Fight grows vs. Texas death machine
From a talk by
Gloria Rubac at the Dec. 2-3 Workers World Party
conference.
This has been a year of extreme highs and lows for
the struggle to abolish the death penalty. We've seen a
moratorium on executions in one state and resolutions
supporting a moratorium passed in over 20 cities across the
country.
Because of Mumia Abu-Jamal, Shaka Sankofa and Ponchai
Kamau Wilkerson, more people have been exposed to the racism
and injustices inherent in the death penalty. Texas prisoner
Pam Perillo finally got off death row because after 20 years
a court decided that her attorney shouldn't have been
sleeping with the main witness against her.
Yet Calvine Burdine was told that having a sleeping
attorney was okay, since he couldn't prove that his lawyer
slept during "important" parts of his trial. Texas is going
to execute at least 40 people this year--a new record.
Those of us on the front line of this struggle in Texas
are seeing a new attitude toward the assembly-line death
machine. Even in Huntsville, where Gov. George W. Bush
carries out executions, support is waning. In this town of
35,000 people, eight prisons and one university, there is
actually vocal and visible opposition to the death penalty.
It's just beginning but it has got to be a sign of what's to
come.
Students at Sam Houston State University recently held an
anti-death-penalty rally on campus. A criminal justice
professor went to the City Council and proposed a resolution
calling for a moratorium on executions.
After one execution this year, a group of us who protested
stopped to eat at a Huntsville restaurant. When we got ready
to pay our bill, we were told that someone had already taken
care of it. They told the cashier that they felt like we'd
had a really bad day.
When long-held attitudes are breaking down in Huntsville,
good news can't be too far behind.
One thousand people protested militantly last June against
the execution of Shaka Sankofa. Since then the struggle has
been growing in Houston. New activists are joining the Texas
Death Penalty Abolition Movement.
On Sept. 5 we organized a commemoration for what would
have been Shaka's 38th birthday. The highlight of the evening
was when Deidre Hawkins, Shaka's daughter, introduced us to
her five-day-old son, Shaka Sankofa Jr. Just as Shaka lives
in our spirit, he also lives in his newborn grandson.
As we chanted at the governor's mansion in Austin last
month, "George Bush, it's not over, we remember Shaka
Sankofa!"
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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