Freddie Owens. Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams. Travis Mullis. Emmanuel Littlejohn. Alan Miller. Five men, all of them executed over the previous seven days. The last time we had so much state-sponsored killing was in 2003. It has been a horrific week, and I suspect you feel the same heaviness that all of us at EJUSA carry. …
Introduction Welcome, dear readers, to a journey through the intertwined threads of history, injustice, and the pursuit of a more equitable future. At Equal Justice USA (EJUSA), we set our focus with precision on dismantling the pervasive structures of anti-Blackness ingrained within the American criminal legal system. Historical Roots and the Legacy of Virginia Slave…
I have been working at EJUSA for almost 19 years, all of them spent beating back our legacy of killing people as punishment for harm they committed. State by state, we have repealed death penalty laws or convinced governors to halt executions to end this terrible, misguided practice that does not make us safer. Now,…
I’ve been waiting to tell you this news for some time. Today, Equal Justice USA officially welcomed the Restorative Justice Project onto our team. Impact Justice, an ally organization in the justice movement, has been operating the Project, launched by the visionary sujatha baliga, since 2015. Impact Justice felt like now was the right time…
Earlier this year, international opera singer Ryan McKinny emailed EJUSA out of the blue. He told us that he was performing the role of Joseph De Rocher in a new production of “Dead Man Walking” at The Metropolitan Opera. He wanted to use his platform, the biggest of his career to date, to elevate our…
I was at the train station in Charlottesville talking to two women about our mutual appreciation for the musical Jesus Christ Superstar, which they would see in DC. They shared about their work as librarians. I shared about Equal Justice USA and our desire for every community to be safe and healthy, where violence is…
I don’t doubt that you learned of the recent conclusion to the trial for the mass murder at the Tree of Life synagogue, in Pittsburgh. A jury delivered a death penalty sentence for the killing of 11 worshippers in 2018. At Equal Justice USA, we focus on survivors of violence and trauma in every aspect…
“There is no reason to kill. No reason for me to kill, no reason for you to kill, and no reason for the state to kill.” These are the words of Lawrence Hayes as he spoke at the “Live from Death Row Tour,” a national speaking tour with a focus on building opposition to the…
In a year in which political campaigns and media drove public perception of rising crime to record highs, support for the death penalty in 2022 remains near the lowest it’s been in 50 years. Even among conservatives, support for the death penalty fell five percentage points, despite a barrage of media stoking fear in the…
Chain Gang All Stars
Satire. Artists of all types use it to hold a mirror up to society, maybe one of those fun house mirrors that distorts the image, makes it large, twists it around. In that redefined image, there’s a truth, one that perhaps we’re often guilty of not seeing. The mirror makes it easier for us to…
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