David Rickard Featured

I first met David Rickard in the fall of 2007, when he attended Equal Justice USA's State Strategy and Training Retreat as the coordinator on the Arkansas team. He is the chair of the Arkansas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Dave was great to work with at the retreat - dedicated, hard-working, and focused, but also quick to laugh. He clearly knows more than a thing or two about organizing. He's someone who knows how to delegate, which should work out well, since it also seems like he just might know every person in Arkansas!

I was happy to see an interesting article about Dave in the recent issue of UU World Magazine, "UU leads Arkansas anti-death penalty campaign". The article talks about Dave's long involvement in the Unitarian Universalist community and how anti-death penalty work lines up with Unitarian Universalist beliefs. Opposition to the death penalty tied in with other work Dave had been doing to protect civil liberties, and building a relationship with a death row inmate deepened his connection to the issue.

For Dave, as for most of us, the death penalty is just one of many issues with which he's involved. Dave has worked on a wide range of other issues, from expanded library services to healthcare for children. To learn more about Dave Rickard's work on the death penalty and other issues, check out the full article here.