Why Virginia's abolition of the death penalty is a big deal for the state and the US

In 1608, Jamestown colonists executed a man named Capt. George Kendall, who had been accused of spying for Spain - the first recorded execution in what would later become the American colonies.

Over the next 400 years, more than 1,300 people would be executed in the state, according to the non-partisan Death Penalty Information Center.

That came to an end last week, when Gov. Ralph Northam signed into law legislation abolishing capital punishment, making Virginia the first Southern state to do so.

It's a move that experts and death penalty abolition advocates say has great import, not only for Virginia, but for the South and the rest of the country - emblematic not only of the nationwide decline of capital punishment, but also a reckoning with its history as a tool of racial oppression.

Of the 377 inmates executed in Virginia in the 20th century, 296 of them - more than 78% - were Black, according to data from DPIC. And while 73 Black inmates were executed for rape, attempted rape or armed robbery, no White inmate was executed for any of those crimes between 1900 and 1999.

At: https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/29/us/virginia-death-penalty-abolition-significance/index.html

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam displays a bill abolishing the death penalty after signing it on March 24th.

Activists hope the move will not only help the South shed entrenched, Jim Crow-style racial disparities in punishment, but "will help other Southern states and other states throughout the country to take the same step and finally just get rid of this horrible public policy."