TN DEATH PENALTY BLOG
We are traveling through Tennessee's heartland and highways, meeting folks and starting conversations about our death penalty.
Previous Posts
- Tennessee Study Committee Issues a Report
- No Evidence Linking House to Murder
- Steve Henley Media Coverage
- Another Extension to the Paul House Case
- Saying Goodbye
- Clemency for Steve Henley
- Memphis Commerical Appeal Editorial and Analysis
- Arthur Copeland Receives New Sentence
- Letting Go of the Death Penalty
- What Does it Take?
Links
- Abolish the Death Penalty Blog
- Amnesty International Death Penalty Blog
- Asia Death Penalty Blog
- For Victims, Against the Death Penalty
- The Real Cost of Prisons Blog
- Uncommon Sense on the Death Penalty
- National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
- Death Penalty Information Center
- Citizens United Against the Death Penalty
- Murder Victims Families for Human Rights
- Google News: TN death penalty
Contributors
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Abolitionist Legacy
Dianne Rust-Tierney, Executive Director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty had an excellent article published in The Huffington Post titled "We, Too, Are Abolitionists: Black History Month, Slavery, and the Death Penalty."
Read it by CLICKING HERE.
Highlights include:
"If a slave killed his master or another white person, or raped a white woman, the penalty was automatic death. If a white person killed or raped a slave, the punishment might be imprisonment or a fine. Most crimes by whites against slaves went unpunished. The laws carried the clear, if unstated, message, that some lives are worth more than others. This is still true today, as there are more people of color sentenced to death whose victims were white than the reverse."
"Dr. King's widow, Coretta Scott King, said, "As one whose husband and mother-in-law have died the victims of murder and assassination, I stand firmly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty for those convicted of capital offenses. . . An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation. Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life. Morality is never upheld by legalized murder."
Read it by CLICKING HERE.
Highlights include:
"If a slave killed his master or another white person, or raped a white woman, the penalty was automatic death. If a white person killed or raped a slave, the punishment might be imprisonment or a fine. Most crimes by whites against slaves went unpunished. The laws carried the clear, if unstated, message, that some lives are worth more than others. This is still true today, as there are more people of color sentenced to death whose victims were white than the reverse."
"Dr. King's widow, Coretta Scott King, said, "As one whose husband and mother-in-law have died the victims of murder and assassination, I stand firmly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty for those convicted of capital offenses. . . An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation. Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life. Morality is never upheld by legalized murder."
Labels: abolitionist, Black History Month
