This week in 1967

“I am Jesus Christ—look what they have done to me.”

— Aaron C. Mitchell, convicted of murder, gas chamber, California.
Executed April 12, 1967

Having left school and his drunken, abusive father behind in Tennessee, Mitchell spent considerable spans of time in Missouri and Colorado prisons. After attempting to rob a tavern, he killed Officer Arnold Gamble in a gunfight outside the establishment. Many campaigned to save Mitchell from the chamber, and he did an interview for Ebony magazine in which he said, “Every Negro ever convicted of killing a police officer has died in that gas chamber, so what chance did I have? . . . I’m not bitter, I don’t think. But I know that my being a Negro has been a big factor in everything that’s happened to me.”

— Aaron C. Mitchell, convicted of murder, gas chamber, California.
Executed April 12, 1967

Having left school and his drunken, abusive father behind in Tennessee, Mitchell spent considerable spans of time in Missouri and Colorado prisons. After attempting to rob a tavern, he killed Officer Arnold Gamble in a gunfight outside the establishment. Many campaigned to save Mitchell from the chamber, and he did an interview for Ebony magazine in which he said, “Every Negro ever convicted of killing a police officer has died in that gas chamber, so what chance did I have? . . . I’m not bitter, I don’t think. But I know that my being a Negro has been a big factor in everything that’s happened to me.”