Recy Taylor
US black rape victim
Died when: 97 years 362 days (1175 months)Star Sign: Capricorn
Recy Taylor (née Corbitt;December 31, 1919 – December 28, 2017) was an African-American woman from Abbeville in Henry County, Alabama.She was born and raised in a sharecropping family in the Jim Crow era Southern United States.
Taylor's refusal to remain silent about her rape by white men led to organizing in the African-American community for justice and civil rights.
On September 3, 1944, Taylor was kidnapped while leaving church and gang-raped by six white men.Despite the men's confessions to authorities, two grand juries subsequently declined to indict the men; no charges were ever brought against her assailants.
In 2011, the Alabama Legislature officially apologized on behalf of the state "for its failure to prosecute her attackers." Taylor's rape, refusal to remain silent, and the subsequent court cases were among the early instances of nationwide protest and activism among the African-American community, and ended up providing an organizational spark in the civil rights movement.
At the 2018 Golden Globe Awards, while accepting the Cecil B.DeMille Award, Oprah Winfrey discussed and brought awareness to Taylor's story.
The Congressional Black Caucus led Democratic Caucus members in wearing red "Recy" pins while attending the 2018 State of the Union, where Taylor's granddaughter, Mary Joyce Owens, was a guest.