Jeremiah Reeves

Jeremiah Reeves (1935 – March 28, 1958) was a 22-year-old African American jazz drummer who was executed by the state of Alabama by electrocution after being convicted of raping a white woman, Mabel Ann Crowder in 1952. At the time of the events, Reeves was 16 years old, working as a grocery delivery boy; at his trial, he denied having had sex with the white woman. His sentence and execution provoked anger among civil rights advocates, who considered them unjust and disproportionate for the crime. A large protest movement had formed by the time he was executed, after appeals.