Racist governor kills, but can’t break, an honest man

Stanley Tookie Williams had great courage and integrity. He refused to betray himself, his people and all those who believed in him—and for that the state of California put him to death by lethal injection in the early hours of Dec. 13.

Stanley Tookie Williams

Williams could have been pardoned by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger—who broke into politics after a film career in which he played the epitome of a killing machine, the “Terminator.” All Williams had to do was “confess” to murders that he had always denied committing.

In his statement denying clemency, the governor said: “Without an apology and atonement for these senseless and brutal killings there can be no redemption. In this case, the one thing that would be the clearest indication of complete remorse and full redemption is the one thing Williams will not do.”

Williams would not lie—even to save his life. He would not grovel and debase himself. He would not abandon the dignity that he had painfully acquired during over 20 years on death row.

He died at peace with himself because he refused to capitulate. And his supporters shocked the officials at San Quentin when, for the first time since executions resumed there in the 1970s, those who had witnessed the execution broke the deafening silence by putting their fists in the air and shouting out that the state had killed an innocent man.

Outside the prison, over a thousand anti-death penalty protesters who had kept up a vigil during the night mourned his death and vowed to keep up the fight. The Campaign to End the Death Penalty and other organizations called demonstrations in dozens of cities across the country.

There are thousands of people on death rows in the United States, and, as Williams himself has said, none of them are millionaires. The U.S. has executed more than 1,000 people since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Many have been posthumously proven innocent. The “criminal justice” system is distorted at every step of the way by class and racial oppression.

What made Williams stand out was his deep transformation from a young African American gang leader, a co-founder of the Crips, to an eloquent prison author who reached out to young people and compellingly urged them to turn away from violence against each other and do something positive for themselves and their communities.

Williams had no problem talking and writing about the terrible role of gang warfare, or his own lost early years. But he always maintained that he had not committed the murders for which he was sent to death row. His whole mature life was more than mere “atonement” for his past—he became a very conscious, organized influence on young people to never become what he had once been.

His inspiring turnaround led to the film “Redemption” with actor Jamie Foxx, one of the many people who tried to keep the state from executing him.

But none of this was enough for the governor. This darling of the ultra-rich, who has alienated the public workers of California with his anti-labor budget cutting, betrayed the political character of his decision when he said, in his denial-of-clemency statement:

“The dedication of Williams’ book ‘Life in Prison’ casts significant doubt on his personal redemption. This book was published in 1998, several years after Wil liams’ claimed redemptive experience. Specifically, the book is dedicated to ‘Nelson Mandela, Angela Davis, Malcolm X, Assata Shakur, Geronimo Ji Jaga Pratt, Ramona Africa, John Africa, Leonard Peltier, Dhoruba Al-Mujahid, George Jackson, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and the countless other men, women, and youths who have to endure the hellish oppression of living behind bars.’ The mix of individuals on this list is curious. Most have violent pasts and some have been convicted of committing heinous murders, including the killing of law enforcement.

“But the inclusion of George Jackson on this list defies reason and is a significant indicator that Williams is not reformed and that he still sees violence and lawlessness as a legitimate means to address societal problems.”

For hundreds of years, from the kidnapping of millions of African people to the enslavement of those who survived the “Middle Passage” to the lynching of their descendants and the murders of civil rights activists, Black people in this country have suffered incredible “violence and lawlessness” at the hands of those who would exploit them. So have Native people, who were nearly exterminated by the capitalist settler state.

The great historical figures to whom Williams had the audacity to dedicate his book have been selfless fighters in the struggle for freedom, equality and self-deter mination. They exemplify the very best traditions of all progressive movements.

Schwarzenegger’s statement betrays the utterly reactionary character of this execution, and shows how frightened the plutocrats at the top are that their crimes against the people, here and around the world, are already igniting another great mass struggle for justice. Stanley Tookie Williams will be remembered and honored long after the “Governator” is gone.