Video from Tour stop at John Jay College in NY

100 people turned out to the Tour stop in New York at John Jay College on April 22nd. The event was videotaped and features some great speeches! Check it out:

Mumia addresses Tour Stop in CA!

Here is a reprint from the Bay View of the recent powerful taped address that Pennsylvania prisoner, activist and journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal gave at a San Francisco Bay area stop of the CEDP's national speaking tour, "Lynching Then, Lynching Now".

http://www.sfbayview.com/2010/mumia-on-the-death-penalty-–-and-in-conversation-with-cornel-west/

From trees to needles: an address to the ‘Lynching Then, Lynching Now, The Roots of Racism and the Death Penalty in America’ national tour

by Mumia Abu-Jamal

Friends, brothers, sisters: Ona Move!

The anti-death penalty movement is an offshoot of the global human rights movement as expressed by private associations and later by a variety of governments.

It is noteworthy, then, for us to cite the state abolition of the death penalty in Kenya in 2009.

We should also note the fact that the rate of juries meting out death sentences has fallen to its lowest in 30 years.

And finally, several months ago, the group that was perhaps most instrumental in fashioning the present death penalty, the American Law Institute, announced it would no longer participate in formulating laws governing the death penalty. The ALI, a distinguished group of 4,000 judges, law professors and lawyers, were the people who initially proposed the aggravating and mitigating circumstances that the U.S. Supreme Court adopted in 1976 when it reinstated the death penalty.

And yet, despite this, the death penalty is alive and well in America. Why?

It makes no economic sense, but politicians are wedded to it.

That’s because at its core, the death penalty derives from, and thus replaces, lynch law. Is it mere coincidence that the states which are most active in capital punishment are Southern ones?

This is also generally true when we examine the establishment and expansion of the American prison system. After the Civil War, when slavery was abolished by law, states in the former confederacy established the convict lease system, where prisoners worked, without pay, for the state. One man, observing the dreadful loss of life and health for such people, called it “worse than slavery.”

In essence, these states made a private institution a public one – and both Black men and women became “slaves of the state.”

The U.S. death penalty system performs a similar function. It socialized, or made public, that which had been heretofore the province of individuals – lynchings.

Above is the very well-received message from Mumia Abu-Jamal to the “Lynching Then, Lynching Now, The Roots of Racism and the Death Penalty in America” national tour about the historic link between the death penalty and lynching in the United States.

The message was first played at the Bay Area tour stop, March 24, at Laney College in Oakland, California, where speakers with personal links to the death penalty spoke. Lawrence Hayes, a former death row prisoner himself, in New York, and founding member of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, spoke powerfully about his own case.

Kevin Cooper, an innocent man on San Quentin’s death row, called in to CEDP (Campaign to End the Death Penalty) leader Crystal Bybee’s telephone with his message of encouragement to those in attendance. His answers to questions posed by audience members were relayed by phone and microphone to the audience.

Jack Bryson, the father of two young men who were with Oscar Grant the night he was murdered in cold blood by the Bay Area Rapid Transit police, spoke about how his consciousness was jolted awake by that brutal murder, and how his life has become more meaningful through his connection with Kevin Cooper and the prisoners and activists in the death penalty abolition movement.

Jabari Shaw of the Laney College Black Student Union spoke of his personal experience incarcerated in San Quentin and how prisoners are treated there and how the prison industrial complex serves the rich and the capitalist system.

Barbara Becnel, founder of the Stanley Tookie Williams Legacy Network, spoke of her recent trip to the Senegal port through which slaves from all over Africa were shipped out to the Americas. She compared the “door of no return” there with the door to the death chamber of San Quentin. She had witnessed the torture and slow death of Stanley Tookie Williams on Dec. 13, 2005.

The purpose of the tour is to educate and recruit new activists to the movement to end the death penalty and the Campaign to End the Death Penalty organization. From all appearances, that will certainly be one result of the Bay Area tour.

Tour Stops in Houston and NY!

FIRST EVER CEDP TOUR STOP IN HOUSTON!

We are proud to have put Houston, located in Harris County - the death penalty capital of the US - on the map by being part of this year’s CEDP tour. Harris County accounts for about 1 percent of the U.S. population but has carried out nearly 10 percent of the country's executions since 1976, when the death penalty was reinstated. This event was co-sponsored by the International Socialist Organization (ISO) as well as a local anti-death penalty group called the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement or TDPAM.

A diverse crowd of approximately 30 people came to hear and see a multi-racial panel on April 14th at the University of Houston – Main Campus, located right in the belly of the beast. After a brief welcome and introduction, Lily Hughes, a longstanding anti-death penalty activist from Austin and CEDP board member, kicked off the discussion by giving a brief overview of the history of racism and the death penalty in this country. She was followed by Njeri Shakur, a lead organizer for TDPAM, who was delighted to see so many young people in the crowd and warned that we have to be alert and continue to fight this insane punishment. She also highlighted not only the racist, but also the classist nature of the death penalty, which predominantly targets people of color as well as poor working-class people in general.

Next up was Mark Clements, a recent exoneree from Illinois, who was sentenced to life without parole as a juvenile for a crime he did not commit. His testimony of police torture was shocking and more reminiscent of say the Argentinean and Chilean dictatorships of the 1970s as opposed to a supposedly modern democracy. Even more powerful, however, was his unbroken spirit and his will to fight. He made it clear that he was not going to bow down in front of politicians or any other form of authority if he felt he was misrepresented. He rightly reminded us that the job of these elected officials was to serve us not vice versa. Finally, Marisol Ramirez, wife of Juan Ramirez, a current death row inmate in Texas, took the stage. Juan has been sentenced under the infamous “law of parties”. Part of the law reads as follows: "If, in the attempt to carry out a conspiracy to commit one felony, another felony is committed by one of the conspirators, all conspirators are guilty of the felony actually committed." This basically boils down to: if you hang out with the wrong crowd at the wrong time, you can be sentenced to death. After briefly laying out Juan’s case, Marisol urged us to sign petitions, not only on behalf of Juan, but other death row inmates as well.

The talks were followed by a lively discussion. Lily Hughes came back and wrapped up the event by outlining how folks can get and stay involved in the struggle in the future.

John Jay College/CUNY:

I thought the tour stop was a great success for the CEDP...the room was packed, and I thought that Marvin Reeves was particularly riveting. What a tragic story, but his strength shines through.
Congrats!

Colleen Eren, New Yorkers for Alternatives to the Death Penalty

Another article about North Carolina Tour stops, this one at Wake Forest University:

http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2010/mar/31/wfu-forum-to-examine-race-relative-to-sentences-by/news/

WFU forum to examine race relative to sentences

Murder, Race, Justice: Read the original series

By Michael Hewlett

JOURNAL REPORTER

Published: March 31, 2010

Of the 157 people on death row in North Carolina, 86 -- or 55 percent -- are black.

And according to several studies, defendants accused of killing whites are more likely to get the death penalty than those accused of killing blacks.

For some people, those statistics confirm their view that race plays a part in who is sentenced to death and who isn't, and it's one reason that supporters of the state's Racial Justice Act pushed for its passage last year.

Those issues will be discussed today at Wake Forest University School of Law during a forum on "Race, Wrongful Convictions and the Death Penalty."

Carol Turowski, a co-director of the law school's Innocence and Justice Clinic, said that the issues are closely linked.

"I think these three issues intersect on a variety of different levels," Turowski said. "It's important to have a presentation to have them all discussed in an open forum with people who have experience with the Racial Justice Act."

Wake Forest is the first of four schools that will hold forums over the next month as part of a national tour. Today's forum is sponsored by the Innocence and Justice Clinic, the N.C. Coalition for a Moratorium and the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, which is organizing the tour. The other three schools are UNC Chapel Hill, Fayetteville State University and N.C. A&T State University.

Death-penalty opponents have long argued that there is a racial disparity when it comes to the punishment. In 2001, a major study by two UNC professors found that defendants whose victims were white were 31/2 times more likely to be sentenced to death than defendants whose victims were black.

In Winston-Salem, Darryl Hunt, who faced the death penalty in his first trial but was sentenced to life, spent nearly 19 years in prison for murder before being exonerated in 2003 after DNA evidence pointed to another man. Hunt was accused of killing Deborah Sykes, a white copy editor for The Sentinel, a now-closed afternoon newspaper, in a case that was racially charged.

"Darryl was only a vote away from the death sentence," Turowski said. "You realize how closely linked he could have been to the death penalty."

Hunt will be one of the speakers at Wake Forest. He will be joined by the keynote speaker, Stephen Bright, the president and senior counsel for the Southern Center for Human Rights, and Mark Rabil, who was Hunt's attorney and is now a co-director of the Innocence and Justice Clinic.

State Reps. Larry Womble and Earline Parmon will also speak. They pushed for passage of the Racial Justice Act.

The new law, which Gov. Bev Perdue signed in August, allows defendants facing the death penalty or who are already on death row to use statistics and other evidence to prove racial bias in how the death penalty is applied.

"The passage of this reform was incredibly historically significant," said Tarrah Callahan-Ledford, the campaign coordinator for the N.C. Coalition for a Moratorium. "Our intent on this tour is to continue public education on the Racial Justice Act."

The law was hotly debated last year, with prosecutors from across the state largely opposed to it. They argued that capital cases should be decided on facts and not historical patterns and statistics. And they argued that the new law was a way to end the death penalty.

The state hasn't conducted any executions since August 2006 because of several legal challenges that have mostly been resolved by recent court rulings.

It isn't clear how the Racial Justice Act will play out in courtrooms throughout North Carolina. In Forsyth County, all capital cases have been put on hold until a study comes out this summer that looks at race and the death penalty.

Turowski said that while executions are on hold, this is the perfect time to closely examine the issue of race and how it affects wrongful convictions and the death penalty.

"Keeping it at the forefront is a critical thing for us to do as a culture, as a country, as a community," she said.

mhewlett@wsjournal.com

727-7326

For more information, go to http://law.wfu.edu/news/release/2010.03.23.1.php

Here's a great article about the Tour stop at Fayetteville state University.

http://www.fayobserver.com/Articles/2010/04/09/989837

Death penalty panel says reform is saving lives
By Drew Brooks
Staff writer


Darryl Hunt was one juror away from the death penalty when he was convicted of rape and first-degree murder in 1985.

Nearly two decades later, Hunt was exonerated after DNA evidence linked another man to the crime.

On Thursday, Hunt was part of a panel at Fayetteville State University that praised the state's Racial Justice Act as a "huge step" in reforming the death penalty in North Carolina.

The panel discussion was sponsored by FSU's Department of Criminal Justice and the N.C. Coalition for a Moratorium.

Hunt, who is black, was among a group of exonerated men who advocated for the passage of the act in August. He was joined on the panel by state Rep. Rick Glazier and Mary Ann Tally, a judicial candidate and death penalty lawyer.

Glazier and Tally have represented clients in capital cases in the past.

Tally said the act, which provides an avenue for defendants to negate death sentences if they can prove racism played a part in either the decision to seek the death penalty or the decision to apply the death penalty, "doesn't solve all the problems, but is a huge first step."

The act lays out three circumstances in which, if racism is suspected of playing a role, a defendant may be eligible to have a sentence commuted to life in prison.

Those circumstances are when the race of either the defendant or the victim affects the decision to choose the death penalty, or when racism plays a role during jury selection.

Glazier said he hopes the act would lead to the state's criminal justice system earning more trust. He said wrongful convictions, especially those caused by racism, create more victims.

Hunt was an example of one of those victims.

He was convicted of raping and killing a white woman. He said he was the only black man outside of the audience in his court room.

He said DNA evidence proved that he was innocent in 1994, but he had to wait nearly 10 more years before a court overturned his conviction.

Hunt said he knows the Racial Justice Act won't completely remove racism from the justice system.

"We have to change that by treating others as we want to be treated," he said. "Until we get to that state, it doesn't matter what kind of laws we make."

Tally agreed.

"Our system is us. We have our biases. We have our prejudices. We have our misconceptions," she said. "And we all make mistakes."

Staff writer Drew Brooks can be reached at brooksd@fayobserver.com or 486-3567.

Here's a great article about the UNC - Chapel Hill Tour stop!

http://www.dailytarheel.com/content/man-exonerated-death-row-speaks-out

Event advocates against death penalty

April 9, 2010

Jessica Marker

Staff Writer

Due to a reporting error, this story incorrectly states that the state will reimburse Edward Chapman for his 15 years in prison. He must be granted a proclamation of innocence by the governor to receive the reparations funds.The Daily Tar Heel apologizes for the error.

Facing the charge of first-degree murder, Edward Chapman was exonerated from North Carolina’s death row in 2007.

Three years later, Chapman can be found advocating against the death penalty along with the North Carolina Coalition for a Moratorium and the Campaign to End the Death Penalty.

On Wednesday night, several activists and scholars against the death penalty gathered in the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History for a panel discussion exploring the role of race in the death penalty and North Carolina’s passage of the Racial Justice Act.

The act’s purpose is to make justice colorblind and was passed due to findings that the death penalty is given at a disproportionately high rate to black males in the South, especially when the victims are white females.

Speakers included UNC professors Frank Baumgartner and Isaac Unah. Edward Chapman was present to share his story as an innocent man on death row for 15 years.

Jennifer Thompson spoke of her experience as a rape victim who falsely accused Ronald Cotton for the rape, which she later turned into a book with Cotton called “Picking Cotton.” Thompson said she and Cotton, who served about 11 years in prison after being falsely accused, are both victims of a flawed system.

“Picking Cotton” is the true story of the friendship that developed between Thompson and Cotton and will be the 2010 summer reading book for incoming UNC students.

Jeremy Collins, director of the North Carolina Coalition for a Moratorium, said the purpose of the event was to make people aware of the Racial Justice Act in hopes that they will get involved in such legislation and remain engaged. The next cause the coalition is pursuing is prohibiting the execution of the mentally ill, Collins said.

Thompson said 75 percent of all wrongful convictions are due to false eyewitness identification claims.

In her case, DNA evidence was able to exonerate Cotton and identify the culprit, but she said most falsely accused persons are not as lucky, as DNA evidence is not always available.

Chapman said the state is reimbursing him for his imprisonment by paying him $50,000 for each of the 15 years he was incarcerated.

Although he refers to some of the inmates he spent time with as family, Chapman said no amount of money can make up for time lost.

“You can’t give back 15 years of life,” he said.

Tour Stop at Baylor U in Waco, TX!

Read this article in the Baylor University newspaper, The Lariat, about the recent tour stop on that campus featuring Alan Bean and Mark Osler!

Bay Area tour stop a great success!

The Bay Area tour stop of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty national speaking tour, "Lynching Then, Lynching Now," was a great success! We were honored to have Lawrence Hayes join us from New York. We kicked off his trip to the Bay Area by having Jack Bryson and Lawrence on the KPFA Flashpoints show (you can listen here: http://kpfa.org/archive/id/59610 - the last 20 minutes of the show). They also stopped by a meeting of All of Us Or None, discussing the "gang injunctions" and met up with great activists, including Sister Beatrice.

On Wednesday, March 24th, Lawrence spoke at two classes at Merritt College, where the Black Panthers started, and was able to have an engaging discussion with the students and with chair of African-American studies, Dr. Siri Brown. That evening, our main tour stop event, drew 50 people at Laney College, another community college in Oakland. The speakers were: Lawrence Hayes, Barbara Becnel, Kevin Cooper (calling in live, from death row), Jack Bryson and Jabari Shaw of the Laney College Black Student Union, moderated by Michelle Simon of the CEDP. The speakers used the theme of the tour to analyze and discuss the history of racism and of fighting racism, and racism today/struggles against racism, the death penalty and the criminal (in)justice system.

Lawrence Hayes spoke about the history of lynching in this country, and the audience heard his peronal and powerful story.
Barbara Becnel spoke about what it is to be "on the front line" of this struggle, how coming to the event and learning about these issues is the first step to being on the front line. Jack Bryson picked up on this theme and talked about how CEDP joined with him in his fight for justice for Oscar Grant so how could he not be on the front line against the death penalty and for freedom for Kevin Cooper. Kevin called in from San Quentin, and made connections between his struggle, the fight against education cuts, and many other issues. The audience got to ask great questions to Kevin. One audience member, after the event came to a close, asked us to deliver a message to Kevin: she said to tell him "he is beautiful, innocent and must be freed." Jabari Shaw gave a passionate speech about racism, fighting racism and bringing our social justice movements togethers. We were also fortunate to have a recorded message from Mumia Abu Jamal. If you are interested in having a copy of the recorded message to play at a tour stop event, contact Crystal at crystal@nodeathpenalty.org.

The CEDP worked with the Kevin Cooper Defense Committee, the Laney International Socialist Organization, the Laney Black Student Union, and the Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu Jamal. We met a lot of great activists, community members, and students. We hope to build on the success of the tour and continue our fights for justice for Kevin Cooper and the other issues we are working on today.

Report from Champaign-Urbana Tour Stop.

A multi-racial standing-room only crowd of 70 people packed a classroom in Gregory Hall at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on Feb. 24 to hear from Marvin Reeves and Mark Clements, two victims of Chicago police frame-ups who were both released last summer after nearly 50 combined years behind bars for crimes they did not commit. Marvin spoke of being snatched away from his several children in the middle of the night more than 21 years ago based on testimony from a jailhouse snitch, while Mark spoke of his severe beating and subsequent confession at the hands of Chicago police, which at age 16 led to a life without parole sentence. “Speaking here to you all is like therapy,” Marvin said. “When I see all of you here, I know there are a lot of people out there who care. When you’re in prison, you forget that.”

Brian Dolinar, an organizer from Champaign-Urbana Citizens for Peace and Justice, and Marlene Martin, with the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, rounded out the panel. Brian spoke of the Champaign police’s murder of unarmed 15-year-old Kiwane Carrington, the struggle to win justice for Kiwane’s family, and the campaign to get charges dropped against Kiwane’s friend, Jeshaun Manning, who was at the scene. As Brian said, “There’s the lynching of Kiwane Carrington. But now there’s the legal lynching of Jeshaun Manning that we’re fighting to stop too.”

Marlene spoke of the racism at the root of all of these cases of injustice. “We may no longer hang people from trees. But now, those who do the lynching have traded in white robes for black ones”, she said.

During the discussion, many people asked about what they could do to fight for justice. Activists circulated petitions to drop the charges against Jeshaun Manning, and many people stayed well after the meeting was over to talk to the panelists and network with each other. The Champaign-Urbana tour stop was sponsored by Champaign-Urbana Citizens for Peace and Justice, the International Socialist Organization and the Prairie Greens.

Contributed by Julien Ball at University of Illinois.

Howard Zinn and Sandra Reed

Sandra Reed is the mother of Texas death row prisoner Rodney Reed, a case the CEDP in Austin and nationally has worked on for years. Sandra recently spoke at the Lynching Then, Lynching Now Tour stop in Austin, Texas about how racism played a part in the wrongful conviction of her son.

Sandra Reed sits on the CEDP's national board and has attended our annual convention in Chicago for many years, always as a featured speaker. The way she conveys her family's story with such power and emotion never fails to affect people profoundly.

This year Sandra had the pleasure of sharing the stage with renowned left historian Howard Zinn on the Saturday night of the CEDP convention. Before the big evening event, Sandra and a few other speakers went to dinner with Howard. Sandra sat next to Howard and they spoke of her son's case, and the justice system in general.

When she asked him to sign her copy of the New Abolitionist, he obliged, but told her he'd like to send her a book he wrote that he thought she would enjoy. Being a pretty modest person, Sandra couldn't believe he would do that for her, but she gave him her address right there at dinner.

Just one week after she returned from Chicago, Sandra received a package from Howard. In it was a slim volume he wrote called Uncommon Sense - a collection of writings and speeches over the decades that reveal his philosophy about history, politics, law, culture, activism and the fight for a better world.

The book Sandra received was inscribed:

For Sandra Reed, and Rodney too
People of Courage –-
Howard Zinn, Nov. 2009

Sandra was so surprised and touched by this thoughtful act! She reciprocated with a Christmas card in December, and was so happy that she had because just a few months later, she heard of Howard's death. Her son Rodney wrote from prison to tell her of Howard's passing.

Though the news brought her to tears, Sandra said that she was so grateful to have met Howard when she did, to share in dinner, to share the speakers platform and to share her story and have him remember her and her son's fight.

As far as Rodney's case goes, racism played a huge role in his conviction. You can read a little about his case here:

http://nodeathpenalty.org/content/factsheets.php?category=cedp&factsheet_id=10

Also check out auschron.com and search Rodney Reed for extensive coverage of this case over the years.

Austin's Tour Stop went great!

The Lynching Then, Lynching Now Tour came to Austin, Texas on February 20th. The event featured Alan Bean from Friends of Justice, a civil rights organization active in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. University of Texas Associate Professor Edmund Gordon participated as well. Dr. Gordon has been active in getting a new Department for African and African Diaspora Studies at UT. We also had Sandra Reed, mother of Texas death row prisoner Rodney Reed. And the event was rounded out by a live call in from Stanley Howard, a member of the Death Row 10 in Illinois, who is still in prison, despite his death sentence having been commuted.

Our event began with a workshop in the late afternoon, featuring Alan Bean and Lily Hughes of the CEDP. Over 40 people attended this workshop, which laid out in depth the history of racism, lynching and the death penalty in the US, and talked about the role racism still plays in the (in)justice system today. This session had a good amount of time for question and answer from the audience.

The evening panel featured all the speakers mentioned above. The speakers were very moving, especially Stanley Howard, who mesmerized the crowd during his live phone call. Dr. Bean also has many incredible stories of injustice to share. For anyone looking for a tour speaker, consider Alan Bean, because the work he is doing speaks directly to this issue and his way of sharing these stories and giving a call to action is powerful and persuasive.

After the event, many people commented that it was really different to hear race discussed so in depth and tied so concretely to the justice system - as one attendee said "you never hear frank discussions of racism these days". Both Dr. Bean and Dr. Gordon commented on how President Obama has had to avoid overt discussion of racial problems, especially with the use of the death penalty and in the justice system. So folks really appreciated being able to talk at length about this issue.

Especially now, with the death penalty in Texas under constant fire, it is important for abolitionists to take on all aspects of what is wrong with our system and expose politicians, like our current governor Rick Perry, for their role in the continued shameful practice of death penalty, and in hiding the truth about who the justice system is targeting and why.

A great success in the "belly of the beast", and we thank Alan Bean and all the speakers for participating in this important event.

What students at Rowan University are saying about the Feb. 12th Tour stop!

Rowan College in New Jersey held a Tour stop on February 12th. Here's what students were saying about it:

"I felt that the 'Lynching Then, Lynching Now' program offered great insight into a very important, yet often ignored issue; the roots of the modern death penalty, and their connection to the racist institution of lynching.
This forum went a long way towards helping us as a society understand capital punishment in 21st century America." - Drew Howard, student, Rowan University.

“There is a contradiction in our society that killing is ok when the law does it. The Campaign to End the Death Penalty is putting ‘the eye for an eye’ mentality to an end. The event has awakened me to the reality that today’s capital punishment is no different then the Lynching between1882-1968.” - Ashley Fiore, Junior, Journalism, Rowan University .