Radio host Tom Joyner, after an emotional revelation on Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates' African American Lives 2, found a way to eventually get posthumous legal pardon for his great uncles Thomas and Meeks Griffin and won. Although the Griffin brothers never got the justice they deserved, at least their names will not bear the guilt stamped on them by a South Carolina jury so many years ago.

The day the Griffins were executed in 1915 for a crime they were innocent of, it's fairly likely that they spent their final hours on this planet lamenting a justice system that not only had a lascivious lust for prosecuting black men, but especially black men who were well-to-do.

They had no idea that nearly a century later, a descendant of their sister would seek to have their names cleared and re-open discussion of the injustices that African Americans suffered just because of the racist assumption of guilt that the justice system bore back then...and in some cases, even now.

If you haven't seen this fantastic PBS series, here's the long and short of Joyner's segment:

In April 1913, John Lewis, a wealthy veteran of the Confederate army, was shot to death likely by a black man named John "Monk" Stevenson. Known as a small-time criminal, Stevenson pinned the murders on the Griffin brothers and two other black men. He testified, basically snitching (meaning the original definition of snitching) out the Griffins in exchange for a life sentence.

He is said to have later admitted killing Lewis and laying the blame on the Griffins, because he saw them as rich enough to hire a lawyer, saying that none of the other four men had anything to do with the crime. At the time, Lewis was said to be having an affair with a married black woman. What Stevenson's actual relationship was with the woman is unclear, but he is said to have been pimping her.

Given only two days to prepare their defense, the Griffins had to sell their 130-acre farm to pay for their legal bills. Known as upstanding citizens, whites and blacks in the community stood up in their defense, but it did not help because then-Gov. Richard Manning refused to intervene. In September 1915, the brothers and two other men, Nelson Brice and John Crosby, were electrocuted for a crime they had nothing to do with.

Their sister Ruth, Joyner's grandmother, rushed off to Florida, and up until the meeting with Gates, Joyner was yet to establish his family's roots.

Fast forward nine decades and Joyner enlists the help of Gates and legal historian Paul Finkelman to dig in to the truth of this story, spending the better part of the last year petitioning for his great uncles' pardon, which was granted Tuesday by Gov. Mark Sanford.

Gates said that the pardon will now "change how black history is remembered," but the truth is this is one of the many cases that railroaded blacks all over the country for crimes they were innocent of. Each year, more and more cases are overturned, because DNA evidence shows that parties once found guilty are actually innocent. Can we really even imagine how many black men in years past were hanged or at least imprisoned for life just because a white person assumed their guilt?

Besides justice alone, imagine what was lost in the Griffin brothers' case and so many others. Land amounting to 130 acres is nothing to sneeze at, and they were likely quite well off in that part of the rural south at the time. Imagine the people they would have been able to employ and the wealth that could have been passed down through the generations had it not been for a system hell-bent on seeing them suffer.

Last year, I saw a documentary made by an independent director named Marco Willams called "Banished." It shows the systematic removal of black people from their land through force or through legal fanagling, leaving black people destitute and penniless. Check out the website http://www.banishedthefilm.com/, because it is an interesting look at how wealth we had gained just after the Civil War was dismantled.

When looking at the Griffin brothers, and other places like Rosewood, Fla., and Tulsa, Okla.,, I've got to wonder whether someone targeted the Griffins not because they thought they were guilty, but because they couldn't stand to see black people gain any wealth and empowerment.

All told, I'm glad Joyner got the justice he sought for his family, but this is just one piece of history. More light needs to be shed on making right the injustices suffered by African Americans who after slavery, simply wanted to be free.