Racial inequality persists in the administration of the death penalty. To wit, blacks are convicted and executed more than whites for capital crimes.

An aggregate 3,859 executions, including 32 women, occurred from 1930 (when federal officials began recording execution by race) to 1967. Blacks comprised 54, whites 45, and other races 1 percent of the executed. Three in five died in southern states. Black men totaled 399 of 446 or 89.5 percent of deaths for rape. Civil rights groups protested. Citing “the arbitrary nature with which death sentences have been imposed, often indicating a racial bias against black defendants,” the Supreme Court declared in Furman v. Georgia (1972) that death constituted “cruel and unusual punishment” and barred its use. States resumed using it in 1977. But the Furman decision and five-year moratorium energized the growing movement for abolition of the death penalty.