The Campaign to End the Death Penalty along with the Community of Sant’Egidio held rallies on the Hilltop and throughout the District to raise public awareness of the injustice of the death penalty Wednesday.
These activites were part of series of nationwide events hosted by various social justice groups.
“For a developed country to have the death penalty is something difficult to comprehend,” Christine Wong, a Community of Sant’Egidio member said. “It is a contradiction to promote peace and equality while upholding something so inhumane.”
The demonstrations come at a symbolic moment for the D.C. area. If not for an eleventh-hour call by Governor Mark Warner (D-Va), yesterday would have marked the 1000th execution nationwide since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Warner granted clemency to Robin Levitt once the inmate’s guilt came into serious doubt.
Last night, the D.C. chapter of CEDP, which includes Georgetown University, organized a rally and town hall meeting in Columbia Heights, one of 36 similar events the organization arranged nationwide.
Grant said that CEDP chips away at the death penalty on a case- by-case basis, pooling efforts from chapters all over the country to achieve greater success.
The group aims to pressure Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger into freeing California death row inmate Stanley “Tookie” Williams.
“We are trying to raise awareness about Tookie’s execution and to put pressure on Schwartzenegger,” Georgetown CEDP chapter president Sheila Grant (CAS ‘08) said. “He needs to know that the world is watching and the world cares.”
Williams’ achievements both in and out of prison have attracted attention from celebrities including the rapper Snoop Dogg.
Once the co-founder of the well-known L.A. gang the Crips, Williams renounced his violent past, wrote nine children’s books and was nominated multiple times for the Nobel Peace and Literature prizes as a convict.
The CEDP has taken note of the student group’s efforts.
“Students speaking out on campus about capital punishment can help to expose the unfairness, racism, and barbarity of this continued practice,” CEDP national director Marlene Martin said.
“By holding rallies, speak-outs, petition drives, etc. they can help to raise the debate about what it means for us as a society to continue to have capital punishment and begin to challenge it.”
