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…