in me. So when I tell these stories of women like Deon and I fight for these stories, I’m standing on the back of her legacy.”
“Deon” is a film that KaMillion and ZJ Jackson, the film’s producer, described as a love letter to Jacksonville and Black women in general.
The story follows a young girl in the foster care system fighting to survive, protect her family and build a future against the odds.
“We’re also highlighting some of the injustices and how we look to these higher powers to be just and to help…and also highlighting that no one is going to save you, you are your own savior,” Jackson said.
KaMillion said she looked into her family’s history and wanted to make sure she tells Baker’s story.
“I always make sure I tell her story because I just feel like as Black people, our history gets lost and a lot of us don’t know where we’re from,” she said.
A movie released in 2008 called “The Lena Baker Story” adapts the book that tells the life and death of Baker. Tichina Arnold played Baker, who is also known for her role as Pam in the TV show “Martin.” KaMillion said it was an honor to have Arnold play her great-grandmother and she would like to remake the movie.
“My whole great-grandma got a movie about her life,” KaMillion said. “She set the bar high…and Pam from Martin playing my great grandma, that’s crazy but I would love to do a reboot of that and tell that story.”
In the meantime, you can click here to support “Deon” and see how Baker’s story influences the film.