COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina pardoned syndicated radio host Tom Joyner’s great- uncles Thursday, nearly a century after they were sent to the electric chair for the 1913 murder of a Confederate Army veteran.
Officials believe the two men are the first in the state to be posthumously pardoned in a capital murder case.
Black landowners Thomas and Meeks Griffin were executed 94 years ago after a jury convicted them of killing 73-year-old John Lewis, a wealthy white veteran living in Blackstock, a Chester County town 40 miles north of Columbia. Two other black men were also put to death for the crime. Records indicated they were framed by another man who was linked to the victim’s stolen pistol, but claimed he was only the lookout.
“This won’t bring them back, but this will bring closure,” Joyner said. “This is a good day.”
Though he talks to roughly 8 million listeners on the radio daily, Joyner said facing the seven pardon board members “scared me to death.”
Uncles’ fate
Radio host Tom Joyner learned about his uncles’ fate two years ago during filming of the PBS documentary “African American Lives 2,” which traced his lineage and 11 others’ through the research of Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr.
