EJUSA mourns the death of one of our long-time partners, Serena Simmons Connelly. To read more about Serena’s incredible life and commitment to justice, you can see her obituary in the Dallas Morning News.
I want to celebrate Serena’s life by sharing some personal memories of the friend I’ve known for almost 20 years.
One of the greatest joys of my role at EJUSA comes when I get to share good news with our supporters who make our work possible. A favorite early memory of Serena came in 2007, when New Jersey became the first state to legislatively abolish the death penalty in over 50 years. EJUSA played a big role in the effort for many years, and I was at the Senate watching the final vote happen. I called Serena breathless and shaking with excitement, right from the Senate gallery. She was as thrilled as I was. The next day she sent flowers to our office with a note saying, “Congratulations to you and all the staff on turning the tide!”
She continued to cheer us on like that through every success and struggle.
Whenever I visited with Serena in Dallas, where she lived, we would share strategies together for hours about how to fight for justice and equity. She was a visionary, and she talked often about restorative justice long before the idea hit the mainstream. When she began supporting our work in 1999, our primary mission was to end the death penalty. As we began to expand our scope over the last decade, Serena immediately saw the possibilities of our transformative vision. She gave us some of our very first seed funding to enable our growth into the organization we are today.
The last time I saw Serena was last year, in October. We spent a lot of time talking about our nation’s history of racism. We shared our journeys of learning about and owning our own privilege so we could fight for racial justice. She knew that this was lifelong work and was proud to see how EJUSA’s racial equity work had grown with her support.
Thinking back on my last visit with Serena reminded me of the very first time we met in person, back in 2004. I was young and very new to running EJUSA, and I was nervous about meeting a supporter for the first time. Serena was so kind that she basically coached me on what to do! But that was just part of who she was. She was beloved by so many people, and that made her a master networker. Throughout the years, she continued to introduce me to fellow advocates, lawmakers, experts, and community partners — always organizing and working to build the movement.
Serena was brilliant and tireless in the pursuit of a better world. She forever changed the way I connect with EJUSA’s partners and showed me that we do this work by loving each other. Once you love each other, you know exactly how to forge ahead together. She will be so deeply missed by her EJUSA family, but her legacy will live on forever.
