Lena Baker was born June 8, 1900, to a family of sharecroppers and raised near Cuthbert, Georgia. Her family, which included three siblings, moved to the county seat when she was a child. As a youth, she and her siblings all worked as farm laborers; she chopped cotton for a farmer named J.A.

By the 1940s, Baker was the mother of three children and worked as a maid to support her family.

Murder committed in self-defense.💔

In 1944, Baker started working for Ernest Knight, an older white man who had broken his leg. He owned a gristmill and, upon sexually assaulting Lena multiple times, he would keep her there imprisoned for days at a time in "near slavery." Knight's son and townspeople disliked their “relationship,” and tried to end it through threatening Baker. One night an argument between the two ensued, during which Knight threatened Baker with...