The Lena Baker Story

Lena Baker is the story of one womans attempt to rise above the challenges of life, the choices she makes, and the consequences of those choices. The moment Lena Baker (Tichina Arnold) thinks she has overcome her inner demons, she is called to work for a tyrannical white man, Elliot Arthur (Peter Coyote), a father, a mill worker, and a drunk. They develop a highly charged relationship that society deems inappropriate for the time. His regular physical and mental abuse keeps Lena away from her children and mother (Beverley Todd). After imprisoning her in his home, Lena finally stands up and attempts to free from his bondage. A struggle ensues, and Elliot Arthur, a white man, is shot by Lena Baker, an African American woman, on a hot humid night in Southwest Georgia in 1945. Following her arrest, a jury of 12 white men, her subpoenaed peers, found Lena guilty of murder in less than 6 hours. Lena Baker received the death penalty earning her a place in history as the first and only woman to be sentenced to death by electric chair in the state of Georgia. Lena Baker was posthumously pardoned in 2005.