EXTREMELY SENSITIVE CONTENT – 18+ ONLY

This post refers to a real public execution that took place in the United States in 1936, including the context of racial injustice and crowd disorder. Shared solely for historical education, to honour the victim of the crime, and to explain why the United States permanently ended all public executions in 1938. No graphic details are included.

The Last Public Execution in the United States

Rainey Bethea – Owensboro, Kentucky, 14 August 1936

At 5:32 a.m. on 14 August 1936, on the outskirts of Owensboro, Kentucky, Rainey Bethea (27, African American) was executed by hanging in front of an enormous crowd. This was the last legally sanctioned public execution ever carried out on American soil.

Bethea had been convicted of the rape and murder of an elderly local woman. Under Kentucky law at the time, the crime of rape could still be punished by public hanging in the county where it occurred. The trial was brief; the defendant pleaded guilty and was sentenced to death.

On the day of the execution, an estimated 15,000–20,000 people gathered from several states. The atmosphere became chaotic and disorderly, later described by the national press as a “carnival of death.”

The widespread public revulsion led Kentucky to ban public executions within months. By 1938 every remaining state had followed suit. From that point forward, any execution in the United States (when carried out) has taken place privately inside prison walls with only official witnesses present.

True justice must be administered in silence and with dignity. It can never again be allowed to become public entertainment. 14 August 1936 was the last morning America ever permitted the sun to rise on a public gallows.

We share this event today not for sensationalism, but to:

Honour the true victim – the woman who lost her life.Honestly acknowledge a period when the American justice system was still heavily influenced by racial prejudice and mob psychology.Understand why the United States permanently ended the practice of turning justice into a public spectacle – an important step in the humanisation of capital punishment (and later in the broader debate about whether it should exist at all).

True justice must be administered in silence and with dignity. It can never again be allowed to become public entertainment. 14 August 1936 was the last morning America ever permitted the sun to rise on a public gallows.

Official & reputable sources

Kentucky State Archives – Daviess County Circuit Court records, 1936

Contemporary coverage: Louisville Courier-Journal & The New York Times (August 1936)Banner, Stuart – The Death Penalty: An American History (Harvard University Press, 2002)

Perry, Thomas C. – research on the last public execution in America