The Tale

The final episode of The Tale was inspired by the story of Virginia Christian, who was executed by electric chair on August 16, 1912 -- the day after her 17th birthday. Virginia was executed for the murder of Ida Belote, her employer. Virginia was young, poor, reportedly mentally disabled and Black. This case garnered much attention, not just due to Virginia’s age and mental state, but to the issue of workplace abuse. Up to the date of her execution organizations and newspapers all across the country lobbied for her sentence to be reduced to life in prison. Listen to Part III of our story, The Chair and Ginnie Mae's tragic end.

The final episode of The Tale was inspired by the story of Virginia Christian, who was executed by electric chair on August 16, 1912 -- the day after her 17th birthday. Virginia was executed for the murder of Ida Belote, her employer. Virginia was young, poor, reportedly mentally disabled and Black. This case garnered much attention, not just due to Virginia’s age and mental state, but to the issue of workplace abuse. Up to the date of her execution organizations and newspapers all across the country lobbied for her sentence to be reduced to life in prison. Listen to Part II of our story, The Chair and hear Ginnie Mae's side of the story.

The youngest person to be executed by electric chair was George Stinney Jr. George was a Black fourteen year old boy when he died in the electric chair in South Carolina in 1944.  Seventy years after his execution, George Stinney Jr. was exonerated for the crimes it took all of ten minutes to convict him of. Thirty-two years before the George Stinney case, in the summer of 1912, a young Black girl, just days after her 17th birthday was led to the electric chair in Richmond Virginia. As with many of these cases, the issues of race, class, and education all played an integral role. It is Virginia’s story that inspired this The Chair.

The act of cannibalism to survive desperate times is not uncommon in U.S. history. Perhaps the most famous case is The Donner-Reed Party. In the late spring of 1846 a wagon train set out from Missouri, heading West to California and Oregon. Along with a number of other bad decisions that led to the stranding of the Donner Party, the most fateful decision was to follow a new route West, called the Hastings Cutoff, that directed travelers through the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Bad timing and choosing to follow this new route noted by Hastings caused the Donner Party to become snowbound in the Sierras for months. After eating all of their food stores, the pack animals, and even the leather they carried, only then did the members of the Donner Party turn to cannibalism. There were 87 members of the Donner-Reed Party and at the end of their journey only 48 remained. One of the the survivors was the daughter of James and Margaret Reed. Virginia Reed was thirteen when the family decided to travel West. She was one of the few survivors who did not eat human flesh. However, the experience proved so traumatic that until her death in 1921 she always carried food with her wherever she went. What was life like for the survivors of the Donner Tragedy? This question inspires our tale, “Mrs. Crumbs, The Cannibal.”

On December 1st in 1894 a barge slowly travelled through the night up from New Orleans carrying seven passengers. These passengers were transported by the government to an abandoned slave plantation in Louisiana, because they were all diagnosed with one of the most dreaded diseases by human beings since the beginning of time. Leprosy. Over the next one hundred years, U.S. citizens diagnosed with Leprosy (later known as Hansen’s disease) were admitted to the Louisiana Leper Home (later known as Carville) for a lifetime stay. Many never saw their loved ones again, but within the walls of the hospital the patients developed a strong community. In the early 1970s patients were finally allowed to leave Carville, but many chose to stay. What happened to the ones who walked through those gates? "Return to Sender" was inspired by this question.

Bullies are everywhere. They terrorize children on the playground, they harass us at work, they are related to us. Some bullies even manage to terrorize entire populations of people. When an entire town is in fear of one man, is the harshest and most permanent act the only solution? This episode of The Tale was inspired by events that occurred on July 10, 1981 in Skidmore, Missouri. Ken Rex McElroy was gunned down in his truck. 46 people witnessed the shooting, however, not one person ever came forward to reveal the name of the killer. Ken McElroy was an enemy of the town, a bully. For over two decades McElroy burned and stole property; physically assaulted residents of the town; and terrorized them until it all became too much.

Sundown is a short story inspired by the tragic murder of Carol Jenkins on September 16, 1968. A beautiful, shy, twenty-one year old black woman — Carol canvassed the small town of Martinsville, Indiana selling encyclopedias. As Carol went door-to-door, two white men stalked her, waiting for the sun to set. When it did, they cornered her alone on the sidewalk and stabbed her in the heart. Martinville was a “sundown town”, where any Black person caught there after dark would mostly likely not see the rise of the sun again. To learn more about the actual events that inspired this story visit thetalepodcast.com. As our website you can download a free ebook version of Sundown with original illustrations by Aleesha Wood.