Alcolu, SC (WLTX) -- A 14-year-old boy was sent to a South Carolina electric chair in 1944.
George Stinney, Jr. was barely a teenager, black and was accused of murdering two young white girls in Alcolu, just outside of Manning in Clarendon county.
It rocked the small town at the time and some people are having trouble remembering exactly what happened.
Two people want to keep that from happening and are doing something about it.
Supporters of Stinney say that justice was not served when he was executed in 1944 and 70 years later, residents still aren't quite sure what happened.
"We heard so many different stories," said 54-year-old Alcolu resident Jeanette McCall."I hope the truth comes out."
Shonda Blackwell, 40, also a resident of the small town, echoed those thoughts.
"I don't know the full story of it, just bits and pieces of it, and that's just from my parents because I wasn't born during the time," Blackwell said.
But historian George Frierson said he has his own way of keeping the memory of that story from fading.
"We want the story to be told, and this was an adequate way to do that and also to remember him," Frierson said, standing next to the headstone he had placed in Alcolu.
Town resident Jerome Dupree is helping.
"I first heard about it from my aunt," Dupree said. "She was 97-years-old when she died about 10 years ago."
Stinney, Jr. was convicted of the grisly murders of two young white girls in the spring of 1944. Their bludgeoned bodies were found in a watery ditch along a road in the town.
Without his parents or an attorney present, and after hours of questioning, Stinney, Jr. confessed to the murders, though that confession was the subject of a January hearing to determine the fairness of Stinney, Jr.'s day-long trial.
Stinney, Jr. weighing less than 100 lbs. when he was sent to the electric chair at the tender age of 14.
"He was a live, living creature of God, and we want him to be remembered that way," Frierson said. "This has truly been a labor of love; love for a fellow countryman, a young boy from Alcolu who I never had the opportunity to meet."
Frierson's group known as "A New Day" funded the headstone that cost more than $1,500, he said.
Dupree's home sits along Highway 521 in Alcolu, which is the main road going through town. When Frierson approached him with the idea of putting the headstone right in his front yard, he said it's something he could not turn away.
"He had no one that was allowed to speak for him back then, and right now, we're free to speak for him, and I want to speak for him," Dupree said.
Though time has taken Stinney, Jr.'s memory from the small town, Frierson and Dupree want to ensure it does not take his name.
Supporters are holding a ceremony Saturday at 5 p.m., Frierson said, for an official unveiling of the headstone.
