Hearing "Voices" in Austin

submitted by Jonathan M. Hunter

The past week has been filled with a flurry of anti-death penalty activity in Austin. Hundreds of people from all over the US and abroad descended on Texas to call for abolition. The CEDP played an integral role in just about everything that took place. Before I discuss the "Voices" tour itself, it is important to highlight just exactly what has been happening here. It's been quite amazing!

For the past couple of weeks, members of "Jouney of Hope...From Violence to Healing" have been travelling around Texas, speaking in both small towns and big cities, telling their stories of their experiences with capital punishment, and urging the citizens of Texas to get active in the struggle. The Journey counts muder victim's family members, family members of death row defendants, and exonerated inmates among its ranks. On Wednesday, October 26th, the CEDP played host to this group, escorting them to speak in several classrooms on the University of Texas campus.

Later that evening, we held the Voices tour on the university campus.

On Thursday, October 27th, the Journey folks came back to the university to speak in another classroom. Later that evening, Amnesty International hosted some of these speakers in an open forum, which also featured long-time abolitionist attorney Walter Long. Walter Long (attorney for both Karla Faye Tucker and Napoleon Beazley), besides being a fantastic individual, has also played an enormous role in overturning capital punishment for youth offenders.

Meanwhile, just south of the university, the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty was convening its annual conference. The NCADP's conference featured all sorts of workshops on various aspects of the movement, and was attended by people from all over the country.

On Saturday, the 29th, we all flocked downtown to Austin City Hall to participate in the 6th annual March to Stop Executions. This march has been coordinated every year by the CEDP and the Texas Moratorium Network. The march was kicked off with a rally at city hall, where our own Shujaa Graham, Jeannine Scott, and Lily Hughes helped work the crowd into the proper mood. We then left city hall and marched up Congress Avenue, the city's most important street, overtaking the entire northbound side of the road as we marched. As we marched we chanted, and a number of people touring downtown Austin clapped and cheered as we headed toward the capitol and the governor's mansion. We arrived at the governor's mansion, had another rally, and then proceeded to surround the governor's mansion, both with our bodies and with yellow crime-scene tape! We then stood in front of the gates, chanting as loudly as possible in hopes that our message might reach the ears of Governor Perry. The whole event was truly spectacular and intial estimates hold that there were in between 450-500 people marching! (For the record, I thought there were a 1,000; but I've been wrong before.)

Later that evening, the NCADP held its awards banquet, which featured Bryan Stevenson (who will also be speaking to the CEDP in a couple of weeks in Chicago). At this event, the CEDP was recognized for its hard work over the years, which is significant, since we are often viewed as a fringe-radical group by the mainstream movement (of course we are, we want abolition now!).

The significance of all the happenings of this week is enormous. Texas, woefully, is the symbol of everything that is wrong with the death penalty. In less than 2 months, Texas has executed 2 of its citizens with strong cases of (actual) innocence: Frances Newton (September 14th) and Luis Ramirez (October 20th). Moreover, according to the Department of Criminal Justice's website, there are 6--6!--executions scheduled before the year's end. The state of Texas has no right to put these people to death, regardless of guilt or innocence; and this week has been testimony to that belief.

The reason for discussing all of this was to show that the "Voices" tour was the forerunner of, and in fact, I think, helped set the stage for the other events that were to follow (at least in terms of its effect on the CEDP members. "Voices" really energized us for the events that followed). At 7pm on Wednesday the 26th, "Voices From Death Row" officially began. Jennine Scott, whose husband Mike Scott is serving a life sentence for a crime he didn't commit, served as the chair of the speaking panel and introduced Shujaa Graham to the crowd as our first speaker. Shujaa, a long-time member of the CEDP, talked about his experience in prison and the racism aimed at him as he was wrongfully convicted of the murder of a prison guard. Shujaa spoke on the urgent need for abolition, citing that as long as there is racism and bias against the poor, there can be no justice. And, moreover, there is no such thing as a just death penalty.

The next person to speak was Mary Felps. Mary became the "mother" of David Martinez, who was executed on July 28th of this year. Mary had been a social worker when she first met David over twenty years ago. She had been assigned his case because there had been some reports that David's mother had been neglecting her children. Shortly thereafter, however, his mother moved the family to Iowa, and Mary lost contact with David. She regained contact with David after she saw on the local Austin news that David had been charged with a murder in 1998, and had been visiting him as regularly as she could during the time he sat on death row. Mary spoke to the crowd about how sweet and gentle David was, and that he was not the monster that he was made out to be during his initial trial. She also spoke about the abuse, both physical and sexual, that David endured as a child, and how it is important that we not be too quick to label defendants as murderers without taking into account their backgrounds.

The next to speak was Sandra Reed. Sandra's son, Rodney Reed, is also on death row for a crime he didn't commit. Rodney is an African-American man who was convicted of murdering a white woman by an all white jury (a scenario which unfortunately happens all to often). There is also a great deal of evidence of both prosecutorial and state police misconduct in his case. Sandra spoke about the racism in the criminal justice system, and in Texas in general, and that this was reason enough to abolish the death penalty. At the rally during the march on Saturday, we heard the good news that Rodney's case is set to go back before the original trial judge. Hopefully very soon, Rodney will be receiving a new trial.

The last speaker was Marlene Martin, national direcor of the CEDP, who drew conections with the racism of the death penalty and the racism we have seen with the response to Hurrican Katrina. Racism is not something we in the abolition movement simply imagine. It is real, and it is a systemic problem in this country. Bryan Stevenson also made this clear in a recent interview for The New Abolitionist, as he discussed how the states where the death penalty is most active are in the south. It is no mere coincidence that these are also former slave states. Marlene encouraged people to join in the movement for abolition, asking those in attendance not to go home with just a profound experience. Rather, she asked that this profound experience motivate us toward the continuing struggle.

Overall, the event went very well. There were well over 100 people in attendance and there were at least 30 people standing outside the room that were not allowed to come in because of fire code restrictions. Moreover, there were a also a few membership cards turned in!

Voices from Death Row: UC Berkeley Stop

submitted by Rachel Pringle

On Tuesday, October 11th, the UC Berkeley chapter of Campaign to End the Death Penalty held their stop of the National Voices of Death Row Tour at UC Berkeley’s Free Speech Movement Café. The evening began with an introduction by Alice Kim, a national organizer for the Campaign. She described how the death penalty is a political tool, rather than an effective process of our judicial system. She went on to describe the many flaws of the death penalty, specifically how it targets minorities and the poor. She said, “There is an agenda to warehouse poor people and black people and that agenda is ‘tough on crime.'" Alice also gave an example of the prevalent racism surrounding capital punishment by describing a game prosecutors used to play called “niggers by the pound.” In this so-called game, prosecutors would weigh African-Americans whom they managed to convict. The winning prosecutor would have the highest number of pounds. She ended her introduction by praising the hard work that the Campaign and other activists did to halt the execution of Kevin Cooper in February 2004 and then stated, “We need to do the same sort of thing so that we can save the lives of Stan Tookie Williams and Clarence Ray Allen.”

Barbara Becnel, advocate for California death row prisoner Stan Tookie Williams, spoke next giving an update of Williams’ situation. A few hours earlier, the Supreme Court had just ruled to deny a hearing to Williams. She said, “I have known Stan for 13 years, so today has been a really bad day, not just for Stan, but for all of us…today is a shameful day in the history of jurisprudence.” She talked specifically about the seriousness of the Supreme Court ruling and how it affects everyone’s lives. She said, "The Supreme Court stated that it is now okay for a white prosecutor to kick off all African-Americans from their juries.” She said that the ruling also slows that “the Roberts court does not give a damn about minorities in this county.”
She went on to discuss the specific problems of Williams’ case. The District Attorney moved his trial from Los Angeles to Torrence. The prosecutor eliminated all African-Americans from the jury, and in his closing argument he asked the jury to consider they visiting the San Diego zoo when they saw Stan Tookie Williams at the defendant’s table. He then went on to state that Williams was like a Bengal Tiger in a cage while he was in the court room, but in South Central Los Angeles, he would be in his “natural habitat” and therefore, as dangerous as a tiger would be in its natural habitat.

“The Supreme Court said that this was okay. The Supreme Court ruling is the law of the land. That ruling now applies to everyone in this room, in this state, in all the states of this country,” Becnel said.
She went on to state that Williams was given only sixty days to appeal his case to the Supreme Court, when the law allows ninety days. “This does not typically happen,” she said. She then announced that Clarence Ray Allen’s execution date is expected to be January 17th and Williams is December 13th. A third inmate, Michael Morrales, is also expected to be given an execution date in February. Becnel closed with, “We lost our rights this morning…The fight is on, we have to believe that we are going to prevail…we are here witnesses to another shameful chapter of the history of Supreme Court. This will be written in the history books as the Plessy v. Ferguson of the 21st century…I am requesting that you all are ready to fight with me. In 1955, Rosa Parks sparked a civil rights movement because she refused to stand up. Now it is 2005, 60 years later and we need to refuse to sit down because we need to stand up.”

Darby Tillis, an exonerated Illinois death row prisoner, then spoke. He began his speech by saying that he was exonerated eighteen years ago, but what angers him is “that eighteen years later they are still doing this mess.” He described his experience on death row, beginning with “I was on death row for nine years, one month, and 17 days for a crime that I did not commit…I had three hung juries, more than any person in judicial United States history.” Tillis went on to describe how he was coerced and threatened by the police and the District Attorney to confess to a crime. “They tried to build a case around me,” said Tillis. While his white co-defendant never went to trial, Tillis and another African-American defendant were found guilty during their third trial. Tillis noted that the judge who proceeded over his trial is now serving fifteen years for accepting bribes.

“The death penalty is all about hate and revenge. The death penalty business if for politicians to build careers,” he said. “I feel like a political prisoner. I was kidnapped, used, and abused to send a message to blacks: ‘If you come up here and mess with these white folks, you’re going to jail. We are going to kill you.’” He went on to describe how living on death row affected him. “Each day you begin to die, you smell death, you fell death, you become familiar with death. You’re tormented by guards. I’ve been released from death row. Nine years of loneliness, nine years of anger pent up, nine years of restricted movement, nine years of living hell…A study showed that death row prisoners suffer post-traumatic stress like Vietnam veterans...Death row is alive and raging in me right now. There is no therapy, no resources for me.”

After Tillis’ speech, Trisha Chakrabarti, a UC Berkeley student, urged attendants to join Campaign to End the Death Penalty and to contribute to a fundraising raffle. The Campaign is currently fundraising to send people to the National Convention in November. At the end of the speeches there was a general discussion, where one person pointed out that Stan Tookie Williams received the Presidential Award from George W. Bush. The event closed with a song Tillis wrote. Tillis sang about being freed from death row.

Voices at NYU Law School

submitted by Lee Wengraf

80 people packed the room at NYU's Law School on Wednesday evening for the final stop of the NYC leg of the Tour with Lawrence, Monique and Billy. The event was co-sponsored by NYU Law Students Against the Death Penalty and ACLU at NYU.

Recalling the legacy of radical attorney William Kunstler, Lawrence told the law students in the room, "You all are important. There's more to life than being a corporate lawyer." As he laid out his story, he painted a bigger picture of the escalation of criminal injustice in the US. "I saw the prison boom while I was behind bars: in 1970, there were 16,000 NYS prisoners when I entered, and 71,000 when I left."

Monique held the audience captive with Ryan's experiences with racism in "David Duke country" and her New Orleans evacuation. Following her, Billy said how "inspiring it was to hear people like Lawrence and Monique continue to get up and raise hell."

All the speakers echoed the theme of building a new civil rights movement. We can make the challenges and obstacles of today pay off, said Billy. "If we look back, on what Ryan went through, what others went through, wecan see that something came of it. But the fight is on - conservatives see it as their moment too."

The speakers took a range of questions from the audience, from "How were you able to leave death row?" to "Why is there a death penalty in the US? How does the government get away with it?" The last question sparked the most debate and discussion, with some in the audience arguing that the US is "culturally-driven" to execute. On the other hand, Monique said, race and class are what makes a difference.

"It's a tool," said Lawrence, "it's a political question," reminding people that Furhman v. Georgia abolished the death penalty on the heels of the 1960s civil rights movement. We CAN get rid of the death penalty, panelists argued -- how and when, that's the critical question.

Expecting smaller numbers, we were thrilled with the turn-out and that tons of people signed up not just to get on the email list, but to get active in the CEDP. One student's comment to me afterwards on why she wanted to get involved summed it up well: "I'm a law student right now," she said, "but what I do elsewhere is what really matters."

All in all, the NYC Tour was a big success! We met more new faces than we had in ages, and the meetings had a huge impact on people who had never heard of the direct experiences of death row or a political discussion of what's behind it and what it'll take to get rid of it. We're in a great place to get ready for the November Convention!

Here's a link to an article about the tour stop

http://www.nyunews.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/10/13/434dfebc9aab6

Voices at Saint Mary's College in Moraga, California

submitted by Devin O'Leary

On the quiet Saint Mary’s College campus in serene Moraga, California,
Voices could be heard coming from the Soda Center. These Voices were
calling for an end to the death penalty and the calls were coming from a man
who experienced the horrors of death row for a crime he did not commit, a
college professor who said goodbye to his young sister after she was
murdered more then thirty years ago, and an activist who puts the facts of
the death penalty into real terms.

The Voices from Death Row came to California for the first time this fall
and made its first stop in the Bay Area at Saint Mary’s College in Moraga.
The Moraga chapter began less than two years ago and the Voices from Death
Row was the first major event organized and sponsored by the Campaign to End
the Death Penalty, and what a great event it was.

Speaking in Moraga on Monday, October 10, was Darby Tillis, an exonerated
death row inmate from Illinois; Ronald Ahnen, a professor of Politics at
Saint Mary’s and member of the Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation;
and Alice Kim, a national organizer and activist from the Campaign to End
the Death Penalty.

The night began with Campaign to End the Death Penalty chapter members and
the speakers having a pizza dinner, allowing members to meet and mingle with
the speakers. Informal introductions were made by each member about how
they became involved and how long they have been part of the Campaign.

The Soda Center, a conference center complex on the Saint Mary’s campus, is
where the Voices from Death Row took place. More than 100 people attended,
the majority students, but also about fifteen people from the community who
had heard about the Voices from Death Row through a local newspaper. We
were unsure about what to expect in number of attendance, however I am sure
that everyone who helped plan was pleasantly surprised and ecstatic to have
that many come attend. In the back of the room, guests not already
associated with the Campaign to End the Death Penalty were asked to sign-up
to be on the email list and pick-up an issue of the New Abolitionist.

Each chair had an event program, which explained the Voices from Death, a
short biography of the speakers, and how to do become more involved in the
Campaign to End the Death Penalty at Saint Mary’s College. On the back of
the program was information about the national convention in Chicago.

Darby Tillis was the first speaker of the evening and he gave the audience a
view and story of the death penalty that they will never forget. Darby
Tillis spent nine years on death row for a crime he did not commit because
he is black and poor. After going into a Chicago police station to inquire
about why he had heard rumors that the police wanted to speak to him about
the crime, he was taken into custody because he refused to be a stool
pigeon.

Darby went on to say that people think the death penalty is justified
because it kills guilty heinous serial killers and horrific murderers,
however he could have been easily executed and he didn’t do a single thing
wrong. It’s not the serial killers who are getting the death penalty; it is
those who are black and poor. Darby was finally freed after nine years on death row in 1987. His
exoneration was the first of thirteen men who were exonerated from death row
in Illinois. Unlike the other twelve, Darby did not receive any retribution
from the State for spending nine wrongful years on death row.

The crowd was shocked to hear Darby’s story and some eyes in the crowd were
filling with tears, but if Darby’s left them teary, the next story left them
crying.

The next speaker was Ronald Ahnen, a professor of Politics at Saint Mary’s
College and a member of Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation. His
emotional story of his young sister, Rosie, who was raped and murdered
thirty-two years ago, brought the crowd to chills and tears. The closeness
that Ron felt with Rosie was evident in the stories he told of when he was
eight and she seven, the ages they were when Rosie was killed by a drifter.

Ronald told how he was understandably upset about the loss of his sister,
his best friend, however he also understood that taking the life of the man
who killed his sister would not make him feel better or bring him closure.
The murder took place in Ron’s hometown in Wisconsin, a state that does not
use the death penalty, something Ron said he’s ashamed he can’t say about
California. Ron said that he can’t justify the man being paroled because
he’s not sure certain that the man who killed his sister will not do it
again in Wisconsin or some other place.

It was an honor to hear Ron’s story and experience and it truly touched the
audience and made us all ponder our past experiences and our personal
emotional circumstances. Thirty-two years is a long time, but that
experience still is very much alive for Ron and his everyday life.

The final speaker at Saint Mary’s College Voices from Death Row was Alice
Kim, the national organizer for the Voices from Death Row, and a national
anti-death penalty activist and organizer. She spoke on a wide variety of
death penalty issues and how that relates to the continuing racism and
poverty that is occurring in our nation. She discussed how the criminal
justice system is just a microcosm of our entire political system and how
those in leadership positions punish those who don’t have the same
opportunities because they are of color and poor.

Alice encouraged those in the crowd to become more involved in the Campaign
to End the Death Penalty, to attend the convention, and to simply learn more
about the death penalty. It was a good start for those in the crowd who
were coming to their first anti-death penalty event.

We introduced Darby Tillis back to the microphone to do a special solo and
acoustic Death Row Blues on his harmonica, which received two rounds of
applause from the audience. The Death Row Blues was followed by a question
and answer question session from the audience for the speakers.

After another plug from Alice regarding the Campaign to End the Death
Penalty’s national convention in Chicago, the evening ended and people were
able to ask questions one-on-one with speakers and learn more about the
Campaign to End the Death Penalty and how to become more involved.

The Voices from Death Row was a major success at Saint Mary’s and was a
great way to start the year and semester.

Another tour stop in Chicago at NEIU...

submitted by Alice Kim

The Voices tour stop at Northeastern Illinois University on Thursday, October 6 was part of the university’s Equity in Action Week. Several professors brought their classes to the event and about seventy-five students attended. Loretta Capeheart, a professor at NEIU, introduced the event and the speakers. Madison talked about being tortured by Chicago police and his experience of being wrongfully convicted. Billy talked about his experience as someone who was guilty of the crime for which he was convicted. After they shared their powerful stories, I had the opportunity to talk about the importance of putting a human face on the death penalty. The audience was visibly moved by the stories they heard and asked lots of questions. Why do politicians continue to support the death penalty even in spite of the growing number of innocent people who have been released from death row? (Billy and I responded by talking about the tough on crime agenda that’s been promoted by politicians.) Will the death penalty be an issue in the upcoming gubernatorial elections in Illinois? (I said that unfortunately, in Illinois, the Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich is pro-death penalty. But through public pressure, we can aim to change the minds of politicians.) Did the fact that Madison did not sign a confession make it easier for him to win his freedom? (Madison said that he thought that it had made a big difference. Despite being brutally beaten and repeatedly suffocated with a typewriter bag by Chicago police, Madison never signed a confession.) This was the third tour stop in Chicago last week. About fifty students signed up for more information about starting a new chapter on NEIU’s campus!

New York City CUNY with Monique Matthews, Billy Sothern and Lawrence Hayes

Submitted by Liliana Segura and Lee Wengraf

We launched the tour in New York City with our first stop at CUNY’s City College. We were all *especially* excited about the event because finally Monique Matthews was coming to NYC! We have known her and her brother Ryan’s case for two and a half years, and now we finally had a chance to bring her to Harlem, where our campaign for Ryan’s freedom first got rolling.

The room was full of excitement, with about 50 people turning out -- a good crowd although a little smaller than we had planned -- no doubt thwarted by the bomb scare that hit at the subway at rush hour. Nonetheless, the event was a big success, with a bunch of students and NYC activists in attendace. The local Pacifica radio station recorded it, and film-makers Emily and Sarah Kunstler, daughters of radical lawyer William Kunstler, were there – they are finishing a documentary on Ryan’s case called “The Road to Justice.” We brought out our original Ryan Matthews banner and plastered huge letters, “Freed!” across it – proof that we CAN win victories against the death penalty. We also displayed artwork for sale by a prisoner who generously donated his painting to raise funds for the Campaign, and ended up collecting several hundred dollars.

Monique’s talk hit the nail on the head about the experience of being doubly victimized by criminal injustice and government neglect in Louisiana. She told the story of Ryan’s courage in the face of the court officials who threatened death – with no evidence to back them up – or cop a plea to a crime he didn’t do. You could hear a pin drop in the room as she told the audience, "Humanity is what kept my family going."

She called the experience in New Orleans "humiliating....We were literally begging for mercy." But the experience did not dampen her fighting spirit, saying, "I am insulted to hear the commander in chief say that he can rebuild New Orleans while fighting the war in Iraq.

"Today, I charge Mr. Bush with the murder of 800 people in New Orleans."

Billy Sothern poured out the outrage of what he’s witnessed over the past month in New Orleans and the new depths of abuse prison authorities have sunk to. Prisoners in New Orleans "were really left to die. Just as we saw at Abu Ghraib, the prisoners were constantly beaten, including in plain sight of their lawyers. The same conditions that led to the situation in New Orleans led to Ryan's conviction: a real failure."

He described how the wake of Katrina only exposed to the light of day the degradation of what the poor and incarcerated face every day, telling the story of one client’s execution and how they denied him his most basic rights down to the last moment. "Our refrain to people who would strip people of their humanity should be: 'These are people.' We can talk about innocence or we can talk about guilt, but what we should focus on is dignity."

But ultimately, said Billy, the question has to be, “How can we make the government accountable?”

The urgency of what this tour is all about was brought home by Lawrence Hayes, now freed from death row, but who has been trapped in the net of the prison and parole system for decades -- for a crime he never committed. “It’s been a nightmare for decades,” he said, describing his arrest at age 19, targeted because he was a Black Panther who stood up, denounced oppression and fought for change. But Lawrence urged the importance of never giving up, and how the struggle of people on the outside has made all the difference. “I’m alive because of people like you,” he said, “the people who won Fuhrman v. Georgia, the 1972 Supreme Court ruling that abolished the death penalty."

Pointing to our CEDP table, he ended with, “Do me one favor, please: Sign up. Get involved with the Campaign.”

And a number of people did! Students crowded around the speakers after to ask questions – people wanted to hear more of the details on what Lawrence and Ryan had gone through. A bunch of people also said they plan to turn out for next week’s meeting on why they should come to the Millions More Movement rally on October 15 in Washington, DC. It was a great start -- on to the next two events!

Tour launches in Chicago!

Submitted by Alice Kim

Last night, the Campaign to End the Death Penalty’s Voices from Death Row launched here in Chicago. On Wednesday, October 5, we had two tour stops in Chicago and we’ll have another this evening at Northeastern Illinois University. The tour is already off to a fantastic start. At last night’s tour stop, it was standing room only with more than 160 people in attendance at the University Church in Hyde Park.

A few minutes before the program began, when I stepped out to get water for the speakers, there were a few dozen people in the room. When I got back, the room was overflowing. Every seat was taken. Some 20 or 30 students from the University of Chicago were sitting on the stage at the back of the room, and people were streaming out into the hallway. We were blown away by the turn out. We had plastered the campus over the weekend, held two informational tables on campus that week, blasted e-mail announcements to list serves and activated our phone tree. The Chicago Maroon, U of C’s student newspaper, wrote a story about the tour the day before our event, and at the last minute, Billy Moore was invited to speak on the radio by Cliff Kelly, a popular talk-show host widely known in the Black community. So, all our efforts paid off!

The room was filled with positive energy, curiosity and a sense of purpose—all the makings of a new and revived abolitionist movement. We displayed paintings by death row prisoners at the back of the room. We had T-shirts and books about the death penalty on sale at the CEDP’s table alongside petitions for abolition legislation and individual prisoners. Every seat was graced with a copy of The New Abolitionist and our eye-catching postcard about the national convention.

Each of the speakers had their own powerful and moving story to tell. As Luis Magana, Hyde Park chapter organizer, said as he opened the program, “When I was a student, it was at an event just like this where I got inspired to get involved with the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, when I heard people who were on death row and their families talk about what they had been through. So, I hope you’ll listen to their stories and get inspired to get involved too.”

First up was Gloria Johnson who told the heart-wrenching story of her son Montell Johnson, an Illinois prisoner whose death sentence was commuted to 40 years in prison by former Illinois Gov. George Ryan in 2003. Gloria told the audience how she has been forced to put Montell’s legal battle on hold as she fights to keep her son alive, who suffers from chronic progressive Multiple Sclerosis. She told us that she’s afraid that Montell will die in prison due to medical neglect. But she also talked about her commitment to save her son and to fight the injustices of the criminal justice system:

“It’s not just about my son. It’s about everybody’s sons and daughters who are behind these walls. I’m just one person. But if we all get together, we can make a difference.”

Then Monique Matthews rocked the audience as she talked about what it has meant to be poor, Black and living in America. Monique’s brother was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death as a juvenile in Louisiana. Today, he is free after a relentless fight to prove his innocence. But now Monique, Ryan and their entire family, who lived in New Orleans, have been victimized by Hurricane Katrina and the manmade disaster created by the federal government’s pathetic response. Monique gave a scathing indictment of our system:

“What are the priorities of this country? Fighting an unnecessary war in another country. We have all this money to spend on this war, but we drag our feet to assist our fellow American citizens – citizens in crisis.

“Mrs. Bush had the nerve to assassinate the character of the people of New Orleans by making this statement: ‘It would be scary to have all those New Orleanians living in the state of Texas.’ Well, I’m sure living there can be scary for them [New Orleans evacuees] knowing that there’s a possibility of being charged, prosecuted and eventually executed like Frances Newton. That should be at the top of the list of their fears. Today, I hope everyone here has received their wake-up call because, damn it, I’ve received mine and I’ve had enough.”

Following Monique, Billy Moore, with his soft-spoken but determined voice, told his unique story. He was freed from Georgia’s death row, not because he was innocent of the crime, but because the victim’s family advocated for his release. He brought tears to the eyes of many people in the audience, when he told us how he felt responsible for a fellow inmate’s execution. While on death row, Billy had taught Jerome, a fellow inmate, how to read. Now Jerome was able to pass an IQ test and was no longer considered mentally retarded. Billy had pled with Jerome “to forget everything that he had learned for this test.” But Jerome told Billy, “All my life I’ve been made fun of and called stupid. If I can pass this test, I’m going to pass it.” Because Jerome had learned how to read, he was executed by the state of Georgia. You could hear a pin drop as Billy told his story.

For Billy, the point of telling his story was to urge people to take action to change the laws when the laws are wrong. Quoting Chief Justice Warren Burger, Billy said, “Any law in this country can be changed in the constitution, because the constitution is supposed to be for the people, by the people and of the people—and all the people have to do is speak up. The people have the right to change the constitution. It’s not set in stone. We need to get together and demand change. It’s up to us.”

Lastly, Stephen Bright, a capital defense attorney and the director of the Southern Center on Human Rights, talked about the injustices he sees everyday in the courtroom. He pointed out that the inscription on the front of the Supreme Court building, “Equal Justice Under Law” is far from the truth. He talked about how the bias in the courts is apparent just by looking at the skin color of everyone in the courtroom. Nearly everyone—the judge, the jury, the guards, and the lawyers—is white except for the defendant. He also pointed out that death sentences have steadily declined as a result of all the exonerations of death row prisoners that have come to light and urged people to keep fighting to abolish the death penalty.

These are just a few highlights from our evening program in Chicago. The chapter was thrilled with the turn out. We’ve already added new people who signed up to our list serve and our phone tree. We’ve scheduled a special meeting next week for students. And we’re getting ready for our national convention here in November! And we’re proud to say that we collected over $200 for the Costella Cannon scholarship fund.

Earlier in the day, we held a tour stop at the University of Illinois-Chicago with Madison Hobley, who was pardoned by former Illinois Governor George Ryan; Monique Matthews and Marlene Martin, the CEDP’s national director. About 30 students came out to hear these voices and a good number of them signed up for more information about starting a new chapter on campus.

You already heard from Monique, here are excerpts from the speeches given by Madison and Marlene:

Madison Hobley – “I spent 16 years on Illinois’ death row for a crime that I didn’t commit. I was raised here in Chicago. I went to Southern Illinois on a baseball scholarship. I married my high school sweetheart. Her name was Anita. The apartment building was set on fire. Unfortunately, I survived, and they didn’t. Unfortunately for me, I was taken into the custody of some corrupt cops under the supervision of Jon Burge. They took me into a utility closet with old typewriters and file cabinets. What they ended up doing was beating me and suffocating me and trying to make me sign a confession of their words—which I never did. Unfortunately, when they finally took me to trial three years later, the jury believed them over me. They didn’t have a confession, but they claimed they did.

I want everyone to know what I experienced. I was raised in an inter-racial family. My mother is Dutch and African American. My father was Cuban. My family looks like the United Nations. These officers they were white officers they said that they hated niggers. This one officer made me call him a honky. I never thought they could get away with this. What really gets me is that we trust these officers. When I was in school, we had this program called Officer Friendly. I just felt so put down by the police force. It’s so sad how these policemen can get away with this without being charged. I want to make everyone aware of the corrupt cops in Chicago. It’s sad how we have this death penalty knowing we got corrupt cops, corrupt politicians, and a corrupt president.”

Marlene Martin – “The point of this tour is to bring the voices of people who have lived through the pain, the humiliation, the racism and injustice of this system. There is such pain and humiliation when a loved one is sentenced to death. Then it’s the shame and the isolation. This is really the tragedy of what happens to family members.

But the point of this speaking tour is not merely to expose and to let all of you know that this tragedy is occurring right now. We hope that you will be as disgusted as we are and also want to get involved and figure out how to change things. We won a ban on executions in this country in 1972. Why did we win it then? It came on the wave of the civil rights movement. It came on the wave of consciousness shifting in this country. Even if we have all the reasoned arguments, it still can mean that we won’t have justice. The missing ingredient today is that we’ve got to build a movement.”