Talk:Roscoe Jackson

Feedback from New Page Review process

I left the following feedback for the creator/future reviewers while reviewing this article: Great job on the article. I suggest nominating it for WP:DYK — it looks very interesting.

C F A 💬 14:06, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Bruxton talk 16:15, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

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• ... that Roscoe "Red" Jackson was the last person to be publicly executed in the United States?

• Source: May 26, 1937. "Red" Jackson Pays for Crime on Gallows. Stone County News-Oracle.

• • Reviewed:

Created by GuyBanks (talk). Number of QPQs required: 0. Nominator has less than 5 past nominations.

GuyBanks (talk) 14:29, 25 June 2024 (UTC).

• Alternative source: GuyBanks (talk) 20:04, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
• The article is long enough and new enough with no copyright violations. The article is neutral. The hook is directly cited, and a QPQ is not needed. My only concern is the last reference because the website Before the Needles is a personal website according to the home page. SL93 (talk) 23:28, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

• The source is question has been removed. The claim made in that section was already cited by a valid secondary source and remains as such. GuyBanks (talk) 05:07, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

  This is ready. SL93 (talk) 13:50, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

References

Dubious claim re: Roscoe Jackson being the last public execution

The claim that Roscoe Jackson's execution was the "last public execution in the United States" is supported in the article with the following source: https://www.newspapers.com/article/stone-county-news-oracle-roscoe-jackson/149952339/

However, that source does not support that claim.

The source never states that the execution was public or that it was the last public execution in the U.S.

More importantly, the source was written five days after Roscoe Jackson's execution, so there is no way they could have stated that his execution would be the final public execution to take place in the United States because, only five days removed from the event, they would have no way of knowing if any public executions would follow that of Roscoe Jackson.

If there is a source confirming that claim, then it should be included; otherwise, it feels dubious at best and weakly supported. The general consensus (which I tend to agree with) is that Rainey Bethea was subjected to the last genuinely public execution in the U.S., and I think there needs to be much stronger justification for Roscoe Jackson's article challenging that claim. Afddiary (talk) 13:13, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

I have corrected the dubious claim, adding two new sources in place of the claimed dubious one.

GuyBanks (talk) 14:16, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Jackson's execution was semi-public. It took place in the courthouse, and there was a fence around it. Only a limited number of people, who had to have a pass, were allowed inside. It is, therefore, quite certain that Bethea's execution was probably the last truly public one. Juanillo888 (talk) 16:36, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

McKeever's execution (Fulton, Mo, 1936) took place in a closed facility, with limited access in terms of the number of people. “Mckeever was hanged in an old barn near Fulton”, in Columbia Daily Tribune https://eu.columbiatribune.com/story/lifestyle/2008/06/13/tribune-column/21503579007/ So it was not a place open to everyone and therefore not completely public.

The widow of the slain police officer had to apply (and was granted) for the right to attend McKeever's execution, but she was not granted the right for her children, in Endicott Bulletin, 18/12/1936, p. 18. Thus, it wasn't a public execution, because the police officer's widow and his children didn't have the right to be present. Although she did obtain the right to attend through a formal petition, her children didn't. Not everyone who wished to attend had the right to witness the execution.

At dawn on December 18, 1936, it must have been very cold in Fulton. Apparently, it had snowed the previous few days. “McKeever was hanged in an old barn near Fulton in front of 150 people. Another 100 stood in the snow outside” in Columbia Daily Tribune https://eu.columbiatribune.com/story/lifestyle/2008/06/13/tribune-column/21503579007/ So another 100 people who wanted to see the execution couldn't, because the execution wasn't really public.

We know that invitations to attend McKeever's execution were issued in the weeks prior, you can see one of this Execution Invitations in The State Historical Society of Missouri Research Center-Columbia (C0984). And these invitations were sent only to a limited number of people because not everyone could attend McKeever's execution because it wasn't really a public execution.

In the chronicles of the journalists who were at the execution of Roscoe Jackson, it is detailed that the people who entered the premises to witness his execution had a "pass" (entry, ticket...). “By five o’clock Friday morning most of the croad had arrived. They pressed against the entrance to the enclosure surroinding the gallows, eager to be admitted. A few minutes before six o’clock the door was opened and those who had passes surged into the enclosure… » Others, perhaps more than those who entered "were outside waiting to get a glimpse of Jackson”, in Stone County News-Oracle, 26//05/1937. Not everyone who wanted to could see the execution because it wasn't truly public. Only the authorities, city notables, invited guests, and a small group of people with tickets saw the spectacle. It is true that there was an audience, but this does not mean that the execution was public. This is a semipublic act.

There is testimony that children and teenagers were present at Bethea's execution, but the children of Galena and the surrounding area were only able to see "the gallows on which Roscoe Jackson died" to "satisfy their curiosity" on the Monday after the execution, in Stone County News-Oracle, 05/26/1937. Why? Because Jackson's execution, unlike Bethea's, was not for general audiences.

However, no fences were put up for Bethea's execution (instead, a gallows was erected high above the ground so it could be seen from a considerable distance). No tickets were distributed, and anyone who wanted to—women, children, and families—were able to attend the spectacle. Apparently, 20,000 people attended. Bethea's execution was truly public, but not Missouri's executions in 1936 and 1937, and certainly others later.

Thank you. Juanillo888 (talk) 09:46, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

It was conducted outside the courthouse in view of the public, and passes were used for crowd control rather than to transform it into a private execution. GuyBanks (talk) 15:47, 23 April 2026 (UTC)