Odell Waller | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | March 6, 1917 United States |
| Died | July 2, 1942 (aged 25) |
| Occupation | Sharecropper |
| Known for | 1940 shooting of Oscar Wheldon Davis |
| Criminal status | Executed by electrocution |
| Conviction(s) | First degree murder |
| Criminal penalty | Death |
Odell Waller (March 6, 1917[nb 1] – July 2, 1942) was an African-American sharecropper from Gretna, Virginia, executed for the fatal shooting of his white landlord, Oscar Wheldon Davis, on July 15, 1940. Waller maintained at his trial that the killing had been in self-defense, but was convicted by a jury of white citizens who had paid the poll tax, a measure that effectively barred blacks and poor whites from jury service.
The Workers' Defense League, a socialist labor rights organization, began a national campaign calling for the commutation of Waller's sentence, and was supported in its efforts by novelist Pearl S. Buck, philosopher John Dewey, and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. President Franklin D. Roosevelt also made a private appeal on Waller's behalf to Virginia Governor Colgate Darden. Though the campaign won several postponements of the sentence, Waller was finally executed on July 2, 1942. The case failed to overturn the poll tax, but led to reform of Virginia's penal system and motivated Pauli Murray to begin her career in civil rights law.
- ^ Sherman 1992, p. 7.
Cite error: There are <ref group=nb> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=nb}} template (see the help page).