Coalition Building in the Anti-Death Penalty Movement: Privileged Morality, Race Realities

Criminal Justice • Social Movements

“Jones has courageously taken one of the most—perhaps the most—painful internal problems of the movement and has calmly and meticulously examined it from the perspective of black and white participants. Bringing this issue out of private discussion and into the light of scholarly examination should make it possible for participants in the movement to evaluate and cope with this painful and destructive divide.” —Margaret Vandiver, University of Memphis While a great deal of research has been done about many aspects of the death penalty, very little attention has been paid to the movement organized against it. Coalition Building in the Anti–Death Penalty Movement fills that gap with an empirical examination of the external and internal factors that shape the role race plays in the anti–death penalty movement. While the death rows across the United States are overwhelmingly filled with racial minorities and the poor, the ranks of the anti–death penalty movement are dominated by white, middle-class professionals. The attention given to race arises out of this racial distinction between death row inmates and the activists who advocate for them. By conducting interviews with white, black, and Latino anti–death penalty activists, this book examines the influence of race on the mobilization of activists. The concepts of political opportunity, mobilizing structures, and framing provided by the political process model, are used to describe the complex manner in which moral opposition to the death penalty is shaped by the racial realities of the activists. Although racial tensions lie just below the surface, they nonetheless create real obstacles for the movement as it strives to build a racially diverse constituency. Sandra J. Jones is assistant professor of sociology at Rowan University.

COALITION BUILDING IN THE ANTI–DEATH PENALTY MOVEMENT

“The death penalty is a scandal in itself, as the dedicated members of the movement to abolish it know so well. The racism of the death penalty is a scandal within that scandal, as Sandra J. Jones demonstrates with fierce dedication and honesty in this book. The product of years of intensive research, a thorough grasp of the social science literature, a deeply felt activism and sense of social justice, and an inspiring sense of humanity, Jones’s study both moves us deeply and enlightens us profoundly. This book will serve as the action manual for the anti–death penalty movement as it advances toward its long-delayed goal of abolition. Highly recommended for those who seek justice and mercy, for those who oppose racism, and for those who want to teach or learn about social movements in the contemporary United States.” —Howard Winant, University of California, Santa Barbara and director, Center for New Racial Studies

JONES

“This book is no exercise in sterile, disinterested research. Sandra J. Jones’s investigation of one of the persistent difficulties faced by the movement to abolish America’s death penalty—the failure to mobilize the African American and Latino communities effectively—is driven by her passionate opposition to both capital punishment and racial injustice. As is always true of the best politically engaged scholarship, her conclusions have immediate value to those struggling in the trenches. Indeed, their value grows as capital punishment’s grip on public opinion wanes.” —Herbert Haines, SUNY Cortland

COALITION BUILDING IN THE ANTI–DEATH PENALTY MOVEMENT PRIVILEGED MORALITY, RACE REALITIES

SANDRA J. JONES

For orders and information please contact the publisher Lexington Books A division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200 Lanham, Maryland 20706 1-800-462-6420 www.lexingtonbooks.com

CoalitionBuildingPODLITH.indd 1

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Coalition Building in the Anti–Death Penalty Movement

Coalition Building in the Anti–Death Penalty Movement Privileged Morality, Race Realities

Sandra J. Jones

LEXINGTON BOOKS A division of ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC. Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK

Published by Lexington Books A division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 http://www.lexingtonbooks.com Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom Copyright © 2010 by Lexington Books All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jones, Sandra J., 1965– Coalition building in the anti–death penalty movement : privileged morality, race realities / Sandra J. Jones. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7391-2038-5 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-7391-4328-5 (electronic) 1. Capital punishment—Moral and ethical aspects—United States. 2. Capital punishment—Political aspects—United States. 3. Racism—United States. 4. Social action—United States. 5. Social movements—United States. I. Title. HV8699.U5J66 2010 364.660973—dc22 2009035459

⬁ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of

American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America

For my children Will, Alexandra, Samantha

Contents

Acknowledgments

vii

Introduction

1

1

Political Process Theory and the Anti–Death Penalty Movement

13

2

Becoming Mobilized against the Death Penalty

61

3

Political Opportunities and Constraints on Activism

97

4

Organizational Dynamics in the Movement

145

5

Framing Opposition to the Death Penalty

195

6

Future Directions

235

Appendix A: Methodology

271

Appendix B: Demographic Characteristics of Sample

275

Appendix C: Anti–Death Penalty Organizations Represented by the Activists

277

Bibliography

285

Index

295

About the Author

301

vii

Acknowledgments

This project could have never been completed without the guidance and constant support of many people. I have been extremely fortunate to have had numerous professors, mentors, fellow activists, friends, and family members encouraging me throughout my studies. While it is not possible to name every individual who has cheered me on at various points of the process, I wish to acknowledge those persons who supported me throughout the writing of this book. In addition, I must acknowledge my editor, Michael Sisskin, for his endless patience, as well as his excellent communication and guidance throughout this process. Throughout my doctoral studies at Temple University, I was extremely fortunate to work with a collection of individuals who are distinguished scholars with concentrations in many areas, including race, politics, and social movements. The knowledge and insight that several of my Temple professors shared with me proved to be invaluable as I progressed through the stages of the research process that provided the basis for this project. To my mentor, Howard Winant, I am exceptionally grateful for the numerous hours over the many years in which he has offered me his guidance and encouragement. He was most instrumental as I eagerly sought to wed my passion for the study of race and that of the anti–death penalty movement in a scholarly fashion. His extensive knowledge of the ways in which race permeates every level of society challenged me to consider the many complexities that lie with the racial dimension of the anti–death penalty movement. Without his constant encouragement, patience, advice, and friendship, I would not have written this book. Two other professors during my graduate studies at Temple University offered valuable input to this endeavor as well. Michelle Byng provided me ix

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with substantial direction as I sought to define the research problem that concerned me and she also played a very instrumental role in the development of my research design. Equally valuable were the theoretical and methodological insights provided by Rosario Espinal. She offered me essential instruction on ways to explicitly develop my arguments throughout the writing process. I am extremely grateful to each of them for the role that they played in the development of this project. I am also very grateful to Herbert Haines, who graciously offered me his time through numerous e-mail and telephone exchanges from a distance after I hunted him down and convinced him that, although he had never met me before, he must play a part in my project. His extensive, captivating study of the anti–death penalty movement served as a primary inspiration for this study. I also had the privilege of working with Mark Taylor, who is both a scholar and an anti–death penalty activist. His expertise in the areas of theology and culture were particularly helpful to my examination of the framing strategies of the anti–death penalty movement. Taylor’s experience living in both worlds of academia and activism proved to be very helpful as I sought advice on how to avoid allowing my own biases as an activist to interfere with my research. I am also beholden to the forty-nine activists who graciously offered their time and insight into the anti–death penalty movement. The commitment that they each display to the quest for justice and the tireless efforts that they demonstrate on behalf of individuals whom they may never meet is more than admirable. As they shared their stories with me, I was truly inspired and driven all the more to complete this study. To Linda Thurston, I would like to extend a special thank you for taking me to that first anti–death penalty meeting fifteen years ago and for modeling a way for me to put my desire for racial justice into action. She is not only a walking encyclopedia in terms of her knowledge about the death penalty and the movement to abolish it, but she is one of the most dedicated people I have ever met in the struggle for social justice. To say that she has been an inspiration to me is an understatement. There have been numerous other activists I have encountered over the years since that first meeting I attended who have similarly demonstrated such a tremendous dedication to the fight against the death penalty that I can only hope to achieve in my lifetime a portion of what they have accomplished. I have been fortunate enough to be able to call many of these inspiring, amazing activists my mentors and friends. Their example and friendship got me through the writing of this book more than they can possibly know. In addition to Linda Thurston, these individuals include Marpessa Kupendua, Ramona Africa, Pam Africa, Pat Clark, and my most recently acquired, though no less amazing or inspiring, lifelong friend Magdaleno Rose-Avila. I have also had the benefit of enormous support from many friends and family members over the years that I have been engaged in this proj-

Acknowledgments

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ect. I have managed to retain many friends over the years, despite the constraints on my time as I attended to the demands of graduate school, a career, and raising a family. I am filled with gratitude for the love, support, and patience of the many friends who have cheered me on over the years that I began and carried out this project. While the names of these wonderful people whom I have been fortunate enough to have in my life are too numerous to mention here, I must extend my appreciation to my longtime friend Colleen Wilhelm for patiently listening to me vent my frustrations over the many years leading up to the completion of this project. I am also indebted to Yvonne Milionis for not only her loyal friendship but also her excellent transcribing skills. I owe my sanity in large part to my dear friends Adriana Bohm and Mary Stricker, who made sure that I stepped away to wriggle my toes in the sand when breaks were needed in order to regroup and come back to my computer refreshed and ready to get back to work. I made many other friends during my graduate school years who have also been there from the beginning of this project and managed to hang in there to the end, proving that their friendship is the lasting kind. They include Joan Darvish, Caitlin Howley, Chris Paul, and Greg Mungan. I am most grateful to my family, as their love and support began long before this project. My parents, Bonnie and Robert Busic, have offered me their constant love and encouragement throughout my life. If it were not for my father teaching me the importance of maintaining a strong moral conviction to one’s beliefs and my mother modeling for me the true meaning of compassion and forgiveness, I would have never found my way to the anti–death penalty movement. I have been lucky enough to have many other family members who have also been there in my formative years, as well as throughout the writing of this book. They include my grandparents, Ken and Hilda Hartman and Lois Busic; my siblings, Suzanne Moore, John Busic, and Robert Busic; as well as many extended family members. My inlaws, Helene Jones, Trevonia Sumler, and Vickie Hawkins, have also been supportive throughout this process. Words cannot express my gratitude to William Jones, my husband, for his unwavering love and reassurance, without which I surely would not have had the strength to persevere throughout the many challenges that were presented to me along the road that has brought me to the completion of this book. He has exemplified more patience than should be required by any spouse and he shares in this accomplishment as if it were his own because he lived this process alongside me. I dedicate this book to my stepson Will Lebeck, and my daughters Alexandra and Samantha Jones, who much more than distracted me from my writing, provided me with the perfect balance of joy and hope for the future that I needed to keep me focused and determined to reach its completion.

Introduction

The death penalty never sat well with me. Raised in the Southern Baptist Church, I was taught at an early age that we should “turn the other cheek” and “love our enemies.” The shock I felt upon discovering that my state was killing people turned to disillusionment when I learned that many of the people from my church in rural Virginia—the same people who had taught me about the love and forgiveness of God—apparently had no moral problems with homicide when it was carried out by the state. These same people who professed to be “pro-life” did not maintain the sanctity of life when it involved a convicted killer. When I learned that over half of those on death row in Virginia were African American, I couldn’t help but wonder if the parishioners at my all-white church would hold the same attitudes toward the death penalty if such an extreme racial disparity in capital sentencing did not exist. The disillusionment I felt from the church that had essentially been my second childhood home had only grown as I witnessed the paternalistic overtures that were made to the occasional black visitors of my church. These visitors had somehow failed to sense the invisible color line that had been drawn around the church property when it was built over two hundred years earlier. It was from this background that I developed not only a very passionate stance against the death penalty but also a level of race consciousness that led to my steadfast commitment to antiracist efforts. In 1993, I migrated north to attend graduate school in Philadelphia. When my fellow classmates and I were encouraged to develop our research interests, I knew right away that I wanted to focus somehow on the racial aspects of the death penalty. In the fight against racism, this seemed like an obvious place to direct my energy. I reasoned that the most blatant 1

2

Introduction

example of the disparate value placed on the lives of our nation’s citizens along the lines of race could be seen with the administration of the death penalty. When I shared this research interest of mine with one of my fellow classmates, her face brightened upon hearing about my strong opposition to the death penalty. Linda had been a dedicated activist for many years in the struggle for the abolition of the death penalty. She invited me to accompany her to a local meeting of an anti–death penalty organization in Philadelphia scheduled for later that month. I was excited to learn that people were actually working toward the abolition of the death penalty. I would soon learn that an established anti–death penalty movement had been organized across the nation for many years. Although the contemporary anti–death penalty movement is typically recognized as having its roots in the 1970s, organized collective action against the death penalty has been taking place as far back as the eighteenth century. With his extensive history of the anti–death penalty movement, Herbert Haines details the cyclical nature of the movement.1 He focuses most of his attention on the most recent wave of abolitionism, which began as a reaction to the 1976 Gregg decision. This U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowed for the reinstatement of the death penalty, following a brief four-year hiatus from executions that came with the 1972 Supreme Court’s Furman ruling.2 In the thirty years that have passed since the 1976 Gregg decision sparked the most recent wave of anti–death penalty abolitionism, the level of public support for the death penalty has fluctuated. Shortly after I discovered that an anti–death penalty movement existed, public support for the death penalty peaked in 1994, when 80 percent of those polled indicated that they support executions.3 Despite the fact that polls have continued to reveal that a majority of U.S. citizens support the death penalty, a growing number are voicing opposition to such an extreme form of punishment. An October 2008 Gallup Poll found the lowest level (64 percent) of support for the death penalty since 1978, when 62 percent indicated that they favor the death penalty.4 Public opposition to the death penalty has been fueled by the escalating number of inmates who have been exonerated in recent years. Due in part to advances with DNA technology, our nation has exonerated since 1973 over 130 inmates from death row upon receiving evidence of their innocence.5 Politicians are falling in line with the trend of public opposition, as a small, yet growing number of them are taking political risks with their endorsement of moratorium legislation. The most famous of such politicians is former Illinois governor George Ryan, who approved a moratorium on executions in January 2000 after his state had released 13 innocent inmates from death row within the same time period that it had executed 12. On January 11, 2003, just three days before leaving office, Ryan commuted the

Introduction

3

sentences of all 167 death row inmates in his state, citing the flawed process that led to their death sentences.6 Over the years that have passed since Ryan’s infamous commutation of everyone who sat on Illinois’ death row, several other governors have found the political courage to endorse anti–death penalty legislation. Two went so far as to sign bills that supported their state legislature’s repeal of the death penalty. On December 17, 2007, Governor Jon Corzine signed legislation that made New Jersey the first state in more than forty years to legislatively ban the death penalty.7 New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson followed on March 18, 2009, with his signature on a bill that abolished his state’s death penalty. Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley sponsored a bill that would have abolished the death penalty in his state, yet a full repeal did not pass both the House and Senate. Instead, Governor O’Malley compromised with lawmakers to pass a bill on May 7, 2009, that severely limits his state’s ability to execute murderers.8 Although public support for the death penalty has been declining in recent years, increased opposition does not automatically translate into collective action. Only a limited number of those who have come to oppose the death penalty have joined the ranks of activists who share their opposition. While the anti–death penalty movement has been well organized for several decades now, it remains fairly small in size. What drives those individuals who feel so strongly that the death penalty is wrong that they are willing to dedicate their time, and very often their life’s work, to the movement that is organized in the fight for its abolition? This question has aroused my curiosity ever since I was invited to my first anti–death penalty meeting approximately fifteen years ago. As I anticipated meeting a group of people who share my concerns about the death penalty, I researched the death row statistics for my new home of Pennsylvania. I discovered that the racial disparities I had found on Virginia’s death row paled in comparison to those found in Pennsylvania. A striking 70 percent of those on Pennsylvania’s death row are racial minorities, and the vast majority (60 percent) is African American.9 Such alarming statistics led me to expect that those whom I was to meet at my first anti– death penalty meeting would share my outrage about the apparent racial bias operating with Pennsylvania’s criminal justice system. When I arrived at the meeting, I was startled by my first glimpse of the group of anti–death penalty activists surrounding the table. My friend who had taken me to the meeting was the only African American in the room, and it was also clear that she and I were the youngest people there. The small group of approximately eight people in attendance at my first anti–death penalty meeting consisted entirely of white people who were significantly older than my friend and me. Since I had been driven to oppose the death penalty primarily by the racial disparities in capital sentencing, I

4

Introduction

expected to find others who shared this concern. In the past, I had grown accustomed to being in the racial minority among those who are concerned with confronting issues of racism. As a result, I was expecting to be one of few whites, if not the only white person, among those at the meeting that evening. Either I had unfairly misjudged this group of white activists for the level of concern that they possessed about the racism of the death penalty or there were other reasons that compelled them to join the movement. I would soon find the latter of the two explanations to be the case. In the months that followed, I continued to attend the meetings and events of this Philadelphia group organized against the death penalty. I learned that there are many reasons why people are driven to oppose the death penalty. The aspect of the death penalty that had outraged me enough to join ranks with other activists—the racial bias found with its application—was not even apparent among the many reasons that my fellow activists provided for their involvement in the movement. This dedicated group of white, middle-class professionals almost all over the age of fifty based their opposition to the death penalty primarily on religious and/or moral grounds. I was disheartened by the reception I received when I shared my outrage about the racial aspects of the death penalty. Although my fellow activists agreed that the racial disparities found with capital sentencing were alarming, they did not perceive such arguments as viable organizing tools in the movement; therefore, they chose not to focus on racial issues. I was also very disappointed by the lack of racial diversity, as well as the apparent disregard for this lack of diversity, that I found within the membership of this group of activists. I began to wonder if the anti–death penalty group that I had joined was typical of others across the nation, both in terms of its racial composition and with its tendency to de-emphasize the racial aspects of the death penalty. As I became involved in national conferences, demonstrations, and other events that were attended by anti–death penalty activists from across the nation, I found that almost exclusively white, middle-class professionals attended these events. It was around this time that Herbert Haines published his book that provided an extensive examination of the contemporary anti–death penalty movement.10 While he noted that the movement was struggling to diversify its constituency, he nonetheless observed, “Its ranks have been filled mostly by middle-class white people with professional backgrounds and liberal politics.”11 From his research of the movement, Haines found that activists in the movement are driven primarily by their moral outrage. He concluded that the failure of the anti–death penalty movement to stop executions is largely due to the fact that it has had “too few members, too little money, and too little broad appeal in the messages that the movement has tried to deliver.”12

Introduction

5

The activists in my study represent over twenty different organizations located within their communities, all of which are affiliated with the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP). This national organization formed in reaction to the reinstatement of the death penalty that came with the 1976 Gregg decision. Its mission is boldly proclaimed on the organization’s website: Abolish the death penalty in the U.S. and support efforts to abolish the death penalty world wide.13 Although NCADP does not maintain an official count of its membership, it is sustained by a network of over one hundred national and state affiliates. NCADP engages its state affiliates and local activists in numerous activities toward the shared goal of death penalty abolition, including training opportunities for volunteers in campaign strategy preparation and implementation, as well as networking and coalition building. Each year activists affiliated with NCADP assemble for a national conference to exchange ideas and encourage one another in their struggle toward the abolition of the death penalty. Haines notes that it has only been fairly recently in NCADP’s history that these activists have made a conscious effort to diversify their movement. “In 1992, the coalition adopted the policy that each of its affiliates should be committed to inclusiveness and should seek to diversify along the lines of race, ethnicity, gender, disability, and sexual orientation. And for the first time, the NCADP included a diversity workshop in the agenda of its 1992 national conference.”14 Over the years that have passed since NCADP has shifted attention to the diversity of the movement, efforts to maintain this focus have continued. Approximately one decade after NCADP first included a conference workshop that focused on the need to diversify the ranks of the anti–death penalty movement, I began my analysis of the progress that has been made toward that aim. I interviewed forty activists who were all affiliated with NCADP, either in national leadership positions or as rank-and-file members of various abolitionist organizations found at the state or national levels. The group of activists who spoke with me is certainly not meant to be a representative sample of all anti–death penalty activists from across the nation, as they were drawn primarily from the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. My sample contains twenty blacks and twenty whites. There were so few Latinos affiliated with NCADP in the mainstream anti–death penalty movement when I began my research that I did not include them in my initial sample. While they remain a tiny fraction of the various racial and ethnic groups found within the movement, the number of Latino activists has grown in recent years. Though small in number, their voice is growing louder in abolitionist circles. As a result of their emergent presence in the movement, I felt it necessary to incorporate their views into my study.15 In the months leading to the publication of this book, therefore, I sought to

6

Introduction

include within my sample the views of nine prominent Latino activists who are affiliated with NCADP.16 The presence of Asian Americans and Native Americans in the mainstream movement is virtually nonexistent, particularly in the Mid-Atlantic region of the nation where I conducted my research. As a result, I did not include anyone from those racial groups in my sample of activists that I interviewed. The small number of activists in the movement from these two groups is the likely result of not only their relatively small percentage of the U.S. population (approximately 5 percent Asian American and 1 percent Native American), but also their small proportion of the inmates found on our nation’s death rows. Combined, these two groups constitute only 2 percent of death row inmates.17 Upon the thirty-year anniversary of both the Gregg decision and NCADP, nearly two hundred abolitionists from across the country gathered in Fairfax, Virginia, on October 26, 2006, for their annual conference, NCADP 2006: Abolition Rising. The subject of race appeared to be more present in the conference agenda than it had ever been in the past. The conference opened with the premier of a film, Race to Execution, which “offers a compelling and original investigation of America’s death penalty by probing how race discrimination infects our capital punishment system.”18 Hugo Bedau, a longtime abolitionist whose anti-death penalty activism dates back to the late 1950s, gave the keynote address that kicked off the first full day of workshops. Within his address, entitled “Racism, Wrongful Convictions and the Death Penalty,” Bedau emphasized the importance of focusing on racism and wrongful convictions when abolitionists advance arguments against the death penalty. He lamented, “The questions I want to focus on have so far not received the attention they merit; they have been neglected, to the best of my knowledge, by all of us,” therefore, he proposed that the movement “remedy this long-standing neglect.”19 Bedau’s fellow activists certainly appeared up to his charge to focus more on race, as several workshops took on this subject over the next few days of the conference. This dominant theme was articulated well when one workshop panelist stated that the time is long overdue for activists to “name the dragon,” as she stressed that race is an issue that we have to raise. The stories of the activists told within this book are fascinating on many levels. It is remarkable that individuals who oppose the death penalty find their way to such an unpopular movement at all, particularly because they are not usually the direct beneficiaries of their activism. Yet they are activists in every sense of the word, as the time that they dedicate to their work against the death penalty pervades their lives to a significant level. Indeed, for most of those I interviewed, their position against the death penalty has become a vital component of their identity. They identify as more than

Introduction

7

just “activists,” however, as they shamelessly distinguish themselves as anti–death penalty activists. They are called “conscience constituents” by social movement theorists because it is their conscience that drives their activism. Unlike participants in other social movements, most of the activists in the anti–death penalty movement do not stand to personally gain from the abolition of the death penalty. Only a very small minority of those involved in this movement are the family and friends of death row inmates. The vast majority is driven simply by a passionate ideological stance against the death penalty. Although they would assert that we all stand to benefit from the abolition of the death penalty, in that it would create a less violent society, most of the activists who dedicate their time to the movement are not the direct beneficiaries of their hard work. So what drives these committed activists to work so hard to see the end of the death penalty? As one who has always been driven principally by questions focused on race, it did not take long for my initial question, centered on what motivates people to join the anti–death penalty movement, to turn into a host of other questions that put race at center stage. What drives white, middle-class professionals, by far the dominant group in the movement, to advocate on behalf of death row inmates, who are overwhelmingly poor and come in disproportionate numbers from communities of color? This is an interesting question, and not simply because it is about whites who are advocating for minorities. Indeed there is a long history in our nation of interracial coalitions that have been built on behalf of communities of color. John Brown is probably the most famous white slavery abolitionist who joined ranks with “Negroes” in the fight against slavery. From his “oneto-one relationship with so many blacks of daring and courage” Brown built an interracial coalition for the infamous 1859 Harper’s Ferry raid that would lead to his own execution.20 The number of white dissenters grew and became more organized over time, leading to the formation of such organizations as the Commission of Interracial Cooperation (CIC) in 1919. The CIC joined the efforts of the NAACP toward the interracial antilynching campaign that brought upper-class white women into the fight to end the lynching of blacks.21 Whites played an important role in the civil rights movement as well, for it was only after the white Freedom Riders found themselves beaten by an Alabama mob in 1961 that “the patience of the administration snapped, and Robert Kennedy ordered in federal marshals.”22 The activism of whites within the contemporary anti–death penalty movement is in keeping with this extraordinary tradition of interracial coalitions. Their activism is particularly remarkable because they are fighting on behalf of death row inmates, who are demonized by society as the most despicable

8

Introduction

among us, all within an atmosphere where both racism and law and order politics remain alive and well. Equally compelling questions surrounding the involvement of whites in the anti–death penalty movement involve the relative absence of blacks. In a movement that is organized to fight for the lives of the overwhelmingly black population of death row inmates, why are there so few black activists involved? I am not suggesting that the well-documented racial disparities found with the death penalty necessarily guarantee opposition among blacks to executions. Indeed, just as the level of overall public support for the death penalty steadily climbed in recent decades until it reached its peak in the mid-1990s, so too did the level of black support. At the same time that elevated support is found among blacks, however, the level of this support remains significantly lower than that present in the larger society. In August 2007, a poll conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that while a majority (68 percent) of whites support the death penalty, a minority (40 percent) of blacks demonstrate such support.23 Since support for the death penalty remains lower among blacks than in the white population, logic seems to dictate that a higher proportion of blacks than whites would involve themselves in the anti–death penalty movement. This is a particularly intuitive expectation given the racial composition of death row. Nearly 42 percent of death row inmates are African American.24 Why then are so few blacks willing to commit their energies to the fight for the abolition of the death penalty? Are there forces external to the movement that prevent greater numbers of blacks from joining ranks with activists struggling to see the end of what they view as no less than state murder? Or is there something that those within the movement are doing or failing to do that is hindering their ability to attract more blacks to their cause? There are no easy answers to these questions, as a combination of factors interacts to shape the racial face of the movement. Bringing Latinos into my analysis of the difficulties that the anti–death penalty movement has had attracting a diverse constituency only leads to more questions. The attitudes that this segment of the population possesses about the death penalty are very similar to those found among African Americans. A recent survey found comparable percentages of blacks (51 percent) and Latinos (47 percent) that oppose the death penalty.25 Less than half of each group goes so far as to convey their support for the death penalty, with slightly more Latinos (48 percent) than blacks (40 percent) endorsing this form of punishment. While a greater percentage of Latinos than blacks are found to support the death penalty, both groups are significantly less likely than whites (68 percent) to favor the death penalty.26 It has been estimated that approximately 11 percent of death row inmates across the United States are Latino.27 This is a conservative estimate, however, as many states do not gather data on the number of incarcerated

Introduction

9

Latinos, categorizing them instead as either white or black. As a result, there are likely to be many more Latino death row inmates than have been documented, with the statistics reflecting an undercounting of the actual number. Broadening the scope to include the total number of prisoners behind bars, rather than just those on death row, even a conservative estimate of Latinos who are incarcerated in prisons across the country is alarming. In July 2007, a report published by The Sentencing Project notes that “In 2005, Hispanics comprised 20% of the state and federal prison population, a rise of 43% since 1990. As a result of these trends, one of every six Hispanic males and one of every 45 Hispanic females born today can expect to go to prison in his or her lifetime.”28 The report further added that the current national rate of incarceration for Latinos—742 per 100,000—is nearly double the rate of whites behind bars. Perhaps the greater tendency of Latinos than whites to oppose the death penalty is somehow related to the greater likelihood that Latinos are personally affected by the prison system, either as an inmate or as a loved one of an inmate. Whatever the reasons for their opposition to the death penalty, by and large these reasons have not served to mobilize Latinos to join the movement that is organized around this issue. The presence of Latinos within the anti–death penalty movement is similar to that of blacks, in that they are seriously underrepresented among the ranks of white abolitionists. What leads to such low numbers of blacks and Latinos in the movement, particularly given their much greater level of opposition to the death penalty when contrasted to that of whites? With such questions about the racial face of the anti–death penalty movement in mind, I set out to examine both the internal and external forces at work that shape the racial dimensions of the movement. This study draws from the contemporary social movement theory called the political process model in order to explain the difficulties that the anti–death penalty movement has had in mobilizing people of color to join its ranks. This theoretical perspective allows for a greater understanding of the impact of race upon the movement, particularly whom it mobilizes and how such mobilization occurs. My findings reveal that the racial politics operating within U.S. society have penetrated the anti–death penalty movement. The lack of racial diversity found within the movement is largely due to the complexities that arise from these political arrangements. Race is such a fundamental organizing variable in U.S. society that it not only plays a role in the political opportunities and constraints that shape the movement, but it also affects the internal dynamics that occur within the movement. The effects of race on this movement serve as one illustration of the many ways in which the significance of race persists in the United States. These effects are so far-reaching that they have permeated the progressive political left. Those who fall on this end of the political spectrum are typically viewed

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Introduction

as being immune to the insidious effects of race, since their progressive stance typically encapsulates a level of race consciousness not often attributed to those who fall at the other end of the political spectrum. Yet my research reveals that the significance of race is ongoing even among this segment of progressive activists. As I elaborate upon the many levels at which race operates in the anti–death penalty movement, it becomes clear that the manner in which activists react to or utilize information about race largely determines who becomes mobilized. While some of my fellow anti–death penalty activists will applaud the attention that I bring to a topic they agree is all too often neglected within our ranks, others will be disturbed by my exposure of the racial divisions that I have found within the movement. There has been a flurry of national attention given to the death penalty in recent months. The list of states that are introducing moratorium legislation is growing at a rapid rate. Though at a slower rate, the number of states that have recently abolished the death penalty is also steadily increasing. Clearly, the death penalty is being challenged on many levels. At a time when the death penalty is losing ground, many activists are likely to ask, “Why focus on divisions within the movement, racial or otherwise?” It certainly may be perceived as counterproductive to the gains we are making as a movement to call attention to its weaknesses. If the anti-death penalty movement is to continue to make progress, however, I strongly believe that the issue of race as it operates both inside and outside of the movement must be tackled head on. Activists must address the tension that exists between them regarding their views on how best to approach the subject of race as they continue to wage a campaign against the death penalty. Until they do so, they will not be able to fully benefit from the advantages that racially based arguments offer them as organizing tools. The activists I interviewed for this study are certainly no strangers to controversy, as they have aligned themselves with one of the most controversial social issues in our country. Now is not the time to shy from the added controversy that comes with dialogue centered on race. The time is ripe for activists to capitalize on the gains that they have made in the fight to abolish the death penalty. In order to confront the difficult subject of race, they can start by simply “naming the dragon” as they strive to realize Bedau’s challenge to “remedy this long-standing neglect.”

NOTES 1. Herbert Haines, Against Capital Punishment: The Anti–Death Penalty Movement in America, 1972–1994 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996). 2. In Furman v. Georgia (408 U.S. 238 [1972]) capital punishment in the United States was deemed to be unconstitutional on the basis of the arbitrary and discrimi-

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natory manner in which it was administered. The justices’ opinions allowed for the possibility that states may be able to devise constitutional death penalty statutes, and with the 1976 decision in Gregg v. Georgia (428 U.S. 153 [1976]), the death penalty was reinstated in those states believed to have done so (DPIC 2009). 3. Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), 2009. “The Death Penalty Information Center is a non-profit organization serving the media and the public with analysis and information on issues concerning capital punishment. The Center was founded in 1990 and prepares in-depth reports, issues press releases, conducts briefings for journalists, and serves as a resource to those working on this issue.” www. deathpenaltyinfo.org. 4. DPIC, 2009. 5. When the final manuscript of this book went to press, the number of people exonerated from death row in the United States had reached 138. Two former death row inmates in Oklahoma who had been charged with murder in a 1993 drive-by shooting became the 137th and 138th exonerees when they were released on October 2, 2009 after spending nearly 14 years in prison. Charges against Yancy Douglas and Paris Powell were dropped after deciding the state’s key witness was unreliable. (DPIC 2009). 6. DPIC, 2009. 7. The abolition of the death penalty in New Jersey follows a victory in New York over two years earlier, at which time the Codes Committee of the New York Assembly voted 11–7 against considering legislation to reinstate the death penalty in New York. Death penalty law was passed in 1995 in New York, but a 2004 ruling declared it invalid by a ruling from the state’s highest court (Associated Press, April 12, 2005). 8. On May 7, 2009, O’Malley signed into law a bill that restricts the death penalty for cases in which such evidence as DNA, videotaped evidence of the murder, or a videotaped confession exists to confirm the guilt of the defendant (DPIC 2009). 9. DPIC, 2009. 10. Haines, Against Capital Punishment. 11. Haines, Against Capital Punishment, 103. 12. Haines, Against Capital Punishment, 5. 13. National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, www.ncadp.org. 14. Haines, Against Capital Punishment,113. 15. Throughout the book I refer to blacks and Latinos as “racial minorities” and I often refer to the “racism” that these groups discuss and experience, yet Latinos are not officially classified as a “racial” group, rather they are classified as an “ethnic” group by the U.S. Census and other official government data sources. My discussion of these two groups as “racial” minorities is driven not only by an effort to avoid the cumbersome repeated reference to them as a “racial group and an ethnic group,” but also because their experiences as objects of discrimination are very similar, as well as their comparable socioeconomic status and treatment by the criminal justice system. 16. See Appendices A and B for more information about my sample and the methodology that I utilized as I gathered the data for my study. 17. As of January 1, 2009, there were thirty-seven Asian American and thirty-six Native American death row inmates. Since 1976, seven Asian Americans and fifteen Native Americans have been executed (DPIC 2009).

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18. Quoted in NCADP 2006 Conference Program. 19. Hugo Bedau’s 2006 NCADP Conference address (CD-ROM). 20. Benjamin Quarles, Allies for Freedom & Blacks on John Brown (Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo Press, 2001). 21. David L. Chappell, Inside Agitators: White Southerners in the Civil Rights Movement (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994). 22. Chappell, Inside Agitators. 23. Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 2007. 24. DPIC, 2009. 25. Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 2007. 26. Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 2007. 27. DPIC, 2009. 28. Mauer, 2007.

1 Political Process Theory and the Anti–Death Penalty Movement An Overview

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: THE POLITICAL PROCESS MODEL The study of social movements has taken many different approaches over the last century. A brief overview of these approaches to the origin and nature of social movements follows, providing a historical context in which to place the approaches that now dominate analyses of contemporary social movements. An appreciation of the changes that have taken place in how social movements have been viewed and studied over time further allows for a thorough consideration of the theoretical tools that are available for analyzing the dynamics of the anti–death penalty movement. Traditional approaches to social movement theory took a social psychological focus in their explanation of collective behavior. The collective behavior approach of theorists such as Gustave LeBon dominated social movement theory at the turn of the twentieth century, when social movements and their participants were viewed as irrational and deviations from the “normal.”1 Gatherings of individuals were thought to be subjected to the “psychological law of the mental unity of crowds.” Collective behavior theorists argued that large gatherings brought about “contagion . . . (and) a sentiment of invincible power,” leading individuals to lose their conscious personality.2 The relative deprivation perspective emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s as an alternative to the collective behavior approach. Its view of social movements was also influenced by the tenets of a social psychological approach, as exemplified by the fact that it viewed collective action from the perspective of the frustration-aggression hypothesis.3 Seeking to explain 13

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urban riots of the era, relative deprivation theorists explained social movements as arising from a perceived discrepancy between expectations and reality. The focus on spontaneous collective action of these early approaches, based upon grievances or some breakdown in society, was soon rejected among social movement scholars. Resource mobilization theorists were to take center stage in the theoretical debates surrounding the origin of social movements during the 1970s. Mancur Olson’s rational choice model provided the impetus for the development of resource mobilization theory.4 Olson’s economic theory proposed that actors are motivated to action only after weighing the costs of their behavior, therefore, “grievances or deprivation does not automatically translate into social movement activity, especially high-risk social movement activity.”5 Olson’s theory provided a foundation for resource mobilization theory by placing attention on the problem of mobilization. Questions centered on how actors are mobilized to action if given the opportunity to “free ride” on others’ efforts to achieve goods that benefit everyone. Resource mobilization theorists took on the task of providing explanations for how political action and interests are mobilized within organizations.6 They focused on how organizations use their resources to achieve their goals, while recognizing the political environment in which they operate. Several different orientations emerged within the resource mobilization approach, ranging from the pure rational-actor orientation devised by Olson to the organizational-entrepreneurial approach of McCarthy and Zald and the political-conflict model of Oberschall, and Gamson.7 Despite their different orientations, all resource mobilization theorists have viewed collective action through the logic of strategic interaction and cost-benefit calculations.8 They believe that collective action occurs as the result of the conflicts of interest built into institutionalized power relations. Groups become involved in collective action, therefore, through the rational pursuit of their interests. It may not seem completely rational, however, for individuals to join a social movement when they are not the direct beneficiaries of their efforts. Resource mobilization theorists have attempted to explain movement activity on the part of these “conscience constituents,” by emphasizing that they are driven by normative motivations rather than self-interest. Theorists following this approach note that recent social movements have grown despite the absence of mass participation by the direct beneficiaries of the movements.9 They attribute this recent collective activity to the emergence of “professional social movements,” which have largely abandoned “largescale actions like public demonstrations in favor of lobbying, litigation, and publicity.”10 A major critique of the resource mobilization model rests with its emphasis on “professional social movements,” as its perspective

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has been accused of being one that “assigns undue weight to the role of outside elites and events.”11 The political process model was constructed as an alternative to the resource mobilization perspective and became the primary source of this critique. It has emphasized the importance of various grassroots settings in facilitating movement participation. Political process theorists critiqued resource mobilization theorists for arguing that marginalized groups must rely on external support because they lack the organizational and political resources needed to initiate and sustain a successful movement.12 They note that it was the southern black masses, through their own community organizations (e.g., the NAACP and black churches), not external support groups, that triggered black insurgency.13 The term “political process” incorporates two central ideas of the model. Similar to resource mobilization theory, contemporary social movements are viewed as predominantly political in nature, rather than psychological. Also, movements are seen as portraying a process that occurs “from generation to decline, rather than a discrete series of developmental stages.”14 This perspective views political variables as playing major roles in the formation of social movements. By political opportunities I am referring to “the probability that social protest actions will lead to success in achieving a desired outcome.”15 It is argued that shifts in political opportunities offer incentives for collective action, thereby triggering events that may develop into social movements.16 These shifts define the type and degree of risks involved with movement activity for potential participants, as well as the probability of building an effective movement. In the early 1980s, another shift occurred in the study of social movements. Social movement theorists who had been arguing that collective action takes place in the “political” arena began to incorporate into their view analyses of the cultural ground upon which such action occurs.17 While theorists recognized the influence of expanding political opportunities upon the success of a social movement, they began to probe deeper into this “political process” by analyzing the processes by which the meaning of shifting political conditions is assessed.18 Cultural resources are utilized, they argued, in the process of mediation between political opportunities and efforts to mobilize. Theorists following this perspective, called “new social movement theory,” argue that social conflicts, which have emerged over the last twenty years or so in advanced capitalist societies, have “raised cultural challenges to the dominant language, to the codes that organize information and shape social practices.”19 New social movement theorists argue that movements carry social meaning, regardless of their political impacts. They assert that the personal and the cultural are as politically real, and exist independently from, struggles occurring within the realms of the state and economy.20

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For new social movement theorists, the concept of “collective identity” is central to their understanding of how individuals are mobilized to action. They argue that groups become organized around a common identity based upon their shared interests and experiences.21 The new social movement model suggests that a collective identity emerges amongst a group of individuals when some shared characteristic is defined as important, yet lies in opposition to the dominant order.22 In an effort to understand why individuals with common interests and experiences may fail to develop a collective identity, theorists David Snow and Robert Benford offer a theory of mobilization based upon the concept of “frame alignment.” They adopt Erving Goffman’s term “framing” to assist them in conceptualizing how movement organizers use ideological meanings to mobilize potential constituents.23 The interests and goals of actors develop from the cultural interpretation they give to the object of their protest. Snow and Benford suggest that the success of a social movement, or lack thereof, depends largely upon whether relevant events and conditions are framed in a manner that aligns with the “life world” of potential participants.24 It is an underlying assumption of the political process model that the three dimensions of social movement activity outlined above, including (1) the temporal dimensions of social movements, (2) the organization and mobilization dimensions of collective action, and (3) the “framing processes” that develop shared meanings among movement participants, are interactive in their effect. Political process theorists emphasize that changes in the political opportunity structure encourage mobilization “not only through the ‘objective’ effects they have on power relations, but by setting in motion framing processes that further undermine the legitimacy of the system or its perceived mutability.”25 Structural and perceptual changes interact, therefore, as a result of expanding political opportunities, thereby leading groups of people to create social change. At the same time, the ability of groups to frame the issue that they are concerned with in a manner that will encourage mobilization depends largely on the organizational structure of the movement.

THE IMPACT OF THE POLITICAL OPPORTUNITY STRUCTURE: A LIBERAL RETREAT FROM RACE? When we look at the successes and failures of the anti–death penalty movement, the role of political opportunities and constraints is apparent. The death penalty was successfully abolished from 1972 to 1976, largely due to the legal and institutional openings created by the Civil Rights Movement.26 The Civil Rights Movement dramatically transformed American politics,

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redefining traditional politics as necessarily racial politics.27 Indeed, the anti–death penalty movement and other racially based movements were impacted by the political opportunity structure created by the Civil Rights Movement such that they collectively “transformed the meaning and contours of American culture.”28 In 1963, civil rights attorneys and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund joined forces to highlight the racial disparities in capital sentencing. The ACLU later joined in this effort as well, as this coalition of lawyers began to attack the constitutionality of the death penalty for white and black offenders alike.29 The success of the anti–death penalty movement was short-lived, however, for the dominant legalistic strategy during the period prior to the 1972 Furman ruling came with a significant cost. The dominant role played by the lawyers during this stage of the anti–death penalty movement had “contributed to the withering away of whatever was left of citizen-based, political abolitionism.”30 The movement’s size was very small during this time and protest against the death penalty did not begin to grow again until after the 1976 Gregg decision, which ruled that appropriate legal safeguards could ensure the constitutionality of the death penalty. Just as changes in the political structure during the civil unrest of the 1960s had created increased opportunities for the anti–death penalty movement, constraints soon arose within the political structure, which made it more difficult for activists to challenge the death penalty on the grounds of racial discrimination. It is often recognized that while movements create opportunities for themselves, they can “unwittingly create political opportunities for their opponents.”31 The political gains made by American blacks during the Civil Rights Movement and the attention drawn to the social meaning of race during the movement seriously challenged the preexisting racial order. White people found themselves in a dilemma with the increased attention that the Civil Rights Movement brought to racial identities. They were suddenly left to question what it meant to be white, as they could no longer take for granted the privileges that their race had bestowed upon them.32 The result of this “crisis of white identity” has led to what is often described as a “white backlash” within American politics.33 As whites became more conscious of the meaning of race in America, many reacted with opposition to the increased attention that was being given to “otherness.” This “white backlash” soon moved from public opinion to the arena of electoral politics. By the late 1960s, white opposition had led to “a tactical swing to the right on the part of both major parties.”34 Whites on the right “reflected a deep-seated fear . . . of the racialized other” and began to use coded words, drawing on cultural symbols such as “family values” to mask their racist reaction to the Civil Rights Movement.35 White liberals also grew tired

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of black demands when the call for “something more” entered political discourse in 1965 with words such as “reparations” and “compensation.” They withdrew from open discourse with black radicals who challenged the sincerity and the role of whites in maintaining the agenda of progressives.36 It has been argued that this “liberal retreat from race” has comprised the “left wing of the backlash.”37 The “liberal retreat from race” left blacks suspicious of whites who attempted to organize in black communities. The interests of conscience constituents, however, have always been suspect since these participants have been viewed as outsiders or third parties, rather than the direct beneficiaries of their actions. McAdam argued that a primary consideration of those providing external support is social control: “elite involvement would seem to occur only as a response to the threat posed by the generation of a mass-based social movement.”38 With his analysis of the participants and organizations of the Civil Rights Movement, Herbert Haines lent support to this perspective as he argued that the elite participants supported the moderate civil rights organizations largely in response to the threat posed by a “radical flank” of militant activists.39 Others find “channeling” to be a more appropriate metaphor than “controlling” to describe the impact of elite patronage on social movements.40 While elites may indeed have channeled the Civil Rights Movement into professional organizations, some argue that they did not necessarily deflect the movement from a more militant agenda.41 When I asked the forty activists in my initial sample of black and white activists to share their views regarding the amount of emphasis the movement places on race, many of their comments suggest that organized efforts to abolish the death penalty have indeed been shaped by a “liberal retreat from race.” The activists were asked whether they feel that the movement places too much, not enough, or just the right amount of emphasis on the subject of race as it relates to the death penalty. While all twenty of the black activists replied that there is “not enough” emphasis on race, only six of the white activists (30 percent) gave a similar response. A majority of the white activists expressed either that they feel the movement gives “just the right amount” (40 percent) or “too much” (30 percent) emphasis on race when its participants argue against the death penalty. The black activists gave several reasons for their impression that the movement does not give adequate attention to the racial aspects of the death penalty. Some construe what they find to be a serious neglect of race as a strategic move on the part of white activists. Often arguments against the death penalty that center on race are not expected to have the same ability to influence public attitudes as they once did, therefore, some of the black activists (25 percent) believe that many of their white peers have strategically abandoned such race-based arguments. The com-

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ments of Renee, an African American capital defense attorney in her thirties, illustrate this view well. I don’t think they put enough emphasis on the issue of race. People say it is for pragmatic reasons. A lot of organizations, and I think the ACLU really took the lead on this, although different groups did it before, did studies to figure out what it is that resonates with the American people. Surprisingly enough, race did not resonate as much as people expected.

While several other black activists reiterated the view espoused by Renee, it was not the most common explanation given for the tendency of their white peers to slight the racial aspects of the death penalty. Far more prevalent was the sentiment that white activists do not give more attention to racial issues because they are uncomfortable with dialogue centered on race. As stated by Michelle, a prominent African American leader in the movement, “Bottom line, the core movement is pretty white and a lot of folks are pretty scared of the race issue.” She recalls a time when she was to speak at a university and was approached by several white activists affiliated with the organization of Amnesty International. With her words below, Michelle describes her view of what happened next. Some of the people from Amnesty came to me and said “There are so many good arguments about the death penalty, I don’t think you should spend that much time talking about race.” I can’t talk about it without talking about race because it’s such an important part of it. . . . So I think whites are afraid of racism and I think that unfortunately more and more abolitionists are getting into the role of looking at polls too much. Race doesn’t play, innocence has its place, morality doesn’t play . . . and they preach instead of speaking from the heart.

Many other black activists point to similar causes for what they consider inadequate attention to race among their white counterparts. For instance, Dorothy gets the sense that many white activists are de-emphasizing the racial aspects of the death penalty because they essentially fail to recognize the significance of race and racism in today’s society. Referring to the problem of racism, Dorothy asserts that white activists “try to pretend like we had it in the 60s and now it’s gone.” Yvonne might tend to agree with Dorothy, yet she makes a distinction between the attention that white activists provide to the racial aspects of the death penalty in a theoretical sense and their failure to put this knowledge into practice as they organize. In response to my question regarding the amount of attention given to racial issues, Yvonne replies, I think not enough in a material sense. I think we’re doing much better. I have been involved in this issue since the early 80s. I remember being involved in

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my state’s anti–death penalty organization and people of color got so frustrated, we started a people of color caucus. We organized in the black community because the larger organization refused to do it. They did not think it was important. I don’t know that that would happen today. People get it in a theoretical sense. It is spoken to; there is always a fact sheet on race. . . . In terms of actual practice, recognizing that the issue of race is an issue also of who gets mobilized, who are natural constituencies, who are constituencies with some persuasive power that have some institutions that need to be speaking out on this issue. In that instance, I think it is difficult. In terms of emphasis on race, it also has to do with the training that people receive in terms of how to deal with issues of race. In that area, I think the problem is diversity training, which really gets into a more broad “everybody is different. . . .” A lot of that stuff is brave and needs to be done, but it is a different thing to do something like the training called dismantling racism. . . . Recognizing that a lot of times, it really is more complex than just changing slogans or making sure that you don’t say that word.

The tendency of black activists to view their white peers as reluctant to discuss the relevance of race to the death penalty leads many blacks to convey sentiment similar to that expressed by Michelle, Dorothy, and Yvonne. Several blacks went so far as to assert that even when whites claim to avoid race for strategic reasons, they are often doing so as a means of masking their discomfort with talking about “the race issue.” While these black activists can appreciate the validity of the view that it is not always strategically wise to emphasize race, they argue that many whites are quick to hide behind this contention as a means of avoiding uncomfortable discussions about race. Renee’s words quoted above represent the view that the avoidance of race-based arguments by white activists is strategically driven. As she continues, however, Renee questions the motives of those white activists who take the most “strategic” approach with their framing strategies. People say it is for pragmatic reasons . . . but that’s not the reason. We have a clear problem with race discrimination in this country. That in and of itself should be troubling. It should give us more impetus to do more and push forward on the issue of race discrimination. . . . I think that the fact that you have such a white, middle-class movement that white middle-class activists can say, “Look, we have looked at public opinion polls and race just doesn’t resonate. So I think we should just focus on arguments that work.” So strategic motives and racist motives are disturbingly compatible.

Martin is an African American studies professor and a civil rights lawyer. He spoke of the tendency of white activists to strategically attach a white face to the public image of death row inmates who have been wrongly convicted. Martin then proceeds to describe a more complex process driving this apparent strategic decision.

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The people of the movement feel a need to put a white face or use a white example to describe the problem of the wrongly convicted because they think that will resonate with the American public, as opposed to using an African American or Latino defendant that less people would care about. I think that’s unfortunate and it’s terrible to say and it makes me sick talking about it. And screaming this is racism in its application does not resonate in mainstream America. The race issue becomes reduced to nothing: “See it’s not racist, white people are being executed too.” There is no sense of the institutionalized nature of it, the structure of it. Even people who are sitting down and doing hard core social science research, it gets dismissed because this high hope of pursuing a colorblind society has become such a sound byte that people don’t really understand the ramifications of what that means. I think that many white progressives are in denial about the full extent and great weight of these race and racism issues on the thinking of people and how the information is being received. I think that the way in which some white progressives are promoting the race and racism issues is as if they are talking to other white progressives.

Martin’s comments suggest that the longing of Americans to view our society as a colorblind one has permeated the anti–death penalty movement as well. To the extent that white activists in the movement embrace the colorblind perspective, the tendency for them to slight race-based arguments against the death penalty is more likely due to their reluctance to recognize the ongoing significance of race than to politically prudent strategizing. Of course, before drawing conclusions about the racial consciousness of white activists, it is crucial to consider their opinions on the emphasis that they find being placed on race within the movement’s organizing and framing strategies. Looking first at the handful of whites who agree with their black peers that the movement does not put enough emphasis on race with its efforts to rally support for the cause, most of them do not expand upon this view. Of the three white activists who do elaborate upon why they feel that there is “not enough” emphasis on race, two complain that the primary argument being used by activists recently has rested with “the whole innocence question.” While both of these activists recognize the value of arguments that point out the danger of executing the innocent, they believe that this approach is taken so often that other equally or more important arguments are neglected. The racial disparities found with capital sentencing may not capture the attention of the public as quickly as do the horrifying stories of the wrongfully convicted, yet this is exactly why one white attorney feels that the movement needs to expend more effort advancing race-based arguments against the death penalty. As a capital defense attorney, Franklin fights for the lives of more guilty than innocent defendants. He worries that with the moratorium campaign placing so much emphasis on the issue of innocence, “the impression is

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left that if we could only have enough DNA testing or other things to make sure that only the guilty got the death penalty, then there would be no problem with it.” Despite the challenges posed by advancing an argument based on race, Franklin submits it is important to continue to do so despite “the temptation to take the short term benefit at the risk of the long term accomplishment” brought by moratorium efforts based on the issue of innocence. If race-based arguments against the death penalty are able to gain increased legitimacy, then the lives of guilty death row inmates, as well as those of the innocent, may be spared. Franklin views the movement’s tendency to slight race in its framing strategies as a poor strategic decision, rather than due to any discomfort among his white peers in dealing with the complexities that race brings to the issue of the death penalty. Only one of the three white activists who feel that there is “not enough” emphasis on the issue of race within the movement attributes this neglect to a tendency among white activists to neutralize race. Mark reiterates comments he had made earlier in the interview when discussing the best way to frame opposition to the death penalty. This former minister argued that white privilege frequently prevents whites from giving adequate attention to the issue of race as it relates to the death penalty. Mark continues, “Racism is so fully entrenched in the history of this country in every aspect of our socialization. It’s too personal, it’s too close to home for people.” He continues by describing how white privilege prevents many whites in the movement from recognizing the salience of race to the death penalty. While Mark’s comments are similar to those provided by the black activists, they represent the minority opinion expressed by his white peers. Many other whites declare that the movement places “just the right amount” or “too much” emphasis on race with the arguments advanced to win support for their cause. When these white activists spoke about the amount of attention that is being placed on race within the movement, I detected in their comments the “racial fatigue” that one black activist described earlier in the interview as existing within a society that has grown tired of hearing cries of racism. Joan is a white college professor who doesn’t necessarily want to see race discussed less, yet she would like to see more emphasis placed on class than race. She proclaims, I think you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t. When you talk about race, people say I don’t want to make this a race issue, yet when you don’t talk about race, people want to make it an issue. I think we should talk more about class. I think we should frame it more as a class thing. I think the race issue . . . nobody in this country knows how to talk about race. It’s very difficult. I don’t think we should talk less about it, but I think what we need to do is frame it as a class issue.

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Betty is another white woman who feels that class disparities, rather than racial disparities, with the death penalty should be emphasized more. She argues that, at least in her state of New Jersey, where she believes racial disparities do not exist with the state’s death row population, race is emphasized too much in the movement. She remarks, “I just think that it is more the haves and the have-nots or the wrongfully arrested, who were in the wrong place at the wrong time or the wrongfully convicted because you couldn’t afford a good lawyer.” Allen is a white activist who similarly seems to reduce that which his black peers alarmingly refer to as the racism associated with the death penalty to just one of many examples of the unfairness found with this form of punishment. In response to my question regarding the amount of emphasis that should be placed on race, he states, “I think in some ways that it is an important issue to come to grips to reality with it, but at the same time I don’t think it is an overriding issue because it’s just one more element of unfairness.” Shelly seems to agree with Allen’s implicit suggestion that attention to race in the movement should not overshadow the vast array of other inequities found with the death penalty. This white woman moves rather quickly from her analysis of the amount of attention the movement gives to race to her view of the racial composition of the movement’s leadership. After she pauses and then reluctantly concedes that the amount of attention given to race is “about right,” she continues, I know racial diversity is important, but there have been times in the movement and in the organization where they’ve tried to stick almost to a quota system instead of picking the best people for the job. Sometimes with the NCADP I have thought to myself that “It’s not the National Coalition to Abolish Racism!” And you should put the best people on the Board and not just people of color. And it’s really hard to say these things, especially in the movement. You have to have that awareness, you have to be looking for people of color to make great contributions, but sometimes . . .

It is important to note that my interviews with white and black activists were conducted during the first administration of President George W. Bush. Activists organized against the death penalty at that time were not unlike most other liberals with regard to their collective discontent about the drastic swing to the political right that came with the Bush administration. To the extent that the views of white activists fighting against the death penalty can be argued to embody a liberal retreat from race, therefore, it is crucial to recall the political atmosphere that existed at the time of my interviews with them. It was not terribly surprising to find many liberals at that time who were reluctant to advance race-based arguments against the death penalty given a political environment that had a reputation for neutralizing the reality of race.

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My interviews with Latino activists, on the other hand, were conducted in early 2009, after the political environment was suddenly transformed by a dramatic shift to the left with the inauguration of President Barack Obama. Their responses to my questions are very similar to those I’d received from the black activists years earlier. Like their black counterparts, the Latino activists emphasize the importance of discussing race throughout their organizing efforts. It is highly likely that their minority status, and the unique perspective it brings, would have ensured similar responses had they been interviewed at the same time as the black activists, during the conservative Bush era. The “era of hope” ushered in by the Obama administration, as described by one Latina activist, can be quite empowering for those who aim to stress the significance of race within any realm of society. Just as the responses that I received from the white and black activists must be situated within the political environment created by the Bush administration, therefore, it is also essential to consider the context brought by the new, dramatically different, political atmosphere for its affect on the comments of the Latino activists. My interviews with Latino activists suggest that the Obama administration has certainly stimulated their courage to raise race-based arguments against the death penalty. When asked if she thinks that the anti–death penalty movement is putting enough emphasis on the factor of race, Isabel’s comments are similar to those of the other Latinos I interviewed. I think we have to put more emphasis on it. We don’t go as far as we should go. We should talk about that and don’t be afraid. We shouldn’t be afraid! Our points are clear! We are Latino and we are proud to be Latino. We are black and we are proud to be black. Look now, we have Obama! Thank God we have Obama now!

Although I was curious to find out whether the activists are satisfied with the amount of attention given to race by those within the movement, ultimately I hoped to learn more about the obstacles that interfere with the movement becoming more racially diverse. The inadequate attention that all of the black activists, a majority of the Latinos and several of the white activists find within the movement in regards to issues of race and racism can be viewed as one such obstacle. As might easily be predicted, many of the activists draw a connection between the amount of attention given to race and the racial diversity of the movement. Tony, an African American in his thirties, is one of those activists who make the most explicit connection between the two. “If they put more emphasis on race, as they are beginning to do now,” Tony simply states, “they would draw more from the African American community.”

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ORGANIZATIONAL DYNAMICS: STRIVING TO BRING IN NEW VOICES Increasing the amount of attention given to the racial aspects of the death penalty is by itself no guarantee that the movement will become more racially diverse. Certainly there are many other things that the anti–death penalty movement might also do toward the aim of creating a more diverse constituency. Political process theorists recognize that political opportunities and constraints cannot alone account for the structural potential of social movements for action. They also emphasize the importance of organizational dynamics in mobilizing individuals for collective action. The mobilization of resources for the fight against the death penalty has always been difficult. The difficulties that activists have faced in raising money have had as much to do with the constituency of the movement as with the issue itself.42 Social movements that are not well received in the larger society have had to rely on the aggrieved population for whom they advocate in order to attract financial support. The most direct beneficiaries of the anti–death penalty movement, death row inmates, are unlike other movement beneficiaries in that they are virtually unable to contribute money or other resources to the cause.43 They have had to rely upon the goodwill of activists who somehow find their way to this movement. Herbert Haines argues that the anti–death penalty movement has suffered from a “grassroots deficit.”44 For example, various organizations have officially endorsed the anti–death penalty cause, yet individuals from these organizations tend not to engage in any sort of collective action within the movement. He attributes this grassroots deficit to the movement’s tendency to “rely on the participation of a remarkably narrow band of American society.”45 Racial minorities are among those marginalized groups who are likely to respond to a more grassroots approach by anti–death penalty organizations. It has been suggested that the mobilization of low-income and otherwise marginalized groups tends to materialize at a local level because “people appear to have no other choice.”46 Grassroots organizing within local communities is much more feasible than building national coalitions when “the citizens in all cases think the national state is too far removed from their problems.”47 With her study of community activism in Brooklyn, Judith DeSena contends that national coalitions must invest in local communities. DeSena argues, “Attempts to build multi-ethnic and mixed class, national coalitions ignore the importance of commencing by promoting relationships among diverse groups at the grassroots level. Local efforts have the advantage of using the geographic proximity of diverse populations which exist in most cities.”48

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The relative failure of anti–death penalty organizations to enlist indigenous support calls into question the organization and mobilization dynamics of the movement. The organizational dynamics of the movement have had a part in shaping the motivations of anti–death penalty participants. The strategies of a professional social movement are likely to attract individuals who express their opposition in less dramatic ways than do those in a grassroots movement. Such participants may be motivated more by their principles than a belief in their ability to create significant social change. Critics of resource mobilization theorists view such professional social movements as all too often promoting “symbols of reform without the substance,” which “cannot compensate for the power of an indigenous movement.”49 Haines points to the organizational dynamics found within the professional anti–death penalty movement as contributing to its lack of racial diversity. He suggests that when efforts have been made to bring minorities into the movement, they have been encouraged to join the organizations and utilize the strategies of white activists.50 These strategies have included primarily “nondisruptive marches and rallies, as well as vigils outside of prisons where executions take place.”51 Organized predominantly by whites, the strategies of the movement are so homogeneous that they may alienate potential participants who are motivated to join a movement that has more varied approaches to fighting the death penalty. Haines infers that racial minorities are likely to join the movement in greater numbers, therefore, if its strategies and models for social change were broadened. When I asked the activists if they feel that the racial composition of the movement is a problem, most of them, including all of the blacks and white women, find the racial composition to be overwhelmingly white and in need of greater racial diversity. Half of the white men interviewed, however, indicate that they are satisfied with the racial composition of the movement. A clear division exists between the few white men who express sentiment similar to that quoted below of Stan, a self-proclaimed socialist and antiracist, and the majority of white men, who lean more toward the views exhibited by Kenneth. This division is aptly illustrated below by the two very different racial realities that these two men experienced in San Francisco at the 2000 Annual National Conference organized by the NCADP. Approximately six years before I began interviewing activists who are opposed to the death penalty, NCADP hired Steve Hawkins, an African American attorney, to fill the position of executive director. Mr. Hawkins became the first African American director of NCADP and effectively changed the face of the national leadership from vastly white to predominantly black. Many activists, both black and white, couldn’t resist commenting on this change in leadership along the lines of race. When the white activists noted

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this leadership change, they often suggested that it is evidence that the movement is becoming more diverse. Occasionally they appeared bothered or puzzled by the decision to hire so many black leaders at the national level. The most discontented reaction emerged in the remarks of Kenneth, a white leader at the state level. You look at what Steve has done with the NCADP. I see leadership with a lot of black faces, which I don’t know . . . it almost feels like reverse racism to an extent. Now I know how blacks feel like! And that’s how I felt in San Francisco. Three out of four officers in this organization are people of color, which is fine I guess. It’s a change for us. It is something that I, as a white, am not used to. It is not something that we have been used to in the past. If the direction is going in some place that is good for us, fine. I don’t think that direction is going in some place that is good for the movement, so I guess it is not fine.

When Kenneth refers to feeling like a minority in San Francisco, he is speaking of the 2000 Annual National Conference. In previous years, these annual conferences were exclusively organized by NCADP, yet a decision was made by the NCADP to be more inclusive with the 2000 conference. It was sponsored and organized by a coalition of national organizations active in the anti–death penalty movement, including such organizations as the ACLU, Amnesty International, Campaign to End the Death Penalty, and Murder Victims’ Families for Reconciliation. Interestingly, the only other white activist to mention the racial face of this conference had a very different perception from that expressed by Kenneth. The following quote by Stan, a white man who leads an organization at the state level, divulges not only a different view of the race of the conference attendees, but also of the NCADP leadership. Race is an absolute key issue. I think a lot of different groups are starting to grapple with it. I know that NCADP has grappled with it and has made conscious efforts and attempts to reach out to black leadership and organizations. Is it enough? No. Does it need to be pushed? Yes. You look at the San Francisco conference. It was great and there was a lot of energy and enthusiasm, but it was like a sea of white people. There’s nothing wrong with that, but we want to build on that.

The other white men I interviewed rarely expressed Stan’s concerns about the racial composition of the anti–death penalty movement. The remarks made by Paul provide an example of the dominant perspective expressed by his fellow white male activists. As he unwittingly defends a colorblind perspective regarding the degree of racial diversity found in the movement, Paul’s words are very similar to those quoted above by Kenneth. Both men seem to suggest that efforts at manufacturing racial diversity within the

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movement serve to threaten the very “substance” of the movement. Paul reasons, We don’t have any, or few, blacks in the movement. My position on all of these things is that I look at the person. Everybody’s heart is the same color and I just don’t get into all of these percentages. I remember when I was executive director of Social Services and I indicated that I was doing recruitment and they said, “What about the black social workers?” And I said, “We already have an association of social workers. Why do we need a separate organization? We don’t have a Spanish or Irish or what not. . . .” I really feel that we just need to get into the mainstream of these things and not kind of look and say, “Well, we need a certain percentage of blacks. Blacks are 13 percent of the population so we need 13 percent, or 12 percent Hispanic, and what not. . . .” So we need those balances, but we don’t need to do it artificially so that the structure dictates the substance, rather than the substance dictating the structure. We are hoping that minorities join in, if their agenda is our focus, as opposed to a race agenda.

The final sentence of Paul’s remarks provides support for one theory that strives to identify obstacles to building a racially diverse movement. It is often theorized that when whites invite racial minorities to join ranks with them, the invitation is implicitly laden with expectations that minorities will do so under the terms set forth by the whites who dominate the movement. To the extent that racial minorities are able to detect such subtle expectations placed upon them, they may not feel comfortable joining ranks with whites who appear unwilling to embrace a diversity of organizing and framing strategies. When Paul comments that he welcomes racial minorities, so long as “their agenda is our focus, as opposed to a race agenda,” not only does he reveal his discomfort with framing strategies focused on race, but he also suggests that he is unwilling to entertain the diversity of goals and strategies that he expects racial minorities to bring to the movement. Research focused on the interaction between the social movements of labor organizing and feminism has revealed the difficulty that arises from the task of constructing identities and solidarity.52 From their analysis of a case study of day care workers on strike in West Berlin, Ferree and Roth found that the dominant group within a given social movement tends to marginalize those participants who are “different” in terms of their perspective or experiences of oppression.53 With the case of day care workers in West Berlin, the male-led unions leading the strike claimed to represent the female-led grassroots groups, yet they failed to view the devaluation of child care work as a gender issue. Ferree and Roth use the term “exclusionary solidarity” as they describe the coalition politics that emerged between the unions and the feminists.54 “Exclusionary solidarity” is used to refer to the frequent expectation that all participants of a social movement should

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accept the perspective of the dominant group. They emphasize that in order to promote effective coalition building with social movements, however, it is crucial for a variety of organizational types and strategies to be introduced. We have not seen this occur with the U.S. labor movement, where “union militance was defined in part around a masculine style. Solidarity often developed in significant part around race and gender,” therefore unions continue to be “dominated by a macho style.”55 The exclusionary solidarity that Ferree and Roth found in the coalition politics that emerged between the unions and the feminists also manifests itself within the comments of many of the activists who shared their views of the difficulties that anti–death penalty organizations have had recruiting racial minorities into their ranks. As a former board member of a state organization within the movement, Yvonne was one of the few blacks to ever hold a leadership position with this organization. She has encountered many white activists over her years of activism who project a posture toward racial minorities similar to that expressed above in the comments made by Paul, who fears that racial minorities may impose a “race agenda” upon his organization. In Yvonne’s efforts to describe this problem, she states, Part of what I think is the problem is that people are comfortable bringing in folks of color that work the way that they do. So if you are somebody in the human rights movement and you know how to talk that lingo. . . . It scares them, but you broaden it out and it changes the culture of the organization because you’re bringing in knowledge of and practice of different ways of viewing it.

Shelly is a white woman in her forties who also refers to the culture of the anti–death penalty movement as potentially alienating toward racial minorities. While she concedes that white activists have created an environment that many racial minorities may not perceive as particularly welcoming, Shelly’s remarks did not take the same accusatory tone that can be located in Yvonne’s critique of the resistance of white activists to change the culture of the movement. Shelly proclaims, It is true that the culture of the meeting and the culture of the group make a difference. If it’s very staid and very quiet and reserved, that’s not where certain people feel more comfortable. They may be used to a more rambunctious kind of style or a more laid back people so they won’t stay or come back. I think where you have the meetings and what kind of meetings you have play a part.

When whites acknowledged the discomfort that some racial minorities seem to feel at anti–death penalty events, they tended to simply observe this phenomenon without offering explanations for its causes. Among those whites who did offer their interpretations of the apparent discomfort of racial minorities, most took an approach similar to that of Shelly,

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attributing such discomfort merely to “cultural differences.” Others view the reluctance of racial minorities to join forces with them as a natural byproduct of living in a segregated society. This perspective is represented well by the comments of a white woman in her thirties. Maggie explains, “The fact is that when all of us are working to pull people in, we start with the people we know and they go to the people they know and they go to the people they know. We are still a segregated society.” As he shared his views about the difficulties that the movement has had broadening its membership to reflect more diversity along the lines of race and ethnicity, Chano similarly notes the effect of living in a segregated society upon the comfort level of activists to reach out to people outside of their immediate group. This Latino activist has been involved in the struggle to abolish the death penalty for many years and has forged lasting alliances and friendships with many of his white peers. He is very understanding and patient with their tendency to self-segregate, as he notes his inclination to do the same. Bringing in people of color is really hard. Because like it or not, we grow up with certain prejudices and life experiences and people we feel comfortable about. I feel most comfortable with Latinos, you know. Probably if there were a group of blacks sitting somewhere and a group of Latinos, I would sit with the Latinos. I was at a group retreat of the organization that I’m with and there were no Latinos, so I was sitting with the African Americans. Not that I’m color conscious, it’s just more comfortable, so you go to people where it is most comfortable.

Only a small minority of whites (25 percent) broadened their analyses to take into account the messages and actions of white-dominated organizations that serve to alienate racial minorities. The vast majority of blacks (85 percent), on the other hand, weighed these factors heavily as they charged their white counterparts with varying degrees of responsibility for the lack of minority participation in the movement. Robert is a NAACP leader who largely blames white-dominated organizations for the relative absence of people of color in the movement. Like many of his African American peers, Robert believes that the framing strategies used by white activists provide an ineffective means toward building a racially diverse movement. With the following remarks, he refers to the wasted potential he finds. I think that there are many, many more racial minorities that can be pulled in. I think that will happen when we make arguments in the language that is sensitive to those nuances, cultural diversities, and the other issues. If you are making arguments that don’t take into consideration what happens in my neighborhood, then I agree with you, but I’m not necessarily a member of your organization. I think that we are going to have to work in that direction and do a much better job of that.

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Other black activists boldly expanded upon Robert’s comments to delve deeper into reasons for the tendency of white activists to advance anti– death penalty arguments that do not resonate with minority communities. The explanations offered by these black activists range from unconscious neglect to undeniable racism on the part of their white peers. Renee construes it as the predictable outcome of white liberals neglecting the black community for a long time, ultimately because they have not yet stepped out of their comfort zone in their interactions with racial minorities. A lot of people have strategized in a way that they think they really need to go after the hardest groups first because “We know we have black people in our pocket; we know we have black people on our side.” And it turns out, lo and behold, what’s happened is the other side has appropriated the people you neglected. The problem is that we don’t do enough grassroots activism and we don’t do enough outreach to groups and I think part of the problem is because of our leadership. The fact that a lot of the leadership is simply not comfortable going to a community of people who don’t look like them, don’t act like them, don’t go anywhere near them.

Like Renee, Joyce is among the small minority of female African American attorneys involved in the movement. The comments that Joyce made about the movement’s failure to enlist the support of communities of color bear a strong resemblance to Renee’s remarks. In the following quote, Joyce recalls an incident that confirms for her the neglect of white activists that Renee describes. I just don’t know if we are always welcoming. I just remember one of our affiliates, which was all white, and we were working on a case and black people wanted to get involved, so they came to the meeting and one of our coalition groups there said, “Where have you been? We’ve been calling the black community.” I think that sometimes white people think that because you ask somebody to come, you are supposed to feel obligated to do it. I think the fact that there aren’t a lot of people of color doesn’t make black people very comfortable and a lot of them don’t want to put themselves in that kind of setting. It doesn’t ease the comfort level of a lot of people. And then because we are not very diverse, I don’t even know how much outreach is being done to communities of color. I think that people group with people they feel comfortable with.

Yvonne describes a similar episode happening to her, in which she felt as though her white peers looked at her in a peculiar manner when she showed up at an organizational meeting. While she would not disagree with the above comments of Renee and Joyce, she carries her analysis of the same scenarios that they described to another level. Yvonne agrees that white liberals, both inside and outside of the anti–death penalty

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movement, have neglected the black community. She attributes this neglect not only to the social distance between the groups, but also to what she ultimately believes to be racism. But the other reason is just outright racism. It is the subtle stuff; nobody has called me a nigger. It is people not being accepted for bringing themselves with them when they walk in the room. If they walk in the room and get with the program and they are comfortable with the way that everything is, then we want to be diverse, otherwise please stay where you are. And you walk in and you automatically get this “Well, where have you been?” and you’re like “Working three jobs to pay my way through college, where were you?” They are talking some jargon and they forget to make it plain. Talk like regular folks. Remember to do this stuff. It is always a challenge. But when it breaks down along the lines of race, it breaks down along the lines of power. You don’t just invite people in and they are there to be part of your show. When they walk in the door, the show changes. You have to have your bottom line. You have to have your strategies, but some of that is about giving up power, which is really what racism is about.

Several of the white activists indicated that they are aware that their black peers do not feel welcome by white-dominated organizations in the movement. When they acknowledged the existence of such sentiment among blacks, they typically did not question the internal dynamics of the movement that could create this perception. Instead, most of the white activists took the tone exemplified by the remarks of Franklin below. The main thing I have heard from people of color is that one, they sometimes feel excluded, not welcomed, and not invited and that the movement itself may seem somewhat elitist in some cases. I think that part of it is that they don’t see a lot of people of color in the movement already, then they may assume that they would not be welcome, even though they would be.

It is obvious that there is a significant difference in the overall perception of the black and white activists as to how culpable white-dominated organizations are for the scarcity of racial minorities found within the ranks of the movement. Certainly other factors out of the control of the movement also influence its racial composition. The white activists tended to explain the poor representation of racial minorities in the movement by looking at such external factors. When whites did look internally, most of them did not take ownership for the problem, rather blamed the lack of racial diversity on factors that cannot be directly linked to them. Many of the black activists are very aware of this reluctance among their white peers to look within the movement for answers when questions arise about the color of the movement. Several blacks report that a schism exists between the rhetoric given about the need to build a more racially

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diverse movement and the amount of effort that is being directed toward that goal by white activists. This view is clearly expressed by Chris, one of the few African American activists who has held a professional position at the national level. He submits, “The movement talks about wanting new voices, but we are afraid of those voices.” The greatest challenge that this activist believes the movement faces is “the challenge of giving up power and allowing others to come in.” Another African American leader concurs, adding that in order to pull in more racial minorities, the movement has to become “less of a head game and more of a heart game.”

FRAMING THE ISSUE: SEARCHING FOR ARGUMENTS THAT MOBILIZE Formal organizations in the movement not only fail to incorporate a variety of strategies that may appeal to a greater diversity of potential members, but they also tend to frame their position against the death penalty in a manner that does not necessarily resonate with minority communities. It is important, therefore, to consider the impact of framing processes on the racial dynamics of the movement. Such an understanding of the meanings attached to activity within the anti–death penalty movement further reveal how individuals are mobilized along the lines of race. Over the last couple of decades, largely due to the conservative turn in the political structure, activists have realized the precarious nature of arguments focused on the racial politics of the death penalty. While there are certainly activists within the movement focused on the racism associated with the death penalty, a majority of the white, middle-class activists who dominate the ranks of the movement tend instead to frame the issue narrowly as a moral and/or religious one.56 Of course, there are more ways than just one in which to frame the message that the death penalty is morally wrong, and linking the racism associated with it is one way. Could it be that blacks and Latinos opposed to the death penalty are not active in the anti–death penalty movement in greater numbers because they do not feel that the dominant message of the movement is one that relates to their perspective of the death penalty? One approach to this question is to consider how broadly or narrowly the message of the movement is framed. In addition to taking a moralistic approach, another way that death penalty activists frame their message lies with their tendency to narrow their focus to the single cause of abolishing the death penalty. While some anti–death penalty organizations, such as the ACLU and Amnesty International, have broadened their view of the death penalty to encompass other issues focused on civil liberties and human rights, the NCADP and state-level abolitionist organizations take a strong stance against

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involving themselves in other causes that may reduce the level of support they receive from affiliates and supporters.57 Ron Hampton, a prominent black activist in the movement, asserts that white activists need to frame the death penalty in a manner that is more consistent with the priorities of the black community by “tying it to the whole constellation of issues that matter there,” including the institutionalized racism found throughout the criminal justice system and the society as a whole.58 By limiting their focus solely to the death penalty, white activists may well be sacrificing potential participants who don’t readily see how the death penalty is related to the long list of issues competing for their attention. The following quote is a typical one made by the black activists in my study who draw a connection between a limited focus in the movement’s message and difficulty mobilizing potential participants. You have to see the connectedness when you address the death penalty. If you just talk about the death penalty, then there are some people who you’ll get to support it, but there are others who will say, “Why? The death penalty doesn’t affect me. It only affects those people who commit crimes and I’m not criminal.” Unless you can look at it in context, which means that you have to talk about some of these other issues, then you can’t do it. So I think we have to see it as part of the big picture because if we don’t, a lot of people will be turned off to address the issue because they will see it as somebody else’s problem.

I am not suggesting that there are no blacks in the movement who have been mobilized against the death penalty for moral and/or religious reasons. As scholars of black theology emphasize, however, historically the theology of blacks has been both ideological and political. While white theology has historically maintained a focus on individual salvation, the faith of blacks is more likely to be manifested in solidarity with the oppressed.59 As a result, mobilization through religion is liable to take on different meanings for blacks and whites. If the interpretation of morality made by white middle-class activists is not broadened to include a focus on race-related concerns, they run the risk of alienating black death penalty opponents who are driven primarily by the racial politics involved. Historically, white Protestantism has focused on personal salvation, rather than social issues.60 It is entirely possible that the individualism historically located within white Protestantism plays a role in why many white activists join the movement and why so few blacks are mobilized to do so. Since the anti–death penalty movement has its roots in white Protestantism, it should come as no surprise that efforts to abolish the death penalty have largely been motivated by a concern for the personal salvation of individuals. The move to ban public executions in the early 1800s was driven more out of a concern for the souls of the public witnessing the executions than for the inequities found with the death penalty.61 Contemporary theo-

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logical arguments made against the death penalty similarly involve a concern for the souls of the condemned, as life in prison is argued to provide murderers with more time to find redemption.62 With racial issues in particular, some Protestant groups have not only avoided such issues, but they have a long history of contributing to ongoing racial tensions. The Southern Baptist Convention admitted as much in 1995 when it issued a formal resolution on racial resolution at the 150th anniversary of their organization. The resolution reads, in part, “Our relationship to African Americans has been hindered from the beginning by the role that slavery played in the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention. . . . In later years the Southern Baptist Convention failed, in many cases, to support, and in some cases opposed, legitimate initiatives to secure the civil rights of African Americans.”63 The resolution on racial reconciliation issued by the Southern Baptist convention continues with a formal apology: “Be it further resolved that we apologize to all African Americans for condoning and/or perpetuating individual and systemic racism in our lifetime” and a commitment “to eradicate racism in all its forms from Southern Baptist life and ministry.”64 The individualism of white Protestantism reduces the question of race relations to the question of whether one will personally “love thy neighbor,” helping individual blacks who are in need. Consequently, a flood of Thanksgiving turkeys may pour out of the same churches that would never encourage their ministers to actively support affirmative action policies. The former is a moral matter and the latter is a political matter. The faith of black theology, on the other hand, includes solidarity with the oppressed, for it is both ideological and political.65 Black theologians helped to shape the conscience of America during the Civil Rights Movement by arguing that individual salvation can only be accomplished within the context of social liberation. James Cone expresses the sentiment of black theologians well with his question: “What good is a theological point if it is not useful in the black struggle for freedom?”66 In his articulation of black theology, Cone paid particular attention to racism and the importance of black theology to rid society of this “alien power” that served to oppress both the white oppressors and their black victims. In Black Theology and Black Power, Cone contends, If the work of Christ is that of liberating men from alien loyalties, and if racism is, as George Kelsey says, an alien faith, then there must be some correlation between Black Power and Christianity. . . . Black Power is shouting Yes to black humanness and No to white oppression is exorcising demons on both sides of the conflict.67

This brief historical account of the emergence of black theology in response to the failure of white theology to adequately address racial injustice

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enables us to gain a greater understanding of how a moralistic or religious position against the death penalty may carry different meanings for black and white activists. At the same time, it is crucial to note that there is great diversity between the various denominations that constitute the Protestant religion with regard to their theological belief systems. For instance, there is a significant difference between the aforementioned Southern Baptists and those who identify with the Quaker religion, even though both are typically classified as denominations within the Protestant religion.68 Quakers are strongly committed to exposing racial injustice, and they are called by God to oppose the death penalty due to their unequivocal position of nonviolence. The Southern Baptist Convention, on the other hand, is the Protestant denomination that is most often recognized as maintaining a formal position in support of the death penalty.69 Certainly, there are also many religious white activists in the anti–death penalty movement who are not Protestant. While there is no official religious categorization of the activists in the movement, I would not be at all surprised to learn that there are as many, if not more, Catholics as there are Protestants within the movement. The Catholic Church maintains a formal position against the death penalty.70 While this does not alone ensure that individual members of the Catholic Church will adopt a position against the death penalty, when activists in the movement do identify as Catholic, they typically embrace the theological arguments articulated in the pope’s anti–death penalty position.71 Among the social justice positions of the Vatican is also a commitment to speaking out against instances of racial injustice.72 Several of the white activists in my sample who identify with a religion are Quaker or Catholic. In addition, there are several white Jewish activists in my sample. As a result, the ideology of white theology briefly summarized above does not neatly apply to many of the whites I interviewed. It is also important to note that the vast majority of the Latinos I interviewed also identify as Catholic and indicate that their religious beliefs played at least a part, if not the major impetus, in their decision to become involved in the movement against the death penalty. A 2007 report published by the Pew Research Center, a result of the collaborative effort of the Pew Hispanic Center and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, provides an in-depth examination of the role of religion in the lives of Latinos.73 The findings of this report shed some light upon the connection that I found between the religious beliefs of the Latinos I interviewed and their decision to become involved in the movement against the death penalty. The Pew study found that “the roles Latinos play in U.S. politics and public affairs are deeply influenced by the distinctive characteristics of their religious faith. Most Latinos see religion as a moral compass to guide their own political thinking.”74

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The relationship that exists among Latinos between politics and religion cannot be explained solely by their membership in the Catholic Church, as the same relationship has not been found among white Catholics. The 2007 Pew Research Center report found that “a majority of white Catholics (54%) say that churches should keep out of politics, compared with 36% of Latino Catholics.”75 A majority of Catholic Latinos assert that “churches and other houses of worship should express their views on day-to-day social and political issues.”76 The same study found that these attitudes only intensify when Catholic Latinos attend church on a regular basis. Regular church attendance among Latinos, regardless of whether they identify as Catholic or evangelical Protestants, is also associated with the attitudes of Latinos toward the death penalty. Among religious Latinos, “Catholics who attend church at least once a week are more likely than Catholics who attend church less frequently to oppose the death penalty (46% vs. 36%) and evangelicals who attend church at least once a week are 11 percentage points more likely to oppose capital punishment than are those who attend less frequently.”77 This is a particularly interesting finding for Latino evangelicals, who were found to express conservative views on gay marriage and abortion, yet take the more politically liberal position of opposition to the death penalty. Latino evangelicals, in fact, were found to oppose the death penalty slightly more often than Latino Catholics.78 There are various explanations for the level of opposition to the death penalty found among Latinos across religious communities. Another study that observes a similar tendency of Latinos to engage in political and social action finds “this commitment to social justice goes beyond a group’s denominational community.”79 While this study, conducted by Gaston Espinosa, also finds that Latino Protestants are more likely to engage in both political and social action than are Latino Catholics, he notes that both groups demonstrate a similar level of commitment to social justice. He provides a broad, international perspective as one reason for their comparable level of commitment. Espinosa argues that Latino Protestants and Catholics have a common de facto social justice commitment that is community-based and yet national and international in vision and scope. The fact that 35% of all Latinos were born outside of the United States or come from countries where poverty and right-wing dictators often functioned like terrorists may help contribute to this sense of collective identity with people in other parts of the world.80

A wealth of research focused on the associations between religion and race/ethnic background points to a complex set of factors that shape political and social action.81 While I certainly do not offer an exhaustive analysis of these factors that may be presumed to have an impact upon the

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propensity of various combinations of religious and racial/ethnic groups toward anti–death penalty activism, my study nonetheless finds racial differences in how moral outrage against the death penalty is expressed by the activists in my sample. In subsequent chapters, these differences are further argued to have an impact on the racial dynamics of the movement. Certainly there are whites involved in the movement concerned with the racial politics of the death penalty and appreciative of how the issue of the death penalty is intimately connected to other broader issues of social injustice impacting upon the communities of oppressed groups. Many of these more racially conscious white activists may nonetheless opt for a moralistic approach for the death penalty as they make choices with respect to the kind of agency for collective action they wish to create. Alberto Melucci, a prominent new social movement theorist, asserts that participants must make several choices in the agency they select for their action. They must decide, for instance, whether they are seeking a change in the social structure or if they are attempting to challenge the cultural codes located in the dominant society.82 Death penalty activists, along with those found in many other contemporary social movements, may view changing the oppressive social structure as the preferred solution, but challenging the cultural codes “may turn out to be a less punishable, thus a more attractive and directly available option.”83 Playing the “race card” during the current overall racial climate of political correctness and race neutrality is not met with much public sympathy. Ultimately, the decreased attention given to the racism surrounding the death penalty may have interfered with the movement’s ability to recruit racial minorities, insofar as an attention to racism serves to mobilize such minorities. Overall, the anti–death penalty movement’s framing of the death penalty as a moral or religious issue has not proven to be successful in reaching its goal of abolishing the death penalty in the United States. The brief period from 1972 to 1976, in which the death penalty was deemed unconstitutional by the 1972 Furman ruling and subsequently suspended, serves as the most significant accomplishment achieved toward the goal of death penalty abolition. When we look at the years prior to this brief moratorium on the death penalty, however, it becomes apparent that the dominant strategy by which the death penalty was framed was more legalistic than moralistic in nature. The brief success of the anti–death penalty movement in the 1970s, therefore, “depended less on its alignment with the ethical sensibilities of the citizenry than its formal legal validity.”84 In the late 1980s, death penalty activists eventually realized the futility of focusing their efforts on having the court system acknowledge the unconstitutionality of the death penalty. With the 1987 case of McCleskey v. Kemp, the Legal Defense Fund had attempted to revive the 1960s argu-

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ment that the death penalty should be abolished due to racial disparities found in capital sentencing. Warren McCleskey was a black man who had been convicted of killing a white police officer in Georgia. His appeal provided the LDF with an opportunity to introduce data provided by a study conducted by David Baldus, which exposed the racial disparities that loomed large when controlling for the race of not only capital defendants, but more significantly, that of their victims. The study revealed that those who murder whites were treated much more harshly in Georgia than were those who murdered blacks, Despite the compelling statistics presented by the Baldus study, the Supreme Court rejected the appeal by a five-tofour vote. The findings of the Baldus Study were subsequently presented to the Court in an appeal to this case.85 While a majority of those on the Supreme Court accepted Baldus’s findings, they nonetheless ruled that his statistical evidence was irrelevant because it did not prove intent to discriminate.86 The “white backlash” resulting from the changing political opportunities brought by the Civil Rights Movement had long before guaranteed strong resistance to recognizing the discriminatory nature of the death penalty from both the courts and the public. With the McCleskey defeat in 1987 came the realization that the race factor had become a dead issue for litigation; therefore, just as white activists recognize the need to build a more racially diverse movement, they have diminished their emphasis upon the racial disparities in capital sentencing.87 The failure of the McCleskey case also made it clear that legalistic strategies were losing popularity. Attention was redirected by those in the movement at that time to swaying public opinion against the death penalty. Various strategies have since been utilized by death penalty opponents to build the anti–death penalty movement, including such pragmatic objections as emphasizing the extreme costs of the death penalty or its failure to serve as a deterrent to crime.88 Despite sporadic efforts to reframe the issue of the death penalty in pragmatic terms, death penalty abolitionists continue to frame their opposition against the death penalty predominantly through moral arguments. While theological arguments against the death penalty have somewhat declined in recent times, a number of well-known anti–death penalty organizations continue to frame the death penalty as a religious issue. In 1989 and 1990, Sister Helen Prejean, probably the most famous Catholic heading the struggle to abolish the death penalty, organized a coalition of anti–death penalty organizations, including Amnesty International, the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, and the National Interreligious Task Force on Criminal Justice. This coalition sponsored a campaign called “Lighting the Torch of Conscience,” which had as its primary purpose encouraging people within the churches to study and discuss the immorality of the death penalty.89

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More recently, Amnesty International USA has coordinated an annual event called the National Weekend of Faith in Action (NWFA), which has as its purpose to “engage people on all sides of the death penalty debate in examining and discussing the issue from the perspective of their own faith traditions and values.”90 Since its conception in 1998, the NWFA has brought faith communities and human rights groups together each October to provide them with resources that they can utilize in the fight against the death penalty. Theological arguments against the death penalty of late can be heard by the most recent network of organizations that has as its goal “to put the Church’s teaching about the death penalty into action.”91 The Catholic Mobilizing Network to End the Use of the Death Penalty was launched on January 25, 2009, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, at the annual conference of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP). This network is collaborating with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and secular abolition groups, such as NCADP, Equal Justice USA, and Murder Victims’ Families for Reconciliation (MVFR), to inform and mobilize Catholics to join the anti–death penalty movement (www.catholicsmobilizing.org). Herbert Haines argues that the political weakness of the movement can be traced to frame alignment difficulties, especially the persistent attempts to win support for their cause through moral arguments.92 Moralistic and religious approaches have encountered a public increasingly intolerant of crime and cries of victimization, as well as the current tough-on-crime agenda voiced by politicians.93 Haines asserts that while moralistic rhetoric can account for at least some of the movement’s success in the past, it is unlikely to bring success in the future. He suggests that a pragmatic approach is more promising than a moralistic one, given the current cultural and political context. When Haines suggested that pragmatic arguments offer the movement more potential than moral ones, perhaps he anticipated the economic crisis that our nation would find itself in more than a decade later. The amount of money that we were investing in our nation’s prisons at the time of Haines’s suggestion was rising rapidly and predicted to reach massive levels. Between 1987 and 2007, as the population of our nation’s prisons nearly tripled, “total state spending on corrections increased from $12 billion in 1987 to $49 billion.”94 Given the rising crime rate, even in the face of mounting expenses to maintain our prison population, it is certainly no surprise that states are now entertaining ways to reduce the costs of incarceration. California has received the most media attention recently, both for the colossal debt that it has accumulated from its prison expenses and the radical actions it is proposing to reduce these expenses.95 The cost of overcrowded prisons in this state has led them to find ways to reduce

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the prison population, including releasing tens of thousands of prisoners outright and reducing the sentences of others. Legislation that would legalize marijuana was introduced by California assemblyman Tom Ammiano in February 2009 and is currently being debated for its ability to reduce the prison population, saving the state of California billions of dollars.96 The economic recession thrust upon the nation by such factors as government deregulation and the subsequent irresponsible spending of the banking, real estate, and automotive industries has only intensified efforts of states like California to reexamine their prison expenditures. Given the economic recession threatening the state of our nation, pragmatic arguments focused on the exorbitant costs that come with the death penalty certainly might be expected to bring the most attention to the movement.97 While such arguments may encourage the pragmatically minded to move from a position of support to opposition, and perhaps win the support of cost-minded politicians and legislators in the process, this approach may not necessarily serve to mobilize the masses to join the movement. None of those I interviewed indicated that they were driven to join the movement out of a concern about the costs associated with the death penalty. Individuals generally tend to be mobilized from an emotive state, as it is typically assaults to our notions of human dignity that outrage us to the point of engaging in collective action. Once relegated to an irrational “psychological level” and deemed irrelevant to social movement activity, emotions are now emphasized as a key concept by the new social movement theorists who focus on the cultural dimension of protest. Particularly when examining the forces that mobilize, new social movement theorists emphasize that “emotions give ideas, ideologies, identities, and even interests their power to motivate.”98 While arguments about the costs associated with the death penalty may indeed provide a sound tool for debate in the legislative arena, these arguments are not likely to stimulate the outrage required to increase movement participation. Jasper has emphasized the importance of “moral shocks,” as he argues that they are “often the first step toward recruitment into social movements, occur when an unexpected event or piece of information raises such a sense of outrage in a person that she becomes inclined toward political action, whether or not she has acquaintances in the movement.”99 It is difficult for most people in society to trace the current economic recession facing our nation back to one particular event or piece of information, as it seems to have crept up on us. A “moral shock” is not likely to erupt among those of us who find it extremely difficult to entangle the complex factors that have interacted on many different levels to bring the nation to this economic crisis. Jasper adds, “In the case of slowly unfolding, existing threats, we have more defense mechanisms—denial, resignation—that prevent our recognizing the full extent of the threat.”100

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Though the impact of the current economic recession is widespread, it has been argued that racial minorities are disproportionately hit by the tough economic times that we face. In the mid-1990s the worst of the economic crisis had not yet surfaced, yet already we were being warned that, The continuing discrimination and redlining in both mortgage and consumer credit hinder the ability of Black people to buy and improve their homes and therefore block asset accumulation, stakeholding, and revitalization in Black communities. The ongoing consolidation of the banking industry has had and will continue to have a profound negative impact in low- and moderateincome communities and in non-White communities.101

Given the impact that the country’s financial system has had and will continue to have upon the black community, we might expect that the cost argument would win significant support from that community, as well as from the similarly situated Latino community. Support for frames based on cost, at least those that are used in the movement against the death penalty, has not been found in these communities of color. The absence of a “moral shock” in the general public prohibits a massive mobilization of Americans of any racial background, yet there are additional reasons that blacks and other racial minorities are especially unlikely to be mobilized by the cost frame. There are the obvious reasons, including that low-income blacks and Latinos are not likely to encounter the Harvard Law Review, the source of the cautionary words quoted above, or that the vicious cycle driven by the economic crisis keeps them struggling to survive and with no time left to participate in social movements. Beyond these clear reasons for the lack of mobilization of racial minorities, however, it is argued that “the prevailing civil rights paradigms fail to consider the structure of the banking system as a civil rights issue.”102 Though the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and the Community Reinvestment Act have been commended for their “good intentions,” they are not enough to empower racial minorities. “The creation of empowered communities requires more than new policies tied to community-based political organizations: it requires creating a new economic discourse.”103 Activists who find it hard to resist the opportunities brought by the economic crisis are using the “cost argument” increasingly more often in their organizing efforts, yet such an approach sometimes invites contention within the movement. Resorting to such pragmatic arguments against the death penalty sometimes offends the sensibilities of activists in the movement who are driven by passionate ideological and/or moral positions against the death penalty. When Marisol attempted to raise the possibility of using the cost argument within her organization’s letter that they planned to send to Obama, she was met with resistance by some of her fellow activists who prefer to advance the arguments that

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drove them to their own passionate stance toward the death penalty. This disagreement surfaced when I asked Marisol to list the arguments that seem to be the most effective when she organizes with her fellow activists in Puerto Rico. I would say the religious and moral arguments, the ethical arguments. Those are the arguments that work best. If you use for example, the cost of the death penalty, they would be offended. People who are against the death penalty say “How could you use that low argument?” That happened at the annual meeting. We were talking about sending a letter to Obama so I said, “Why don’t we include that they would be saving millions of dollars?” and one of the participants was really offended. So I said, “I’m sorry, but that’s what works sometimes so we have to use everything.”

The framing processes at work in the anti–death penalty movement certainly have an impact on how individuals become mobilized to join. McAdam argues that such framing processes do not operate independently, rather interact with the factors of political opportunities and organizational dynamics.104 It is essential, therefore, to consider the interactive effect between these three factors as we examine the dynamics of the anti–death penalty movement. For instance, as the political opportunity structure shifted to political conservatism and race politics subsequently declined in their effectiveness, death penalty organizations were compelled to adjust the way they framed the death penalty. At the same time, the ability of these organizations to frame the issue in a manner that will encourage mobilization depends largely on the organizational structure of the movement. In other words, while the contemporary anti–death penalty movement may have arisen from political opportunities created during the civil rights era, the fate of the movement has been shaped to a large extent by the organizational and mobilization dynamics found within and the ways in which the movement’s message has been framed. Each of the three dimensions of social movement activity presented thus far is more closely examined throughout this book for their impact on the ability of the anti–death penalty movement to build a racially diverse movement. In the process, it becomes evident that political opportunities, organizational structure, and framing processes interact in such a manner as to contribute to the limited racial diversity found within the movement. Formal organizations in the movement have not only failed to incorporate those strategies which are likely to diversify their movement, but they also tend to frame their position against the death penalty in a narrow manner that is not clearly tied to other priorities faced by communities of color. These other priorities, such as economic inequality and institutionalized racism, are linked to the opportunities and constraints found within the political structure.

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EXTERNAL FACTORS IMPEDING MOBILIZATION OF RACIAL MINORITIES The anti–death penalty movement cannot be entirely faulted for its lack of racial diversity, as there are various other possible explanations for the virtual absence of people of color in the movement. Any examination of the lack of racial diversity within the anti–death penalty movement must take into consideration that a number of reasons for the difficulties in mobilizing blacks and other racial minorities may not be connected to the organizational dynamics or framing processes of the movement at all. Obstacles interfering with the mobilization of racial minorities may be explained by various theories, such as whether the hopelessness and despair in their community interferes with their mobilization, if they have other more pressing priorities, or if they simply lack the resources necessary to become involved in the movement. Such theories are highly speculative at this point, due to the limited literature in existence focused on the tendency of racial minorities not to involve themselves in the anti–death penalty movement. The relative absence of racial minorities in the anti–death penalty movement can be linked to a long-standing debate centered on how open the political system has been to the demands of minorities. Those on either side of the debate are deemed “pluralists” or “elitists.” While pluralists typically view the political system as open to minorities through conventional politics, especially the electoral process, those who view the system as elitist argue that conventional strategies tend not to be productive because politics are relatively closed to minorities.105 In a collection of political commentaries focused on changes in the political system brought by the post–civil rights era, Manning Marable lends support for the elitist perspective: “The most critical mistake in black politics was the tendency to emphasize electorialism at the expense of activism.”106 Civil rights leaders tended to perceive the ballot as the most important right southern blacks could obtain. It was strongly believed that the vote would pave the way for other basic changes, including improvements in education, employment, and public services. Besides having this instrumental value, the franchise was also seen as providing politically powerless blacks with a new sense of self-worth.107 While unconventional strategies, including peaceful protest and violence, were certainly utilized by southern blacks during the Civil Rights Movement, they tended to alienate whites. By the mid-1970s, therefore, the tactics of black leaders and organizations in the black community “were less confrontationist and more conventional,” as leaders of the growing black middle-class had gained the credentials needed to “work within the system.”108 A variety of factors contributed to the Black Panther Party adopting a reformist agenda, “ranging from a concern over the party’s increased

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alienation from the black community to state repression and the incarceration of members and sympathizers.”109 The Black Panther Party was not the only group of racial minorities who made the transition in the 1970s from a militant call for revolution to one that called instead for reform measures within conventional politics. Although radical Latino social movements have not received nearly the same amount of national attention that has been given to the Black Power Movement, Latinos also have a long history of organizing to resist racial oppression and empower their communities. Undoubtedly, the most widely recognized figure during the Chicano Movement of the 1960s and 1970s is Cesar Chavez, the infamous union leader of the United Farm Workers Union who organized migrant farm workers in California.110 On the other side of the country, Puerto Ricans in New York were no less busy organizing within their community, as they formed the Young Lords Party in a fashion similar to that of the Black Panther Party.111 The Young Lords Party organized alongside many other revolutionary parties and cofounded the 1960’s Rainbow Coalition. The Coalition included the Black Panther Party, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), and the Young Patriots, a gang of white youths who turned toward progressive politics.112 The Young Lords would eventually meet with a similar fate to that met by the Black Panther Party, as they succumbed to pressure by both authorities and internal struggle over ideology.113 They disbanded in the late 1970s and have become involved in conventional politics. Unlike African Americans, however, the political activity of Latinos has not been carried out in a broadly organized manner; rather the organizations of Latinos have been “largely regional and nationality specific.”114 Most of the political organizations that have developed among Latinos since the Civil Rights Movement are unlike the NAACP, in that they do not rely upon mass membership, rather they are “top-down elite alliances.”115 Manning Marable points out that those black leaders who have emerged since the Civil Rights Movement “increasingly came from elective offices,” yet he notes that the Democratic Party to which they have largely been connected has “distance(d) itself from black interests and issues.”116 This created a void in black leadership, which has led to decreased social movement activism in the black community. Marable further notes the impact of this course: Into the leadership vacuum of black America stepped Louis Farrakhan. To many black working- and middle-class families, Farrakhan’s philosophy of conservative black nationalism, economic self-help, and racial pride made sense. . . . Frequently, there have been leaders within the black community who have utilized the myth of the monolithic black community to stifle internal voices of dissent: “If we’re all black and if we all experience racism

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in common, there must be a unified response and leadership to address our problems.”117

This brief account of the impact of political opportunities and constraints upon black Americans since the Civil Rights Movement provides a plausible explanation for the resignation of blacks who might otherwise actively oppose the death penalty. Both the neglect of the black community by the Democratic Party and the ensuing difficulty with developing black leadership that could represent a variety of perspectives served to undermine the involvement of blacks in social movement activity. “Too Much on Their Plate Already” As the activists contemplated aloud with me the causes for the low level of participation among racial minorities, a number of reasons external to the movement were provided. The most frequent response by far was the view that people of color are not joining ranks with those in the movement because they have “too much on their plate already.” The response of Kenneth, a white man in his forties, is typical of those who made this observation: “I think that they tend to be worried about other things. I think that they are trying to exist. They are dealing with the struggles of racism and they don’t have time to deal with the struggles of the death penalty as an issue.” When activists spoke of the tendency for racial minorities to have priorities that rank higher than any concern about the death penalty, a few of them didn’t stop with statements such as that expressed by Kenneth. Several activists (N⫽6) made a point of mentioning not only the demands placed upon racial minorities, but also the advantages that whites have simply by virtue of their race. Whites are more likely than blacks and Latinos to become involved in the movement, they argue, because the privileges whites receive due to their race allow for fewer struggles and more time to devote to the movement. Mark’s words below illustrate this view well. Yes, to have the luxury of having time and resources to conceive of oneself as an activist in our society, particularly to be an activist on an issue that does not have a clear and immediate impact on your life, is a white privilege. It is a function of white privilege and a function of racism in this country. There are people who are simply not going to have the time or the resources.

When speaking of the demands competing for the attention of racial minorities, Mark was the only white activist who also referred to the circumstances that make it more likely for whites to become involved in the movement. Four of the black activists and one Latino who focused on the consuming struggles found within the black and Latino communities,

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however, made comments similar to those of Mark above. For instance, Joyce looks at factors governing the involvement of whites as well as blacks to explain the lack of diversity in the movement. The words of this black woman in her fifties are typical of her black peers. It is hard for black people to get involved in the anti-punishment movement in general when they have all these other issues of oppression that they are dealing with day to day. Where with white privilege, it allows one to focus. I, as a black person, have to choose whether I’m going to fight against racism in any number of areas that impact my community. I may choose to spend my time on things that deal more with folks who aren’t criminal and don’t see that relationship, or see it but say that I would much rather deal with education. Whereas white people who are not oppressed in this society don’t have as many pressing areas that they can say impact their lives. So they have a broader choice.

As he works tirelessly to mobilize Latinos to join the anti–death penalty movement, Jorge has found a very similar reality in his community to that which his black peers have found operating within the black community. Like his black counterparts in the movement, Jorge has been frustrated with the many distractions that he is competing with as he aims to enlist more Latinos to join the fight against the death penalty. When I asked Jorge for his thoughts as to why there are so few Latinos involved in the movement, he spoke of the many other priorities that vie for their attention. He suggests that it is even difficult to mobilize Latinos who identify as progressive activists, since they are so busy in other social movements that there is little time or attention left for them to focus their energies on fighting the death penalty. I think for us it is other priorities. As an activist you can work in one, two, or three campaigns, but you have the natural limit of time and resources and you have to also pay your bills, so I think that the priorities for most Latinos are immigration issues, education, labor issues. You have a lot of leaders in the labor movement who are Latino, in the women’s movement as well, so maybe they don’t perceive it as a priority, as on the agenda in the Latino community.

The activists’ comments regarding the burdens placed upon African Americans and Latinos demonstrate the interaction that occurs between these burdens and the scarcity of resources that can be found within their communities. The limited resources located within these communities serve as both a cause of and the effect of the problems that the numerous competing issues pose for social movement organizations attempting to mobilize African Americans and Latinos. Both tangible and intangible resources are considered necessary for a social movement to survive. While it comes as no surprise that many minority communities

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are short on tangible resources, such as money and a means to publicize the movement’s message, two of the most important intangible resources, time and commitment, are seriously lacking as well. The importance of the intangible resource of time is emphasized repeatedly by those activists who offer that racial minorities tend to have “too much on their plate.” In addition to the factor of time, communities of color have also encountered difficulty mobilizing and sustaining the level of commitment required in order to take collective action against the death penalty. The Nihilistic Threat Ranking just as high on the list of essential resources for social movements as the intangible resource of time is that of commitment. In order for activists to sustain their passion to fight against some perceived injustice, it is critical that they have a high level of commitment toward the goals of the movement. Several of the activists explicitly or implicitly suggest that there simply is not the level of commitment to fight for the elimination of the death penalty that is needed within the black community. While they concede that whites also typically fail to possess this level of commitment, some activists point out that there is a pervasive sense of powerlessness within the black community that heightens the possibility that blacks are unable to sustain the level of commitment that is necessary to involve themselves in the anti–death penalty movement. Cornel West refers to this feeling of powerlessness permeating the black community as “nihilism,” which he defines as “the lived experience of coping with a life of horrifying meaninglessness, hopelessness, and most important, lovelessness.”118 Both liberals and conservatives fail to recognize “the nihilistic threat” facing the black community, argues West, which interferes with this problem receiving the attention that it warrants. Rhetoric led by liberals as well as conservatives about the rates of unemployment, infant mortality, or incarceration found within the black community fails to take us to what West describes as “the murky waters of despair and dread that now flood the streets of black America.”119 This nihilism that West views as promoting a “numbing detachment from others and . . . an incredible disregard for human, especially black, life and property in much of black America” must certainly pose a huge obstacle for the mobilization of blacks into the movement against the death penalty.120 As the activists identified external factors interfering with greater numbers of racial minorities entering the movement, several of them spoke of the despair found in much of the black and Latino communities in words that are reminiscent of West’s concept of nihilism. Betty is one of those who referred to the despair and sense of powerlessness found in these communities as she speculated on the causes for the low participation of blacks and

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Latinos in the movement. Having experienced a period of severe depression herself, this New Jersey white woman in her fifties claims she has been able to recognize widespread depression throughout the city of Camden, a lowincome, predominantly black and Latino area. I think that there is a sense of powerlessness among minorities. They have been trained to believe that they are powerless, that they don’t make a difference, that they don’t count and though their numbers are growing exponentially, especially Hispanics, they haven’t gotten it yet. . . . I lived in Camden in the 80s and I was a minority there and I saw that, first of all, half of the city was clinically depressed, I mean absolutely diagnosably depressed. I went through a period like that. So they don’t have the energy, the time. They think, “How can I make a difference?”

Several of the black activists made similar remarks as they spoke of the difficulty the movement has mobilizing those who feel disempowered and unable to affect the political process. James is a retired police officer who heads up an anti–death penalty organization composed of black police officers. He has devoted most of his efforts as an activist toward trying to mobilize other African Americans who share his community in Washington, D.C., James explains that when he tries to pull blacks into the movement, a large part of the difficulty he faces is because “they are conditioned to respond by saying why get involved, it’s not going to change anything.” As a former police officer, James is attuned to the lack of trust that many blacks have in the criminal justice system, often leading them to feel that “nothing good will come out them trying to make a difference in this huge system.” Renee is an African American activist who lives in Philadelphia. She recounts the powerlessness within the black community that James finds, yet she extends her comments to explain how the experience of many whites is quite different. While blacks tend to feel powerless, Renee adds that the privileges whites receive can serve to mobilize them more quickly as they gain awareness of the racism associated with the death penalty. At the same time that many blacks learn to be suspicious of the criminal justice system, most whites are taught that the system is just. When they learn otherwise, the disillusionment that whites feel can engender a great deal of outrage, serving as a powerful motivator for them to participate in the movement against the death penalty. In the following quote, Renee contrasts the reaction of blacks with that of whites upon learning the racial disparities associated with the death penalty. Your sense of outrage as a black person, especially if you grew up in this country is like, “Well, so what? That’s par for the course. That’s how we’re treated in every other different way.” Whereas with a lot of white people, you realize that you do have a sense of privilege and you do become outraged and I think a

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lot of white folks take it a step further and choose to really roll up their sleeves and get involved in this issue.

Implicit in the comments of Renee and James is the belief that if blacks felt that they were treated as equal participants in the political process, they would be more prone to involve themselves in the movement. More fundamentally, the external factors of the “nihilistic threat” and that of blacks having “too much on their plate” carry the assumption that blacks are inclined to oppose the death penalty. It may be that their lack of involvement, however, is due in large part to increasing numbers of racial minorities taking a pro–death penalty position. Although a vast majority of blacks declared their opposition to the death penalty in the 1960s, public opinion polls have pointed to a constant increase of support for the death penalty since the 1960s among this racial group.121 When the activists speculated about the reasons for the low numbers of blacks in the movement, many of them addressed the increased likelihood that blacks are not joining the movement because they support the death penalty. “You Do the Crime, You Do the Time” As the activists I interviewed shared the factors that they believe interfere with greater numbers of blacks entering the movement, they typically spouted an array of internal and external factors before they eventually conceded that they are also fighting against the reality that many blacks support the death penalty. Several activists threw up their hands in dismay as they stated that they are aware of the significant number of blacks who have become proponents of the death penalty, yet cannot imagine why this is the case. The comments of Alice, a working-class African American woman in her forties, represent the utter bewilderment many expressed as they acknowledged that a significant portion of the black population support the death penalty. As she wrinkled her brow and raised her voice, Alice exclaimed, “What I don’t understand about the blacks is that it is the black people who are being executed, so why wouldn’t they want to get involved?!” She offered no answer to this rhetorical question, rather shook her head in disgust as she said that she hears from blacks all the time the popular adage, “You do the crime, you do the time.” Most of those who noted the obstacle posed by this level of black support for the death penalty identified one of two reasons for this phenomenon. They argued that blacks favor the death penalty either because they are more frequently the victims of crime or because they lack knowledge of the inequities associated with the death penalty. Looking at the first of these two theories for pro–death penalty sentiment within the black community, it is important to note that past research has often placed weight on the

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factor of criminal victimization. This is a key factor in the study by Cohn, et al. of the influence of race on death penalty attitudes.122 These researchers find that blacks and whites hold punitive attitudes for very different reasons. They conclude that these different reasons reflect the positions of each group in the social and economic order. They found that the tendency of blacks toward punitiveness is due to a greater fear of criminal victimization. This finding is not surprising, given that the living conditions of blacks place them at a greater risk for criminal victimization than do those of the dominant group. The comments of several activists reflect this interpretation of black support for the death penalty. Rosalind, an African American woman in her thirties, describes this view well with the following words. What it says to me is that people of color are victimized. It’s more that people of color are more likely to be victims of crime than anyone else. They are able to see it more as a potential conflict situation. When life is taken so cheaply, how can you say there shouldn’t be a death penalty when people’s lives aren’t valued?

The theme of “the value of life” arose often in the words of those activists who argued that when many racial minorities support the death penalty, they do so because they feel affirmed when the state is willing to execute criminals on their behalf. The message that they receive is that their lives are, finally, viewed as valuable enough for the state to consider executions as a way to “protect” the lives of black and Latino citizens. Joyce describes this rationale for pro-death penalty sentiment in the communities of color when she states, The reality of the situation is that people in a black, Latino neighborhood are seeing young people shot down in the street every day. I think that sometimes in their head it is a victory to get the death penalty. Because that means, for once, someone cares about what happened in their community or it’s a way of seeing how to deal with it. People want to be safe. They don’t want to have to feel like they have to walk down the streets of their neighborhood clutching their purses, so it’s a very tough issue.

As I listened to the words of Joyce and others who offered this interpretation of black support for the death penalty, the infamous case of O. J. Simpson came to mind. A racial divide emerged in 1995 as the public reacted to the “not guilty” verdict that he received after being tried for the murder of his white wife. Much to the dismay of many whites, blacks appeared to rejoice in the Simpson verdict. The acquittal of O. J. Simpson served as a symbolic gain for blacks who never thought that they would see the day when a black man charged with the murder of a white woman

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would be released. To the extent that the reaction of the black community to the verdict was indeed a celebration, it was most likely brought on by the racism of the LAPD detective Mark Fuhrman that was uncovered during the trial. Blacks who had eagerly looked on during what was termed the “trial of the century” interpreted the outcome of the trial as a victory toward their larger fight to be acknowledged as equally deserving of the protection historically afforded to whites, yet systematically denied to blacks. Many pro–death penalty blacks similarly view the execution of those who murder blacks as a victory for their community. From this perspective, neither O. J. Simpson’s actual innocence nor the racial disparity found with the death penalty weigh in as more important than the need to feel validated as a people fully deserving of protection. The Marshall Hypothesis Another possible explanation for the level of support for the death penalty found among blacks is that they may have little knowledge, if any, about the racial disparities that exist with capital sentencing. The assumption of this theory is that if blacks knew more about these disparities, they would be more likely to join a movement opposed to the death penalty based upon a view of the death penalty as racist. A prevalent form of this theory is found with the “Marshall hypothesis.” In his 1972 opinion in Furman v. Georgia, Justice Thurgood Marshall proposed that support for the death penalty can be attributed simply to a lack of knowledge about issues around the death penalty. He felt that an informed public would oppose its legislation.123 When the activists I interviewed focused on the pro–death penalty sentiment found in the black community, they often explained it as the result of a lack of knowledge about the inequities associated with the death penalty. If blacks had more knowledge about the death penalty, some activists argue, they would realize that what might initially appear to be a victory is a hollow one. Activists submit that if blacks knew the actual statistics in regard to the race of the victims of capital defendants, they would realize that the death penalty is applied exceedingly more often when whites, rather than blacks, have been the victims of murder. Martin is a criminal justice professor in New York City who is frequently dismayed when the vast majority of his students, including a significant number of racial minorities, lack knowledge of the class and racial inequities found with the death penalty. He places this lack of knowledge at the top of the list of possible reasons for pro–death penalty sentiment found in black and Latino communities. Martin explains, I think that a lot of people in communities don’t understand the issues at all. When people say that they are pro–death penalty and are of the African Ameri-

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can or Latino community, my first inclination is that you don’t understand the issues. After I talk to someone or they have gone through class and have been provided all the information, then I would be interested in finding out what they thought. When you look at the statistics, when you read the cases, most are very dramatic, eye-opening kind of revelations for people. So when we say that most of the black and Latino population may be pro–death penalty, my question is whether people are just thinking in terms of retribution and punishment, but they are not thinking of how this really affects people because of race and class issues. So when you raise that level of consciousness, the thinking becomes very different. I think that most people would be anti–death penalty if they were informed.

Others I interviewed delved deeper with their comments as they explored theories that might explain the lack of knowledge about the death penalty among the poor and communities of color. Mark, a white man in his thirties, offers one such explanation with his consideration of the poor schooling that these populations often receive. On an educational level, most people of color attend schools that are specifically targeted not to receive adequate funding. There is a higher illiteracy rate among people of color. Most publications about the death penalty are printed, so who’s not reading them? People of color and young people.

Nearly all of the Latinos who spoke with me indicated that there is a lack of knowledge in their community about the racial disparities found with the death penalty. Angelica attributes this lack of awareness to the tendency of the facts surrounding the death penalty to be concealed from them. By comparison, other abuses are readily seen within the Latino community. Angelica views immigration issues as a prime example of the concerns confronting Latinos that impact them in a more visible, widespread manner than does the death penalty. With the death penalty, we have a lot to learn as an abolitionist movement from the immigration reform movement. People are going out on the street asking for immigration reform. How come they are not doing that with the death penalty? I think it is because they don’t know how deeply it affects their communities. They are not educated enough about what is going on with death row that directly affects their communities, whereas with immigration they see it every day because they are seeing the deportations. They are seeing the abuses, they are seeing the racism and it is so much easier for them to pinpoint what is going on with the Hispanic community, which is not with regards to the death penalty issue.

While the theories explored in this section are not meant to serve as an exhaustive list of obstacles that impede the involvement of blacks and

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Latinos in the anti–death penalty movement, they provide us with sound explanations for their relative absence in the movement. All of these theories serve as clear illustrations of the role of the broader political system in creating constraints or structuring opportunities for racial minorities, in terms of their ability to become involved in the anti–death penalty movement. Each must be considered when taking into account the difficulties the anti–death penalty movement has experienced in mobilizing racial minorities. With this study, it is my central thesis that the movement’s lack of racial diversity can be attributed primarily to the organizational structure and framing processes of the movement. As I make this argument, I also take into consideration the monumental impact that the political opportunity structure has had in shaping these two factors. Ultimately, I maintain the necessity of further exploring the alternative explanations for the lack of minority involvement in the movement described in this section. These alternative explanations are addressed in my interviews with activists and addressed in my concluding remarks as theories that deserve ongoing research.

NOTES 1. Ron Eyerman and Andrew Jamison, Social Movements: A Cognitive Approach (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991). 2. Gustave LeBon, The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (New York: Viking Press, 1960), 30–31. 3. Joan Neff Gurney and Kathleen J. Tierney, “Relative Deprivation & Social Movements: A Critical Look at Twenty Years of Theory and Research,” The Sociological Quarterly 23 (1982): 33–47. 4. Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965). 5. Mayer N. Zald, “Looking Backward to Look Forward: Reflection on the Past and Future of the Resource Mobilization Research Program,” in Frontiers in Social Movement Theory, ed. Aldon Morris and Carol McClurg Mueller (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992). 6. Carol McClurg Mueller, “Building Social Movement Theory,” in Frontiers in Social Movement theory, ed. Aldon Morris and Carol McClurg Mueller (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992). 7. Olson, Logic of Collective Action; John D. McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald, The Trend of Social Movements in America: Professionalization and Resource Mobilization (Morristown, N.J.: General Learning Press, 1973); Anthony Oberschall, Social Conflict and Social Movements (Engelwood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1973); William A. Gamson, The Strategy of Social Protest (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1990). 8. Jean L. Cohen, “Strategy or Identity: New Theoretical Paradigm and Contemporary Social Movements,” Social Research 52, no. 4 (1985): 663–716. 9. That is, McCarthy and Zald, Trend of Social Movements in America.

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10. Herbert Haines, Against Capital Punishment: The Anti–Death Penalty Movement in America, 1972–1994 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 102. 11. Aldon Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change (New York: The Free Press, 1984), 281. 12. Oberschall, Social Conflict. 13. Doug McAdam, Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930–1970 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982). 14. McAdam, Political Process. 15. Jack Goldstone and Charles Tilly, “Threat and Opportunity,” in Silence and Voice in the Study of Contentious Politics, ed. Ronald Aminzade et al., 179–94 (New York: Cambridge, 2001), 182. 16. Tarrow, Power in Movement (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 71. 17. Eyerman and Jamison, Social Movements. 18. Doug McAdam, “Culture and Social Movements,” in New Social Movements: From Ideology to Identity, ed. Enrique Larana, Hank Johnston, and Joseph R. Gusfield (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994). 19. Hank Johnston and Bert Klandermans, eds., Social Movements & Culture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995). 20. Marcy Darnovsky, Barbara Epstein, and Richard Flacks, Cultural Politics and Social Movements (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995). 21. Alberto Melucci, “The Symbolic Challenge of Contemporary Movements,” Social Research 52, no. 4 (1985); Cohen, “Strategy or Identity?”; Alain Touraine, “An Introduction to the Study of Social Movements,” Social Research 52, no. 4 (1985). 22. Touraine, “Study of Social Movements”; Alberto Melucci, Nomads of the Present: Social Movements and Individual Needs in Contemporary Society (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989). 23. David Snow et al., “Frame Alignment Process, Micromobilization, and Movement Participation,” American Sociological Review 51 (1986): 464–81. 24. David Snow and Robert Benford, “Ideology, Frame Resonance, and Participant Mobilization,” International Social Movement Research 1 (1988): 197–217. 25. Doug McAdam, John McCarthy, and Mayer Zald, eds., Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 8. 26. Haines, Against Capital Punishment, 40–41. 27. Howard Winant, Racial Conditions (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994), 98. 28. Winant, Racial Conditions, 95. 29. Haines, Against Capital Punishment, 13–14. 30. Haines, Against Capital Punishment, 45. 31. Tarrow, Power in Movement, 88. 32. Winant, Racial Conditions, 120. 33. Theda Skocpol and John L. Campbell, eds., American Society and Politics: Institutional, Historical, and Theoretical Perspectives (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1995). 34. Doug McAdam, “The Decline of the Civil Rights Movement,” in Social Movements of the Sixties and Seventies, ed. Jo Freeman (New York: Longman, 1983). 35. Winant, Racial Conditions, 123. 36. Gordon MacInnes, Wrong for All the Right Reasons: How White Liberals Have Been Undone by Race (New York: New York University Press, 1996).

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37. Steven Steinberg, “The Liberal Retreat from Race during the Post–Civil Rights Era,” in The House That Race Built, ed. Wahneema Lubiano (New York: Pantheon Books, 1997). 38. McAdam, Political Process. 39. Herbert Haines, Black Radicals and the Civil Rights Mainstream, 1954–1970 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1988). 40. J. Craig Jenkins and Craig M. Eckert, “Channeling Black Insurgency: Elite Patronage and Professional Social Movement Organization in the Development of the Black Movement,” American Sociological Review 51 (1986): 812–29. 41. Jenkins and Eckert, “Channeling Black Insurgency.” 42. Haines, Against Capital Punishment, 43. 43. Haines, Against Capital Punishment, 43. 44. Haines, Against Capital Punishment, 152. 45. Haines, Against Capital Punishment, 158. 46. Manual Castells, The Urban Question (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1979), 329. 47. Castells, The Urban Question, 1979: 330. 48. Judith N. DeSena, People Power: Grass Roots Politics and Race Relations (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1999), 12. 49. Jenkins and Eckert, “Channeling Black Insurgency.” 50. Haines, Against Capital Punishment, 115. 51. Haines, Against Capital Punishment, 130. 52. Myra Marx Ferree and Silke Roth, “Gender, Class, and Their Interaction between Social Movements: A Strike of West Berlin Day Care Workers,” Gender & Society 12, no. 6 (1998): 626–48. 53. Ferree and Roth, “Gender, Class.” 54. Ferree and Roth, “Gender, Class.” 55. Dan Clawson, The Next Upsurge: Labor and the New Social Movements (Ithaca, N.Y.: ILR Press, 2003). 56. Haines, Against Capital Punishment. 57. Haines, Against Capital Punishment, 146. 58. Haines, Against Capital Punishment, 115. 59. Patrick Bascio, The Failure of White Theology: A Black Theological Perspective (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 1994); James H. Cone, For My People: Black Theology and the Black Church (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1984). 60. Bascio, Failure of White Theology. 61. John D. Bessler, Death in the Dark: Midnight Executions in America (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1997). 62. Shirley Dicks, ed., Congregation of the Condemned (New York: Promotheus Books, 1991). 63. Southern Baptist Convention, “About Us,” www.sbc.net/resolutions (accessed September 1, 2009). 64. Southern Baptist Convention, “About Us,” www.sbc.net/resolutions. 65. Bascio, Failure of White Theology. 66. Cone, For My People. 67. James H. Cone, Black Theology and Black Power (New York: Seabury Press, 1969). George Kelsey, a Morehouse graduate, professor, and director of Morehouse

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School of Religion from 1945 to 1948, authored the 1965 classic text Racism and the Christian Understanding of Man. 68. There is some dissention among Quakers as to whether or not their faith should be classified as a category of the Protestant religion. See “Are Quakers Protestant?” by Bill Samuel (2001) at www.Quakerinfo.com. 69. The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints join the Southern Baptist Convention to make up the small minority of Protestant denominations that endorse the retention of the death penalty (DPIC 2009). On the website of the Southern Baptist Convention, a resolution in support of the death penalty is posted. This resolution, which was made in June 2000, is quite lengthy, yet reads in part that the members of SBC “support the fair and equitable use of capital punishment by civil magistrates as a legitimate form of punishment for those guilty of murder or treasonous acts that result in death; and Be it further RESOLVED, That we urge that capital punishment be administered only when the pursuit of truth and justice result in clear and overwhelming evidence of guilt” (www.sbc.net/resolutions). 70. In 1980 the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops called for an end to the death penalty and has maintained a strong position against it ever since. They argue against the death penalty because “(1) The sanction of death, when it is not necessary to protect society, violates respect for human life, (2) State-sanctioned killing in our names diminishes all of us, (3) Its application is deeply flawed and can be irreversibly wrong, is prone to errors, and is biased by factors such as race, the quality of legal representation, and where the crime was committed, (4) We have other ways to punish criminals and protect society.” www.usccb.org, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. 71. The pope has called for the end of the death penalty on numerous occasions, as he reminds us that our “model of society bears the stamp of the culture of death, and is therefore in opposition to the Gospel message” (Pope John Paul II, World Day of the Sick, Washington, D.C., February 2003). During his last visit to the United States, Pope John Paul II was hopeful that opposition to the death penalty was growing when he said, “A sign of hope is the increasing recognition that the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil” (www.usccb.org). 72. In 1979, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) issued Brothers and Sisters to Us, which is a pastoral letter that “called upon the Church at every level to confront the evil of racism and work toward full inclusion of racial and ethnic minorities in the life and leadership of the Church” (www.usccb.org). 73. Pew Research Center, “Changing Faiths: Latinos and the Transformation of American Religion” (Pew Forum on Religious & Public Life 2007). 74. Pew Research Center, “Changing Faiths.” 75. Pew Research Center, “Changing Faiths.” 76. Pew Research Center, “Changing Faiths.” 77. Pew Research Center, “Changing Faiths.” 78. Pew Research Center, “Changing Faiths.” 79. Gaston Espinosa, Virgillo Elizondo, and Jesse Miranda, Latino Religions and Civic Activism in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). 80. Espinosa, Elizondo, and Miranda, Latino Religions.

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81. See, for example, Harwood K. McClerking and Eric L. McDaniel, “Belonging and Doing: Political Churches and Black Political Participation,” Political Psychology 26, no. 5 (2005): 721–33; Scott T. Fitzgerald and Ryan E. Spohn, “Pulpits and Platforms: The Role of the Church in Determining Protest among Black Americans,” Social Forces 84, no. 2 (December 2005): 1015–48; Espinosa, Elizondo, and Miranda, Latino Religions; R. K. Brown and R. E. Brown, “Faith and Works: Church-Based Social Capital Resources and African-American Political Activism,” Social Forces 82 (2003): 617–41; Michael A. Jones-Correa and David L. Leal, “Political Participation: Does Religion Matter?” Political Research Quarterly 54, no. 4 (2001): 751–70; Jacqueline S. Mattis, “Religion and African American Political Life,” Political Psychology 22, no. 2 (2001): 263–78; Frederick C. Harris, “Something Within: Religion as a Mobilizer of African–American Political Activism,” The Journal of Politics 56, no. 1 (1994): 42–68; E. F. Frazier, The Black Church in America (New York: Knopf, 1964). 82. Melucci, Nomads of the Present. 83. Bronislaw Misztal and Anson Shupe, eds., Religion and Politics in Comparative Perspective: Revival of Religious Fundamentalism in East and West (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1992). 84. Haines, Against Capital Punishment. 85. David C. Baldus, George Woodworth, and Charles Pulaski Jr., Equal Justice and the Death Penalty: A Legal and Empirical Analysis (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1990). 86. Haines, Against Capital Punishment. 87. Haines, Against Capital Punishment, 78. 88. Haines, Against Capital Punishment, 167. 89. Dicks, Congregation of the Condemned. 90. James L. Megivern, “Faith in Action: An Abolition Resource for Congregations” (New York: Amnesty International, 1999). 91. Catholic Mobilizing Network to End the Use of the Death Penalty, www. catholicsmobilizing.org. 92. Haines, Against Capital Punishment. 93. Wendy Kaminer, It’s All the Rage: Crime and Culture (Reading, Mass.: AddisonWesley Publishing Company, 1995). 94. Chris Fox, “The Prison Population in America,” Probation Journal 55, no. 4 (December 2008): 403–4. 95. California is most notably leading the movement to cut the costs of incarceration. Since 2000, prison costs grew 50 percent to over 10 billion (www.prop5yes .com). In order to reduce these costs, a panel of three federal judges ordered California in February 2009 to reduce its prison population by 58,000. The overcrowding in the state prisons has interfered with the ability of the state to offer adequate medical care to the prisoners. Proposed solutions to reducing the prison population include limiting admissions, changing policies to keep parole violators from returning to prison so often, giving more time off for good behavior of inmates (Rothfeld, L.A. Times, February 10, 2009). 96. Ammino’s bill, The Marijuana Control, Regulation and Education Act (AB 390) would “Remove all penalties under California law for the cultivation, transportation, sale, purchase, possession, and use of marijuana, natural THC and para-

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phernalia by persons over the age of 21” Stateman, Alison (March 13, 2009) “Can Marijuana Help Rescue California’s Economy?” Time.com. 97. Studies of the financial costs of the death penalty have repeatedly found that, contrary to popular belief in society, the costs associated with the death penalty far exceed those of a sentence of life without parole. While these costs vary from state to state, thus are typically reported on a state-by-state basis, the example of California certainly makes the point: “The additional cost of confining an inmate to death row, as compared to the maximum security prisons where those sentenced to life without possibility of parole ordinarily serve their sentences, is $90,000 per year per inmate. With California’s current death row population of 670, that accounts for $63.3 million annually. The cost of a system which imposes a maximum penalty of lifetime incarceration instead of the death penalty would be $11.5 million per year (DPIC 2009). 98. James M. Jasper, “The Emotions of Protest: Affective and Reactive Emotions in and around Social Movements,” Sociological Forum 13, no. 3 (September 1998): 397–424. 99. James M. Jasper, The Art of Moral Protest (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997). 100. Jasper, “Emotions of Protest.” 101. Anthony D. Taibi, “Banking, Finance, and Community Empowerment: Structural Economic Theory, Procedural Civil Rights, and Substantive Racial Justice,” Harvard Law Review 107, no. 7 (May 1994): 1463–1545. 102. Taibi, “Banking, Finance, and Community Empowerment.” 103. Taibi, “Banking, Finance, and Community Empowerment.” 104. McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald, Comparative Perspectives. 105. James W. Button, Blacks and Social Change: Impact of the Civil Rights Movement in Southern Communities (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989). 106. Manning Marable, Black Liberation in Conservative America (Boston: South End Press, 1997), 6. 107. Button, Blacks and Social Change. 108. Button, Blacks and Social Change. 109. Devin Fergus, Liberalism, Black Power, and the Making of American Politics, 1965–1980 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2009). 110. Benjamin Marquez and James Jennings, “Representation by Other Means: Mexican American and Puerto Rican Social Movement Organizations,” Political Science and Politics 33, no. 3 (September 2000): 541–46. 111. Johanna Fernandez, “Radicals in the Late 1960s: A History of the Young Lords Party in New York City, 1969–1974” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 2004). 112. Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall, Agents of Repression: The FBI’s Secret Wars against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement (Boston: South End Press, 1990). 113. Fernandez, “Radicals in the Late 1960s.” 114. Karen M. Kaufmann, “Cracks in the Rainbow: Group Commonality as a Basis for Latino and African-American Political Coalitions,” Political Research Quarterly 56, no. 2 (2003): 199–210. 115. Kaufmann, “Cracks in the Rainbow.”

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116. Marable, Black Liberation. 117. Marable, Black Liberation, 7. 118. Cornel West, Race Matters (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993), 14. 119. West, Race Matters, 12. 120. West, Race Matters, 12. 121. Coramae Richey Mann, Unequal Justice: A Question of Color (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1993). 122. S. Cohn, S. Barkan, and W. Halteman, “Punitive Attitudes toward Criminals: Racial Consensus or Racial Conflict?” Social Problems 38 (1991): 287–96. 123. Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238.

2 Becoming Mobilized against the Death Penalty

“A LIFELONG AUTOMATIC REACTION” VERSUS A GRADUAL PROCESS: ENGAGING IN THE STRUGGLE AGAINST THE DEATH PENALTY Yvonne is a forty-three-year-old African American woman who lives in New York City and devotes a significant amount of time to her activism in the anti–death penalty movement. When I met with Yvonne in her home to discuss her involvement in the movement, she had been tirelessly working in her office all weekend on the planning stages of a conference she was organizing focused on the prison industrial complex. She shared that she has been involved in the movement for a couple of decades, working to fight the death penalty in several different states. When I asked Yvonne to describe why she participates in the anti–death penalty movement, she said that the title of a newspaper article written about her years ago best summarizes why she is involved: “A Lifelong Automatic Reaction.” When a journalist had asked her why she dedicates so much of her time to fighting the death penalty, she simply responded that it never occurred to her not to do this. She then recalled for me what it was like for her to grow up as a child in the 1960s during the Civil Rights Movement. When she traveled with her family throughout the south, they brought toilet paper and boxes of food with them because they didn’t know if they would be served at restaurants. Such experiences led Yvonne to focus on social justice issues. She states, “It always seemed obvious to me to be involved in trying to fight injustice and change the world.” Yvonne came to a specific concern with criminal justice issues at a young age. She indicated that when she was a junior high school student, she did 61

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community service work through her church at a “horribly oppressive” juvenile detention facility. The injustice she found there resonated with her, perhaps because, in her words, “The very first memory I ever had was my father being arrested. They invaded the house and busted down the door to come and get him.” As a college student, Yvonne later began doing volunteer work focused on prison rights issues. She soon found her way to the anti–death penalty movement in the early 1980s when the state where she lived at the time, Massachusetts, introduced a referendum that attempted, yet failed, to change the state constitution to allow for the return of the death penalty. Robert, a forty-two-year-old African American man, tells a different story of how he became involved in the anti–death penalty movement. When I met with this NAACP leader in his D.C. office, he described the path he followed toward becoming an activist as taking a more gradual process. Robert said that he wasn’t always even opposed to the death penalty, yet he indicated that his support for the death penalty came early in his life out of the desperation he felt in searching for ways to address crime. I struggled for a long time over the issue of crime in the black community. I grew up in a predominantly African American neighborhood and I saw the first person killed in my community when I was about seven years old. So I saw this person killed and you know you’re always struggling with ways to address crime. It’s that desperation that leads you to say that maybe if you threaten people, then that will do it. But apparently, threatening people with jail was not enough and I began to believe that maybe if you threaten people’s lives, they will be less likely to take other people’s lives.

Robert shared that it wasn’t until his early twenties when he arrived at a position against the death penalty. It was “my continued growth in my religious awareness and insight and appreciation for life,” he adds, “that moved me beyond the reactionary position that somehow the utilization of the death penalty is going to do it for us.” While Robert’s religiosity played a huge part in the transformation that occurred with his feelings about the death penalty, it was his involvement in the Civil Rights Movement that led him to his activism in the anti–death penalty movement. Soon after he became a civil rights activist in college, he recalled “I began to see in the Civil Rights Movement that these criminal justice concerns, and very specifically the issue of the death penalty, was a very important civil rights issue for us to take on.” The stories of Yvonne and Robert reveal two different paths to the same eventual outcome of a life dedicated to fighting the death penalty. While Yvonne can’t imagine ever not being involved in the movement, Robert can still vividly recall a time in his life when he never would have expected himself to become an anti–death penalty activist. What these two activists have in common, other than their race, is the experience of growing up during a

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tumultuous period in the history of the United States. Their comments suggest that the harsh realities of racial injustice exposed during the Civil Rights Movement played a part in their decision to participate in the anti–death penalty movement. McAdam’s political process perspective allows us to see how the shift in political opportunities brought by the Civil Rights Movement offered incentives for the collective action carried out by Yvonne, Robert, and others who became involved in the anti–death penalty movement at that time.1 As they expanded on why and how they got involved in the anti–death penalty movement, additional reasons for the decision Yvonne and Robert made to become active in the movement emerged. These two activists were not alone, however, for it quickly became apparent as I carried out my interviews that the factors motivating individuals to join the movement against the death penalty are numerous. Rare was the activist who provided only one factor driving his or her activism, as the vast majority of people I interviewed provided several reasons for their decision to participate in the movement against the death penalty. This chapter presents an opportunity to examine the activists’ initial remarks made early in the interview when I asked the most open-ended questions about their involvement in the movement. As questions later in my interview became more structured and more clearly centered on concerns about the racial diversity of the movement, the responses of the activists may be viewed as less reliable indicators of their concerns about racial issues in the movement. In other words, fewer people are likely to minimize such concerns when asked outright about this topic than when asked more openended questions. This chapter is additionally important, therefore, in that it allows for an introductory, unstructured view of the concerns that the activists first identified as they described why they participate in the movement. Of all the responses to my first question asking why they participate in the movement, the most common response from the activists by far was that they chose to actively oppose the death penalty because they feel strongly that it is morally wrong. In the next section, the moral concerns that served as a driving force for these activists are explored. As noted in the previous chapter, morality varies in its meaning for individuals. The activists in the anti–death penalty movement whom I interviewed illustrate this notion that there are various meanings attached to the concept of morality.

“IT MAKES NO MORAL SENSE”: MORAL CONVICTIONS AS PRINCIPAL MOBILIZING FACTOR It was not uncommon for me to meet with momentary expressions of incredulity when I asked the activists why they participate in the anti–death penalty movement. Following a brief pause, as if they were trying to search

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for the right words to express their outrage, many activists replied simply that “killing is wrong.” It was as if their initial hesitancy in answering my question revealed an indescribable gut feeling that something is inherently wrong with the notion it is okay to kill someone, regardless of the justification provided for such an action. The posture of some activists indeed took a somewhat defensive tone, for they seemed baffled by the general public’s tendency not to see the problems they find to be so painfully obvious with the death penalty. This reaction is aptly illustrated with the words of one white woman, who wrinkled her brow and raised her voice slightly, stating “It is immoral in terms of there are things that you just don’t do! If someone steps on your toe, you don’t go step on theirs. It is unacceptable at some gut level.” Diana is a Latina who has been involved in the anti–death penalty movement for approximately a decade. For Diana, the reason that she became involved in the movement is simple, and she does not consider herself to be any different from most other activists with regard to the moral authority driving her activism. For me, I’ve always just felt in my gut an aversion to the death penalty. And I think that’s where all activists come from. I don’t think there are too many activists in the movement because they think the system is so unfair. I think that most activists feel it in their gut that this is just wrong morally, on a pure moral level it is wrong to kill. Nobody has the right to take away a human life.

The moral component to the mobilization of most of those I interviewed was unmistakable. Much like Diana, some were forthright with their moral position toward the death penalty through statements such as “It makes no moral sense” or “It’s not moral to kill, under no circumstances.” Others initially framed their concern with the morality of the death penalty in a more implicit manner, eventually indicating that they do find the death penalty morally objectionable. Several of the reasons they gave to explain why they participate in the anti–death penalty movement seem to be connected to a broader moral position, for they often stated such reasons in the same breath as voicing their moral opposition to the death penalty. These reasons were presented by the activists as if they provide the basis for their notion of morality. Delving into the reasons given by the activists for their opposition, a common connection is found between religiosity and a moral position against the death penalty. For those who emphasized the role of their religion in their activism, their moral protest is firmly based on their religious beliefs. Jerry, a seventy-three-year-old white Quaker, reveals this connection in his response to my inquiry as to why he participates in the movement.

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I do so because of my religious conviction that life is sacred. The job of religion is not just to attend to your personal moral problems, but to really address yourself to the way in which we structure society and institutionalize things like violence.

Kevin, a fifty-three-year-old black Episcopalian, also makes a clear connection between his religious beliefs and his activism with his response. He stated, “The main thing that drives me is my religious faith and the fact that as a Christian, our founder was a victim of the death penalty.” A related position forming the moral basis for the activism of several others has little to nothing to do with religion, rather more of a spiritual belief that life is sacred. Leonard, a fifty-one-year-old African American man, does not identify with a religion, yet he describes himself as a spiritual person. He equates his moral position against the death penalty with a pro-life position inspired by his spirituality: “I’m very pro-life . . . in the sense that things that live should live.” Several others, while they did not use the terminology of “pro-life,” used similar rhetoric to frame their feeling that the death penalty is immoral because it devalues life. For instance, another black man hinted that he opposed abortion and then stated, “My goal is to make the connection between the ending of the death penalty and people developing a greater respect for the value of life.” Others added to their view of the immorality of the death penalty a perception that it is immoral for the state to take a life. While these activists were quick to acknowledge that they were not relinquishing individuals in society from their moral responsibility to oppose the death penalty, they were much more critical of the government’s role in executions. Susan, a thirty-seven-year-old white woman, makes this distinction with her comment that “killing is wrong and killing by the government is especially wrong.” Allen, a forty-six-year-old white man, shares Susan’s sentiments with his statement that “I think on a moral level, killing is wrong. It is no more right for the state to do it than it is for some person who commits a murder.” The majority of the Latinos who spoke with me stated that they are morally opposed to the death penalty, and as they went on to elaborate upon their position, initially it appeared that the basis for their moral objection was their religious beliefs. Several of them started their explanations for their opposition with “First of all, I was raised Catholic” or “Of course, I am a devout Catholic,” but then many of them became quite emphatic as they went on to explain how the federal government became the catalyst that moved them to join an organization against the death penalty. Six of the nine Latinos that I interviewed live in Puerto Rico and are extremely active with their organization. The Puerto Rican Coalition Against the Death Penalty (PRCADP) was formed in 2005 as a response to the U.S.

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government charging several men from Puerto Rico with federal capital offenses. When the first federal death penalty trial of a Puerto Rican began in 2002, for the first time in more than eighty years, Puerto Ricans on the island faced the possibility of an execution. The last execution in Puerto Rico took place in 1927, and two years later the death penalty was abolished in Puerto Rico. The citizens of Puerto Rico have voiced such strong opposition to the death penalty that in 1952 when they ratified their constitution, they included in their Bill of Rights the decree that “the death penalty shall not exist.”2 Although the first federal case resulted in an acquittal in 2002 and the two federal death penalty cases that followed eventually resulted in life sentences, Puerto Ricans had been awakened to the possibility that an execution could be carried out against one of their own. The six activists I met with from PRCADP, three men and three women, all expressed to me that they were mobilized to join the movement to abolish the death penalty when they realized that the United States government was attempting to execute Puerto Rican citizens. When I interviewed them, four recent federal cases of Puerto Rican defendants were pending. The outrage expressed by Pablo was similar to that which all of the Puerto Rican activists shared with me as they recalled how they found their way to the movement. Having lived his whole life in Puerto Rico, where the death penalty did not exist, thus not even part of his consciousness, he recalled the first time that he became aware of the death penalty. Pablo had gone to New York in 1993 to celebrate his birthday and was in his hotel room, getting ready for a night on the town when a news story on the television caught his eye. He was horrified to learn that a man who shared Pablo’s new age was about to be hanged in the state of Washington. This was the point when Pablo decided that he was opposed to the death penalty. It was years later when Pablo moved from a position of death penalty opposition to becoming actively involved in the movement organized to abolish the death penalty. It was the year 2000, and the first federal death penalty case involving Puerto Rican citizens had arisen and the trial was pending. Pablo shared that while he had been horrified to learn about the death penalty years earlier during his visit to the states and had developed “some inclination to be sympathetic” to the issue, “it wasn’t related to me at that moment.” Once the first federal case surfaced in Puerto Rico, Pablo joined a new organization called Citizens Against the Death Penalty that formed on the island in opposition to this federal case. The death penalty was suddenly hitting much closer to home at that point, as he couldn’t believe that the U.S. government had the authority to execute someone from Puerto Rico, in spite of the strong opposition that the Puerto Rican government and people had voiced against the death penalty. At this point in my interview with Pablo, his friend and fellow activist Miguel chimed in. I was interviewing them together in Harrisburg,

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Pennsylvania, during the 2009 NCADP conference. Five of the most active members of PRCADP had traveled to the states in order to attend the conference, and several of them agreed to meet with me during the course of the conference. Miguel’s passionate outrage about the federal government imposing the death penalty on his fellow citizens was readily apparent as he began to speak. The death penalty in Puerto Rico was never an issue, it was always a given; it’s in the constitution as prohibited. Of course, I’m a devout Catholic and you have to respect life, regardless of what the circumstances are, so for me, the death penalty has never been an issue, but when it came on the local scene in Puerto Rico because of the federal laws, I actually had a few reasons to oppose the death penalty. First of all, because I don’t believe the state should kill anybody, regardless of the reasons. Second, because I was a leader for twenty years for the Pro-Independent Party in Puerto Rico, just the reaction of having the federal government imposing anything on the Puerto Ricans, and much more, the death penalty? It is just terrible to me! I mean here we have a people who in 1952 approved a constitution, saying that we don’t want the death penalty among our people, and then you have this government, the U.S. government, in which we have no voice or vote, saying okay now. . . .

Miguel trailed off as Pablo broke in to complete the thought of his friend, adding emphatically, “It is the same reason that the United States separated from Great Britain, taxation without representation. It was the death penalty without representation!” This is the sentiment that I heard time and time again when each of six Puerto Ricans related their stories about what pulled them into the movement against the death penalty. Several of them went so far as to say that the federal death penalty being imposed upon their people is an assault to their national identity. Angelica expressed this perspective of her fellow Puerto Rican activists well as she described the process whereby her activism against the death penalty has served to solidify her national identity. She had migrated to the states after she graduated from high school to attain her college degree in the Midwest. Executions are such a rarity in that part of the United States that somehow the administration of the death penalty in the states eluded her awareness. Angelica spent most of her early young adulthood in the states before returning to Puerto Rico. It was a challenge for her to readjust to life in Puerto Rico, yet as she expresses in the quote below, joining the fight against the federal death penalty being imposed on her people became part of her mission to reclaim her national identity. When I came back to Puerto Rico, it was actually very hard for me to adapt back to Puerto Rico. I left right after I graduated from high school and had been in the states for eleven years and coming back was very hard. I was talking in English the whole time. I sort of renounced my heritage and it was very

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strange. It took me about two years to readapt to Puerto Rico. Then I started rediscovering my roots and rediscovering my heritage and a strong sense of national identity came back again. Then I went to law school here in Puerto Rico and all of these things rushed back and I learned so much. When I was living in the states, it was like it didn’t even exist, it was like the death penalty didn’t even exist. It was not part of my daily life. I didn’t realize the death penalty issue until I was back in Puerto Rico, until about 2002. I always did not believe in the death penalty because first of all, I was Catholic, but then you realize that your constitution prohibits the death penalty and this other country is imposing the death penalty on you. So eventually what did it for me was that it was a part of reclaiming my national identity. It was like, How dare you guys, the United States, impose on us something that we as a country decided on?

Still others linked their belief in the immorality of the death penalty to a concern with violence in the larger society. Many people I interviewed stated that they believe the death penalty perpetuates the “cycle of violence.” Activists used phrases such as “increases the cycle of pain and suffering” and “contributing to the culture of death” to depict the violence associated with the death penalty. A common theme in the comments of those concerned about violence is that, on some level, everyone in society is victimized by the death penalty, not just death row inmates. The remarks made by Mark, a thirty-five-year-old white man, who served as a Mennonite minister prior to becoming involved in the anti–death penalty movement, illustrate this theme well: I don’t really view myself as an advocate for death row inmates. That’s not my motivation. My motivation is not so much what the death penalty does to the people on death row, it’s more like what does the death penalty do to all of us in society? The whole idea that we simply and stupidly respond to social problems and try to eradicate violence by another act of violence. My anti–death penalty position fits with my beliefs against violence, beliefs of what is right and moral. I don’t think that we can eradicate individual, personal level violence without also addressing or first addressing institutional violence.

Yet another group of activists frame the immorality of the death penalty from a human rights perspective, stating adamantly that they see the death penalty as violating the human rights of the executed. As stated by Renee, a thirty-four-year-old black woman, “From a human rights perspective, I keep thinking that if they can take away your rights as a human being, then nothing else is sacred.” Such sentiments were echoed by several others. Eric, a fifty-four-year-old black man, shared “I had long been a human rights activist. The death penalty was clearly, even at the international sense, a violation of very rudimentary notions of human rights.” The words of the activists quoted throughout this section represent common statements made by those who spoke of the moral visions that led

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them to the anti–death penalty movement. A majority of those activists I interviewed expressed concerns about the morality of the death penalty. To the extent that these moral concerns serve as the impetus for their involvement in the death penalty, the activists may be referred to as “conscience constituents” by resource mobilization theorists. Certainly, when their activism is driven by moral outrage, the activists seem to be mobilized by normative motivations, rather than self-interest. Early versions of resource mobilization theory, however, ignored the complex ways in which such motivations may be entangled with self-interest. The antiviolence comments quoted above, which stress the view that “all of us” suffer from the effects of having the death penalty in our society, illustrate the difficulty involved with separating where normative concerns stop and concerns for self-interest begin. While it can be argued how well anti–death penalty activists fit the profile of a conscience constituent, with no apparent direct benefit to gain from their activism, it is at least apparent that the activists I met are indeed driven by a strong commitment to the cause. At the same time, a significant number of those whom I interviewed also became activists from their personal experiences, which gave them a more direct connection to the issue of the death penalty. Turning next to an examination of those activists who report a more personal level of involvement with the death penalty, the complexity in dissecting the motives of these activists is revealed. These activists share that their personal experiences with the issue of the death penalty have only reinforced the moral commitments they often had prior to such experiences.

“TAKING SOMETHING UGLY AND MAKING SOMETHING BETTER OF IT”: THE MOBILIZING POTENTIAL OF PERSONAL EXPERIENCE Louise is a fifty-nine-year-old African American woman who lives in Delaware. She describes herself as a religious person, who was raised “in a religious community which teaches us that vengeance is the Lord’s.” Louise’s religious background had predisposed her to take a position against the death penalty. Prior to becoming involved in the anti–death penalty movement, however, she had never really identified herself as an activist. She stated that she has always remained open to fighting racism or human rights violations. She had even been involved in an effort with a group of women in her community during the 1960s to stop a referendum from closing a particular school, yet she had never before been a member of what might be called a social movement. Then her son was put on death row. When he was sentenced over a decade ago, Louise was thrust into having to

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educate herself about the issue of the death penalty. She was a single parent and felt very alone. She wanted to do something to help her son, but “felt that it was just not a good idea to go and ask people to do something for my son, who had taken someone’s life.” Louise didn’t expect to be able to find anyone who would want to offer support to her or her son, so when her son’s friends tried to help her get through such a difficult time, she said to them, “Let’s organize in a way that would help other people. That way we would be taking something ugly and making something better of it.” She formed a local group to focus on concerns in the community and she named the group “Interested Citizens for a Better Community.” A couple of years later, a friend pointed out a notice in the local newspaper announcing the formation of a new group concerned about fighting the death penalty. The first execution in over forty years was scheduled to take place in Delaware, and a small group of individuals, alarmed by this prospect, thus organized to voice their opposition. Louise recalls her thoughts and emotional desperation that night she decided to attend the first meeting of what would soon be called Delaware Citizens Opposed to the Death Penalty (DCODP): Several lawyers showed up, different community social workers and what not. I showed up because I thought I was going to learn something. At least it was a ray of hope. Somebody else out there was talking about the death penalty and they are not facing it. I wanted to definitely let them know that I could use your help and tell me what I can do to help.

She knew that she was in the company of others who did not support the death penalty, yet she was not quite sure how she would be received, particularly after she heard another woman in the room tell her story about her daughter being murdered. It soon occurred to her that she could identify with the family members of murder victims, as she had also lost two family members to murder earlier in her lifetime. She formed a fast bond with the woman who spoke at the DCODP meeting about losing her daughter to murder and eventually formed an organization along with this woman called Because Love Allows Compassion (BLAC). Their organization is an advocacy group that has been dedicated to serving the needs of Delaware death row inmates and their families from the time of capital sentencing to execution. Isabel shares Louise’s personal experience of having a son face the death penalty. Her son’s trial was the third federal death penalty trial facing Puerto Ricans. It was her son’s case, along with the two others, that helped to launch the Puerto Rican Coalition Against the Death Penalty (PRCADP). Isabel was relieved when her son was not sentenced to death row, yet she continues to fight the sentence of life without parole that he was given by

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the federal court because she firmly believes in her son’s innocence. The personal experience of having a son face the possibility of execution has only solidified Isabel’s commitment to the anti–death penalty movement, yet she is quick to point out that she has always been opposed to the death penalty. When I asked her to describe what brought her into the movement, her very passionate statement against the death penalty made it clear that she is opposed to this sentence for anyone, not just for her son. Well the death penalty is horrendous! I mean, how are you going to do something that the federal court is going to do with a process that costs millions of dollars, to kill a person! To legally kill a person! Killing is bad! Why kill to prove it? Why kill to prove that killing is bad? I could never understand. My religious convictions, I’m Catholic. . . . Taking a life in your hands? Listen you only have to be Christian, not even just Catholic! Even before my son went to jail I was against the death penalty. I’m pro-life!

Although Isabel can certainly relate to the desperation that Louise felt when her son was arrested and charged with capital murder, the way that each of these women found their way to the anti–death penalty movement somewhat differed. While Louise went looking for people to help her make sense of the threat of being executed that her son was facing, Isabel didn’t have to look far. Before her son was incarcerated, she had already been involved in a smaller anti–death penalty group that had formed in Puerto Rico in the late 1990s, called Ciudadanos contra la Pena de Muerte (Citizens Against the Death Penalty). Having had some connection to the abolitionist movement that was growing on the island of Puerto Rico, she was aware that PRCADP was forming, thus attended the first assembly of organizations for the creation of the PRCADP in early 2005. She introduced herself as the mother of the man who was awaiting the start of his capital trial in the federal court. The members of the PRCADP welcomed her and invited her to join them in their efforts to stop the federal government from issuing a sentence of death to her son. Isabel absolutely raved to me about the wonderful support that she has received from the coalition of anti–death penalty activists in Puerto Rico. We have an extraordinary group! Let me tell you, if I didn’t have this group with me with the process of my son’s trial, I think I could never, never go through it. They were my angels. It was such a shock, but then the trial was going on so I had to be there. These people were there, helped me.

Like Louise, Isabel has used her experience of having an incarcerated son confronted with the threat of execution to help other family members who find themselves living the same nightmare. Isabel has been a major support for all of the families in Puerto Rico who have loved ones facing the threat

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of the federal death penalty. She has become so well known for the advocacy work that she does with the families that the office of public defenders contacts her regularly to solicit her help. Isabel’s work with the families keeps her very busy, yet she remains driven to do still more. I worked day and night with the lawyers, every minute, and for all of the cases that have taken place here in Puerto Rico, I have been with the family, all the time and I want to keep on doing this. I never thought I would be involved in something like this. So anyway I am involved and I am doing my best. When I don’t have time I just cry because I wish I had more time to work more.

Similar to Louise and Isabel, Michelle considers her work in the anti– death penalty movement to be driven largely by her personal experiences. Michelle is a forty-three-year-old African American woman who currently lives in Pennsylvania, yet she began working toward the abolition of the death penalty in Alabama in the mid-1980s. She recalls having to think about the death penalty at the young age of eight when her uncle and cousin were murdered six months apart: I remember that my grandmother was very much the stereotypical black matriarch, very spiritual, and her response was that we shouldn’t take vengeance into our own hands and that God would make things right. I think at a very young age with those two incidents in my life that kind of laid the groundwork and foundation for how I felt about the death penalty.

As an adult, Michelle found herself working at the Southern Poverty Law Center involved in doing litigation work for a renowned case in which SPLC successfully sued the KKK for their part in the lynching of a black man. She became very much aware of the death penalty as she helped to prepare the mother of the lynched victim for the civil trial. Michelle was in awe of this woman’s ability to forgive the men who had killed her son, and she was reminded of her grandmother’s similar response to tragedy. It touched her to see how “people like her and my grandmother were able to not get mired in bitterness and pain, they were able to go on and live their lives.” After her involvement in the case of SPLC against the KKK, Michelle threw herself headlong into the anti–death penalty movement and before long was recognized nationally as a prominent leader of the movement. She has served on the board of various national organizations in the movement, yet that which seems to be the dearest to her heart is the organization called Murder Victims’ Families for Reconciliation (MVFR). This national organization was founded in 1976 by a woman who had lost family members to homicide, yet opposed the execution of the man who had been convicted of murdering her loved ones. MVFR has helped to bridge connections between others who have experienced such tragedy, yet have felt

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led to speak out against the death penalty. They want to break the cycle of violence and make their voices heard that if executions occur, they are “not in my name.” Stories such as those shared by Louise, Isabel, and Michelle were fairly common among those who indicated that their activism was sparked by some experience that elevated their awareness of the death penalty in a very personal way. For instance, one other activist and his wife spoke of how their experience of having a brother on death row led to their involvement in the movement. They shared that they saw a vacuum in how their local anti–death penalty organizations addressed the needs of family members of death row inmates, and they felt led through their own experience to fill that vacuum. While those activists who report being driven to the anti–death penalty movement by their personal experiences typically have a loved one who was either sentenced to death row or who was the victim of murder, others indicated that it was their occupational experiences that made the death penalty a personal issue for them. Several of those I interviewed are attorneys who were either drawn to their work with capital defendants out of a commitment to fighting the death penalty or vice versa: they became solidly opposed to the death penalty out of their work with those charged with capital murder. Caroline, a thirty-seven-year-old white woman who works for the ACLU in D.C., recalls how her work as an attorney led her to her activism: What got me involved originally was that I was working as a public defender and I had never lived in a death penalty state before. I had always lived in non–death penalty states. . . . It really alarmed me because, to the extent that I thought about the death penalty, like if I care about people being executed it would bother me, but the idea of actually having to represent people who might die was more than I could bear so I was feeling kind of burnt out at my job and I had the experience the year before of an innocent client being convicted which deeply disturbed me. . . .You can’t really be a defense attorney and support the death penalty. There are so many problems with the system and as a defense attorney you see them more clearly than anyone.

A similar account was given by Franklin, a fifty-one-year-old white man, when I met with him in his Manhattan office. He had this to say about how his work as an attorney has driven him to his activism against the death penalty: I participate because, having represented some death row inmates pro bono, I began to see the way it was carried out was so unfair, so scandalous in this day and age, I felt that it was my responsibility to bring these facts to the attention of the public. As a result of that I began to get involved not only in representing people,

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but increasingly working against the death penalty and getting involved in bar association activity.

Chris is an attorney who was mobilized by his ideological belief that the death penalty is a civil rights issue. This thirty-eight-year-old African American attributes his ongoing ability to sustain his activism to the work that he has done over the years defending people on death row. He states, “Another reason why I stayed involved is the people, the people and the persons I met on death row.” A few other activists were drawn to the movement through other professions that made them familiar with the issue of the death penalty. Paul, a seventy-year-old white man, developed his passion to fight the death penalty from work he was asked to do in his role as a government official. He describes what sparked his involvement: I did not think a great deal about it until I was with the state government and I was in charge of research on a special project with the Senate president. One of the senators asked me to look into the costs of the death penalty. I had always thought it would be cheaper to execute them than to put them into prison for life. When I came back from my vacation, the intern who was working with me said that “this is an amazing report.” It showed the millions and millions of dollars that we were spending on this process, far exceeding the costs of life.

Another white man in his seventies shared that he was drawn to the movement through his work as a physician. As an anesthesiologist, Harold was appalled to learn that his peers were involved in the actual procedure of executions. He reveals the foundation for his activism: The motive that covers all of it is that I don’t like physicians killing people. In the concentration camps, the Nazi doctors were not being dragged along; they were enthusiastic leaders. They thought it was a good idea. . . . [my work as an activist] has a concrete relationship with what I do for a living and my career has been around anesthesia and medicine.

Harold extensively researched the use of anesthesia for executions and became a medical expert on the subject. He was asked to testify as an expert witness about the use of doctors for executing people at a murder trial. From this experience, he developed a relationship with the defendant at the trial who was sentenced to death row. He began to visit and write to this young man on death row. His relationship with this death row inmate further strengthened his commitment to fighting the death penalty. Yet another activist was drawn to the movement against the death penalty from his experiences as a police officer. James is a fifty-six-year-old African American who is currently retired from the police force. During the time

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that he served on the police force, however, he became concerned about the racial disparities he found in how individuals are treated within the criminal justice system. This concern about racial disparities in the system eventually brought him to a focus on the death penalty. He became actively involved with the National Black Police Association, which has a formal position that the death penalty is unconstitutional in all instances. James describes how his work as a police officer enabled him to see the problems with the death penalty that led to his activism in the movement. I personally witnessed a lot of cases where individuals of color were being arrested, not necessarily because they committed a crime, but because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They looked like someone who might have committed a crime, or they made the police officer angry. Seeing those kinds of things happening and knowing about them, along with the other things that we knew were occurring around the inequality of representation, the whole notion around the sweeps that were taking place in this country where police would go into specific communities, the whole idea that justice can be derived based on how much money you have and whether you have a good or bad lawyer. All of those things were the reason that the National Black Police Association was there. One of the goals or the purposes of our organization is to examine criminal justice policies and practices and how they impact people of color. And one of those policies was the death penalty and its administration in this country. And by us being law enforcement officers, who better to talk about the inequality of the criminal justice system because we saw it at work every day.

Martin is a thirty-four-year-old African American college professor in New York City who teaches courses about the criminal justice system. He indicates that he became involved in the movement as a result of the awareness he has gained about the inner workings of the criminal justice system: As someone who is involved in teaching about the criminal justice system, you become very aware of all the inequities that exist in the system, especially in terms of the arbitrary, discriminatory application of not only the death penalty, but criminal sentencing.

Whether their occupational backgrounds are that of an attorney, doctor, government official, police officer, or college professor, what these activists have in common is that their occupations placed them in positions that would reveal to them the problems with the death penalty. Though they were not touched as closely by the death penalty as were those cited above with a loved one either on death row or victimized by murder, they nonetheless emphasized the significant role that their work experiences played in their activism. Of course, there are many people in the occupations identified above who support the death penalty. While the occupational locations

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of the activists often provided them with an environment that enabled them to challenge the death penalty, therefore, other factors interacted with that of their occupational status to motivate the activists to actively oppose the death penalty. The most compelling accounts of how one’s personal experiences led to activism in the movement, however, came from two former death row inmates. Howard, a fifty-year-old African American, was released from New York’s death row in the early 1970s. His death sentence was commuted to life as a direct result of the 1972 Furman decision, which mandated the commutation of all death sentences at that time to life sentences. After serving a life sentence, Howard was eventually released from prison altogether in the early 1990s. When asked why he participates in the movement, he simply responded “I am giving back because the movement literally saved my life . . . and I owe that movement.” Victor is the only other activist I interviewed who can fully appreciate the motivation behind Howard’s decision to involve himself in the anti–death penalty movement. After sitting on Florida’s death row for nearly eighteen years as an innocent man, this Latino man was finally exonerated and given a second chance at life. Victor is among the minority of death row exonerees who have dedicated their life to the movement to abolish the death penalty. Since his release, he has been driven to share his story with as many people as will listen. He certainly understands why most of those who are exonerated from our nation’s death rows would rather not travel the world to tell their personal stories of the injustice that they experienced at the hands of the flawed death penalty. He explains, “The truth is that we want to forget about this!” Victor is nonetheless compelled to relive the nightmare of fearing for his life on death row as he tells his story over and over. He shares that he is motivated to tell his story by the friends who remain on Florida’s death row. Referring to those he left behind and the family members of death row inmates he has met around the country, Victor says, “They are the ones that inspire me and give me the energy to speak. So they do motivate me.” Over the seven years that have passed since his exoneration, Victor has become extremely involved in the anti–death penalty movement. During the numerous speaking engagements that he has conducted, he implores his audience, “If you see something wrong in society, don’t wait for it to happen to you.” The principal motivation driving the activism of Howard and Victor is obvious. Of all the activists I interviewed, they are clearly the most direct beneficiaries of the gains made by the anti–death penalty movement. Hundreds of others in addition to Howard were commuted to life as a result of the Furman decision. Of these, Howard indicated that over sixty have since been released from prison. Besides Victor, over 130 others have been released from our nation’s death rows since 1973, upon evidence emerging

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of their innocence for the crime of which they were convicted. As noted, Howard and Victor represent only a small number of these former death row inmates who have taken part in activities organized by the movement. The common experience that these ex–death row inmates share, therefore, has not been enough to bring all of the exonerees into the ranks of the anti–death penalty movement. The experience of witnessing the horror of death row was no doubt the catalyst for the activism of those former death row inmates who have gotten involved in the movement. The fact these activists represent a small minority of those released from death row reveals that other factors may also be driving their activism. For Howard, the moral concerns identified by so many activists in the previous section resonate with him and provide a strong basis for his activism. Having been raised a devout Catholic in Puerto Rico, Victor was always opposed to the death penalty, long before he was falsely accused and incarcerated for a murder that he didn’t commit. Others who have been personally touched by the issue of the death penalty, such as the family members and professionals described above, similarly provide various reasons, in addition to personal experience, as driving their decision to join ranks with those actively voicing their opposition to the death penalty. Along with the moral outrage so frequently expressed, there also emerged a common theme focused on a concern with the inequities and unfairness commonly associated with the death penalty. Next, I turn to an examination of this general theme that unfolded in very specific, and often very distinct, directions.

“THE ROOT OF WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM”: DRIVEN BY THE INEQUITIES OF THE DEATH PENALTY When Colleen was a student at Brown University, she was attracted to what the International Socialist Organization (ISO) was saying about society, yet she recalls, “I wasn’t quite ready to call myself a socialist.” The ISO launched an organization in the anti–death penalty movement called The Campaign To End the Death Penalty. Colleen soon became involved on campus during her senior year doing anti–death penalty work. From her involvement with this organization, she gained an awareness of just how inequitable and unfair the death penalty is in its application. In the following quote, Colleen shares her belief that the death penalty is symptomatic of a flawed criminal justice system. I think that the entire criminal justice system is basically false. I think that it really doesn’t have a whole lot to do with stopping crime and I think it has a

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lot more to do with social control and scapegoating. The death penalty is the front line of that fight and it shows everything that is wrong with the criminal justice system. I think it goes to the root of what’s wrong with the criminal justice system. The death penalty doesn’t help, it doesn’t prevent crime and it is part of a system that keeps minority communities in misery. This is how the system operates; it is rotten to the core. How can you give it the choice of deciding life or death?

When I met with this twenty-six-year-old white woman in New York City, she explained how her activism in the anti–death penalty movement became inseparable from her political activity. After graduating from college, Colleen moved to New York City and began working at the Legal Aid Society. For the first time, she found herself “in a city where there were such clear divisions between rich and poor with a mayor who wanted to shove your face in it. And I think that’s what convinced me to join the ISO and become a socialist.” She soon agreed to head up the death penalty work initiated by the ISO through the New York chapter of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty. When David was assigned by his company to photograph a noon hour speaker, he had no idea that what he would hear from the Amnesty International representative who was speaking would move him toward becoming an activist. This thirty-four-year-old white man was so disturbed by the message he heard on that day that he joined Amnesty International and became involved in addressing human rights issues. He stated that he was compelled to become active because, in his words, “it became clear to me that I am seeing those things go on and if I’m aware of them and not doing anything about them, then I am complacent. So that is the essence of why I am doing this because if I don’t speak up, then I am as guilty as those who are actually committing these acts.” David did not settle on work against the death penalty as quickly as did Colleen. He began working on behalf of prisoners of conscience in other nations. He reports that he used to argue at Amnesty meetings that “this is the United States and we have the best justice system in the world.” David was able to see the inequities that lay in other nations, yet he actually supported the use of the death penalty in the United States. In the following quote, he recalls how he came to the very passionate position he currently holds against the death penalty. The first Amnesty meeting I went to was talking about the death penalty and I argued it. I said an eye for an eye. I was not opposed to the death penalty. My challenge was to prove these people wrong and in doing so, I proved myself wrong. We have a system that is not fair. If you believe in fairness, if you believe in equality, then you can’t support this practice as it currently exists.

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The stories of Colleen and David are illustrative of how many activists become mobilized against the death penalty out of a preoccupation with the inequities and unfairness found with this form of punishment. Other more specific manifestations of this concern emerged in terms such as a focus on the possible execution of innocent people or the arbitrary nature of the death penalty. Of those activists who take issue with the inequities found with the death penalty, however, the primary concern expressed is on the inequities lying with the racial and class disparities of those sentenced to death row. This concern frequently took on a tone that equated the death penalty with the racism and classism found within the larger society. For instance, one activist equated his work in the anti–death penalty movement to “doing antiracism work.” When Joyce, a fifty-five-year-old African American woman, graduated from law school, she began working with the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. It was there where she began to learn about the racial disparities within the punishment system. She describes how this knowledge mobilized her to join the anti–death penalty movement: I was brought into it because of the racism with it. What I began to see is the racism within the system and the racial disparities. Then I also looked at other reasons that I would be opposed to it. When you start getting into the anti– death penalty movement, you’re not just dealing with a fairness issue in terms of black people, but you are dealing with whether the punishment itself is fair. What I decided was that I not only opposed it, but also because I couldn’t see how it could be fair given the racism within the United States. So I couldn’t see how it could ever be fair.

Another African American activist, fifty-three-year-old Kevin, shared that a primary motive for his activism is fighting “the execution of black people, lynching of black people.” He stated that his father “used to talk about how black people often suffered from the death penalty and white people would get off. So very early I learned that the death penalty is not only very bad and cruel, but also it is not justly administered or equally administered to people for the wrongs that they do.” Similar comments about the racial disparities found with the death penalty, often mentioned in the same breath with concerns about class disparities, were expressed by many other African American activists. When the white activists were asked to describe why and how they came to participate in the anti–death penalty movement, however, only two mentioned concerns about racial or class disparities as mobilizing them to action. One of these white activists, Sheila, said that when she migrated to the United States from England as a young woman, one of the things that struck her about the death penalty is that “anytime I heard of an

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execution, it would be down in the south and it would be a black person being executed.” When Sheila moved to America, it was 1958 and she was newly married to an African American military man she met in England. Sheila said that being in an interracial marriage, particularly during this time in our history, predisposed to her to noticing racism. She asserts, “I think that you have to be an activist when you are involved in a marital situation like we are.” The perspective afforded to her as a result of being interracially married very likely contributed to her emphasis on the racial disparities she has noted with the death penalty. Interestingly, the other white activist who stressed racial and class disparities as driving his activism also spent many of his early years in Europe. Stan is currently thirty years old, yet he began his activism against the death penalty as a high school student when living in Frankfurt, Germany. He was educated about the death penalty by the Amnesty International chapter in his high school. Stan recalls the origins of his activism: I got involved through my broader political connections that were mostly through punk rock, youth culture, skateboarding, rock and roll. And in Germany, at least in the 80s, there were at least large areas of that culture that had a definite political bent to them.

When Stan returned to the United States after high school, he joined the International Socialist Organization and helped to launch the first Maryland chapter of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty. The racial and class disparities found with the death penalty have clearly been the driving force for Stan’s activism in the movement. His comments below reveal how his perspective of the death penalty is shaped by the variables of race and class as they operate in the criminal justice system. I think the death penalty to me is like a nexus, or an intersection of so many social justice issues, class disparities, the pervasive racism in our society, the questions of reach and control that the state should be allowed, use of political repression, all these things are embodied in the death penalty. For me, the death penalty movement has always been an integral part of the fight for social justice, the fight against racism, classism. I talk to people about the death penalty like it is the bleeding edge of the criminal justice system. And a reform that we can win as a way of building confidence, as a way of drawing attention to it, as a way of advancing the struggle against racism.

The comments of Sheila and Stan are very similar to what many of the black activists had to say about the disparities found with the death penalty along the lines of race and class. When asked why they participate in the death penalty, they were the only two white activists I interviewed who

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identified concerns about racial disparities or the racism found with the death penalty. Some of the remaining eighteen white activists eventually expressed such concerns later in the interview, yet Sheila and Stan were the only two who immediately pointed to outrage about the racism found with the death penalty as driving them to their activism. What sets these two white activists apart from the other whites I interviewed, leading them to express similar motivations for activism that fully half of the twenty black activists voiced? In the final section of this chapter, I consider this and other questions focused on the differences I found between the responses of the white activists and the activists of color regarding the “whys” and “hows” that mobilized them to join the anti–death penalty movement. First, the reasons that the activists provided for their ability to remain active in such an unpopular cause are next examined.

“A TINY DROP OF WATER ON A STONE”: STAYING ACTIVE The perseverance that anti–death penalty activists demonstrate in defense of such an unpopular cause is truly phenomenal. Just as I was eager to find out why they participate in the movement against the death penalty and how they become involved, I was also interested in learning how these activists are able to sustain their energy level and remain so committed to such an unpopular cause. The success of any social movement depends not only on its ability to mobilize individuals but also on its ability to sustain the level of commitment that is necessary to effect social change. This must be quite a challenge for anti–death penalty activists, for their aim to abolish the death penalty is not esteemed by the larger society. Since many of the activists are far removed from the direct beneficiaries of their actions, death row inmates, they also are typically not able to see the fruits of their labor firsthand. Nonetheless, the activists with whom I spoke demonstrate tireless efforts and sacrifices as they strive to make the death penalty a relic of the past. In hopes of discovering what keeps these activists plugging along in their struggle against the death penalty, I asked them to describe what keeps them active in the movement. A number of them acknowledged the challenges of the work they do. As Joan, a forty-six-year-old white woman, expressed it: “It’s hard because sometimes you feel burnt out. The movement is very disparate and disorganized and there is a lot of discouraging things that happen.” Several others echoed these feelings of discouragement that are often experienced both within the movement and during interactions within the larger society. Despite such challenges, the most common response by far to my question asking what keeps them going took a very hopeful tone.

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As the activists explained what has kept them active in the movement, the most frequent reason stated was a strong belief that their efforts will be rewarded with the eventual abolition of the death penalty. The word “hope” kept emerging in the comments of the activists as they expressed a belief that their efforts will be rewarded in the foreseeable future: hope that the politicians will realize what they are doing, hope that an educated public will come to oppose the death penalty, or hope that “God will touch somebody’s heart.” Frequently, this hopeful spirit came from a view that progress is steadily being made. Instances in which clemency was granted to a death row inmate, as a result of campaigns carried out by local organizations, were often cited. In addition, several activists noted the change in the political atmosphere that has arisen from the increased concern about innocent people being sentenced to death row. The fact that the innocence issue has been raised by political conservatives, such as former Governor Ryan from Illinois, is encouraging to many of the activists and contributes to their hopeful demeanor. Activists did not necessarily feel the need to base their hope that the death penalty will be abolished on any progress made by the movement. In fact, one activist found hope in the midst of the increasing number of executions. David, a thirty-four-year-old white man, explains how he is able to feel hopeful even when executions are on the rise: Actually the more that they kill and the more egregious the complaints are, I think the closer we are to abolition, the easier my job is because I can say “Look how blatant!” That makes my job easier.

It was almost as though many of the activists had gazed into a crystal ball because they stated with such conviction “We are going to win this. The death penalty is going to be abolished!” This certainty did not appear to be driven by an inflated ego, rather accompanied by more of a humble attitude that their individual actions, however small, can make a difference. Yvonne, a forty-three-year-old African American, best illustrates that attitude with the following statement: “It is feeling that even though what I’m doing is like a tiny drop of water on a stone, when I wish I had a sledgehammer, that drop of water is going to make a difference.” The certainty voiced by the activists that they will see the abolition of the death penalty seems to arise from a prevalent belief that what they are doing is, simply put, “right” and that righteousness prevails. In addition to the sustaining effect of “hope,” therefore, many activists said that they remain active in the movement because of a feeling that what they are doing “is the right thing to do.” Betty, a fifty-seven-year-old white woman, emphatically portrayed this perspective when she stated, “What keeps me going is that this is so right. It is the only right thing. Why aren’t others with me? Why don’t our legislators get it? It is the right thing.”

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Another common answer given to the question posed as to what keeps the activists going in the movement is their desire to live in “a better world.” Activists expressing this desire are able to envision a society without the death penalty, and they are driven to activism because they want to realize their dream of this type of society. While they are not so naïve as to believe that all of society’s ills will disappear along with the death penalty, they nonetheless are driven because “we’re trying to do the right thing to make our world better, a little bit more just, a little bit more sane.” The words of Caroline, a thirty-seven-year-old white woman, illustrate the common view expressed that activism in the anti–death penalty movement is indeed about much more than the death penalty alone. The thing about the death penalty is that it is not really just about the death penalty. In terms of bang for your buck, there are more important causes. I think the death penalty is more about how we are as a society, the violence and brutalization and our response to crime. So I think it’s really symbolic of a lot of social ills and also the criminal justice system is so ripe with discrimination. It’s really about so many other things.

Recognizing these “many other things” that the death penalty represents in our society allows Caroline and other activists with this view to sustain their efforts in the movement because their activism becomes so much more than just a fight against the death penalty. While many activists are driven by their strong principles to forge ahead with their activism in the movement, a number of them are also sustained by some connection they feel with the men and women who sit on our death rows across the nation. As noted above, many people are drawn to the movement from their personal experiences with someone on death row. These relationships with death row inmates serve as a powerful motivation for activists to continue their work, despite the obstacles they encounter. They are ever mindful that the lives of these people on death row are literally dependent upon their efforts, which leaves the activists who feel connected to them compelled to remain active in the movement. This feeling is best expressed by Debbie, a sixty-four-year-old white woman, who became involved in the anti–death penalty movement over twenty years ago after she began writing to a man on death row. She states, “I don’t think you could visit death row very often and ever leave this work as long as they are still there.” Even when they did not personally know anyone in particular on death row, several activists nonetheless expressed feeling some connection with death row inmates. They indicated that they are able to identify with the death row inmates and their families on some level and this identification obliges them to participate in efforts to abolish the death penalty. Dorothy is a forty-three-year-old African American woman who has six adult

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children, ranging in age from nineteen to twenty-nine, and she identifies strongly with the mothers of the fourteen men who have been executed in recent years in Delaware. She declares, “What keeps me going is that I have five boys and one girl. My boys are always in trouble. Every time they execute someone, I put myself in that mother’s place.” Robert is a forty-two-year-old African American who similarly shares this deep empathy with those most closely affected by the death penalty. Like Dorothy, his role as a parent weighs heavily in this empathy. He assumed a very intent posture when he stated, “I have two African American boys and I am scared to death of what this justice system can do to innocent people.” There was a sense of urgency in the tone of many activists as they spoke about the importance of abolishing the death penalty. Not surprisingly, those who are most closely associated with death row inmates expressed the most urgency. Former death-row-inmate-turned-activist, Howard, vowed that he would not abandon his efforts in the movement because “there are over 3,300 people waiting to die and my involvement could help save their lives!” It was a surreal experience to step away from my interview with Howard onto the streets of Manhattan where the vast majority of people walking by were not likely to give death row inmates a second thought, let alone view the situation faced by these inmates with such gravity. Those activists who indicated that they had always felt drawn to work in the movement against the death penalty, as illustrated by the story of Yvonne in the opening of this chapter, did not quite know how to express what sustains them. It is as if their activism had become such a basic part of who they are as individuals, that to leave the movement would be as devastating as the grief they might experience from a sudden loss. Kenny is one such activist who appears to have wedded his identity as an anti–death penalty activist with all other aspects of his identity. This forty-five-year-old white man maintains the central office of the anti–death penalty organization that he founded in his state out of his bedroom and devotes the vast majority of his time to coordinating events led by this organization. He had difficulty pinpointing what exactly keeps him going, for he declared, “You just do it. I don’t really think about what keeps me going. I’m there. I tell people that I’m on this river and I’m just wading through it. I can’t get off the river. I’m on it.” This sentiment was echoed by a woman named Tiffany, who works as a defense attorney with capital defendants. This thirty-two-year-old African American paused to consider what has kept her involved in the anti–death penalty movement and came to a conclusion similar to that of Kenny. She states, “Sometimes I think that I should do something else, but then I think I have no idea of what else I would do. It seems to really fit with me. I think it would be really hard to sit on the sidelines.”

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In addition to all of these reasons that the activists provided as to why they are compelled to fight the death penalty, a significant number of them cited a secondary gain to their activism. When asked what keeps them going, the responses of activists frequently included reference to “the people” in the movement. Out of the participation of activists in a movement that is generally viewed with contempt by the larger society has emerged a closely connected social network of individuals. If only out of their shared feeling of being misunderstood or unappreciated by the larger society, many activists in the movement report a strong bond with their fellow activists. For instance, Yvonne said that one of the reasons she enjoys the annual conferences organized by the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty is because “for four days you are in a room with people who get it.” In her Philadelphia office, Shelly does litigation for capital defendants. This fortyseven-year-old white woman describes a similar connection to her fellow activists: “I think that the death penalty becomes like a lifestyle. You keep your social network to people who are also involved in the movement because you’re more comfortable with them.” Yet another activist, Caroline, smiled to herself as she disclosed that her boyfriend has even accused her of using the issue of the death penalty as a litmus test in determining whom she befriends in all areas of her life. A key concept that helps to explain the comfort that many anti–death penalty activists take in the social network that they have created is the concept of “collective identity.” New social movement theorists introduced this term to refer to the process by which social movement actors come to view themselves as a group that shares common interests and, subsequently, develops a sense of solidarity.3 The informal networks that have emerged within the anti–death penalty movement have enabled activists to feel a sense of connectedness to each other. The collective identity that is shared by many in the movement is particularly enduring because it mobilizes around an oppositional consciousness, one that challenges the status quo and requires activists to create values that they find affirming.4 Clearly, the ways that activists are able to sustain their energy and dedication to fighting the death penalty are as numerous and diverse as are the reasons for their initial decision to become active in the movement. As the themes I have described in this section emerged from the data, I paid particular attention to any differences found between the responses of the activists in terms of their race or ethnicity. I delve deeper into the influence of race on activism in the chapters that follow when the role of political opportunities and constraints, organizational dynamics, and framing processes are considered for their effect on the mobilization of individuals along the lines of race. In the following section, however, I comment in an

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introductory manner on how race enters into the discussion of the themes I have emphasized in this chapter.

BRINGING RACE IN As I examined the factors which the activists indicate mobilized them to participate in the anti–death penalty movement, the theme of morality rang out above all others. A majority of the activists I interviewed (79.5 percent) expressed moral outrage about our nation’s use of the death penalty. Looking further at how the variable of race factors in determining which activists are driven by moral concerns initially reveals little difference between the activists. Of the thirty-three activists who indicated that they participate in the movement against the death penalty out of moral concerns, thirteen are white, thirteen are black, and seven are Latino. There would seem to be little to no racial difference, therefore, between how strongly the activists are driven by moral outrage. A closer look at the tendency of the activists interviewed to express similar levels of moral outrage, regardless of their race, reveals distinctions in the kind of outrage expressed. I first examine the similarities and differences that I found between the black and white activists. Next I bring the Latinos into my examination of the ways in which race affects their moral outrage against the death penalty. Although the exact same number of blacks as whites pointed to moral concerns as driving their activism, these moral concerns took various forms depending upon the way that the activists conceptualize morality. For some, their notion of morality was inextricably linked with their religiosity or spirituality. For others, it was based on notions of what the state should or should not be able to do. The “cycle of violence” was a primary concern of those who linked a notion of morality to the violence found in society. Still others equated their moral concerns with a focus on human rights violations. Upon closer examination of these various expressions of moral concerns, slight differences were noted between the ways that black versus white activists framed their notion of an immoral death penalty. The same percentages of black and white activists (15 percent) equated their moral concerns with a view that the state shouldn’t have the right to kill. Slightly fewer blacks (5 percent) than whites (15 percent) framed their moral concerns as a regard for human rights issues. A similar finding revealed fewer blacks (5 percent) in comparison to whites (20 percent) who expressed a concern about the cycle of violence in society. The largest difference between blacks and whites in how they framed the immorality of the death penalty had to do with the link made between morality and religion. While 35 percent of blacks based their belief that the death penalty

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is immoral on their religious beliefs, the same was true of only 15 percent of whites. The racial differences I found in the connection activists made between religious beliefs and moral concerns of the death penalty caught my attention due to the demographic data I gathered focusing on the religion of the activists. When asked about their religious background, whites were more likely to identify with a religion than were blacks. While 90 percent of whites identified with a religion, only 65 percent of blacks did so.5 It is interesting, therefore, that 20 percent more blacks than whites linked their religious beliefs to their moral position against the death penalty. I expected to find that more whites would make such a connection, primarily because more whites than blacks identified with a religion. I also based my hypothesis on Haines’s finding that the anti–death penalty movement, composed predominantly of whites, tends to make moral and/or religious arguments against the death penalty.6 Given the equal numbers of black and white activists that I found to be morally opposed to the death penalty, I was also eager to find if similar numbers of white and black activists would also voice a concern about the racial politics of the death penalty. The race of the activists is indeed significant when determining those who identified concerns about the racial disparities or racism found with the death penalty. While 50 percent of black activists identified concerns with racial disparities as driving their activism, only 10 percent of the white activists shared such concerns. This preliminary finding suggests that blacks are more likely than whites to participate in the anti–death penalty movement from a view that the death penalty is racist. All of the blacks, and more of the whites, eventually identified such concerns later in my interview, when my questions became more specific. Controlling for gender reveals a noteworthy difference in the responses of black men and women. A vast majority of black men (80 percent) indicated that their activism is driven by a view of the death penalty as racist, yet only 20 percent of black women made similar statements. Certainly both black men and black women are aware of the reality of racism in American society. When it comes to racism found within the criminal justice system, however, black men are more often the direct victims of such racism. Black men who are conscious of the racial disparities in capital sentencing are able to personally identify with the numerous black men on death row more closely than any other demographic group. This is especially the case among those black men who have had a personal experience with the criminal justice system. Such differential gender experiences with the criminal justice system may very well have contributed to the gender differences that I found among my black interview subjects. These gender differences that I found with the black activists in my study are corroborated by a national survey of the responses given to various

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arguments against the death penalty.7 Peffley and Hurwitz conducted a study to determine if racial arguments used against the death penalty are effective in their aim to persuade individuals to oppose the death penalty. These researchers designed their study to examine the effect of the respondents’ race upon the type of response received. The survey respondents were asked for their opinion of the death penalty and then a statement was read to them about how this type of punishment is “racially unfair.”8 Next their attitude was retested to determine if the racial argument was able to persuade them to change their position. The experiment found that gender plays a “powerful role” in shaping attitudes toward the death penalty.9 The effect of gender upon the respondents’ change in attitudes varied between the blacks and the whites. Regardless of the type of argument presented to the white respondents, the men were consistently more likely than the women to support the death penalty. The pattern that was found among the black respondents is quite different. While the black men were initially more likely than their female counterparts to support the death penalty, they became significantly less likely to express such support after hearing the racial argument read by the researcher. A comparison of the pretest and posttest data reveals a “drop in support among black men from 60% to only 26% from the baseline to racial argument conditions, respectively, while support among black women is unchanged (43% and 41%).”10 The researchers who conducted this study offer speculations about the role of gender upon the attitudes of the black respondents. They suspect that black men are much more easily persuaded to oppose the death penalty than are black women “because black men receive the brunt of discriminatory treatment in the justice system.”11 When the black men are reminded of the racial bias found with the death penalty, therefore, they are able to identify most closely with this reality. Just as I have suggested, therefore, black men seem to be driven to their anti–death penalty position by the reality of racism in their own lives. The national survey conducted by Peffley and Hurwitz finds that racial arguments are powerful enough to move black men from a position in favor of the death penalty to one of opposition. My study further suggests that racial arguments have such a powerful effect on black men that they even carry the potential to mobilize them into the anti–death penalty movement. While a majority of black activists in my study (65 percent) were mobilized by a view of the death penalty as immoral, this did not prohibit 50 percent of blacks from also being drawn to the movement by a view of the death penalty as racist. The faith of black theology has been recognized as both ideological and political; therefore, it is certainly possible for black activists to become mobilized simultaneously by their morality/religiosity and by racial politics. On the other hand, while a majority of white activists

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(65 percent) indicated that they were mobilized by a view of the death penalty as immoral, only 10 percent of whites shared that they were mobilized by a view of it as racist. The literature about white theology, summarized briefly in chapter 1, suggests that white theologians have remained relatively silent in regard to issues of racial inequality. My data initially appear unable to lend much support to this literature, however, with such a small fraction of the white activists (15 percent) voicing in the beginning of the interview that their moral opposition is driven by their religious beliefs. What do my findings have to say about the moral positions of white and black activists in the anti–death penalty movement? Granted they cannot offer anything conclusive by far, yet they suggest that the moral opposition of whites is not necessarily driven by their religious beliefs. The responses of the white activists in this first section of the interview suggest that the humanitarian concerns or pacifist ideals they expressed may inform their morality in a more compelling manner. Interestingly, when the activists were specifically asked later in the interview if their activism has been driven by their religious beliefs, the number of whites who identified their religion as a mobilizing factor dramatically increased from the number of those who gave a similar indication in this first (unprompted and exploratory) series of questions. My preliminary findings presented in this chapter also suggest that when black activists identify with a religion, their moral concerns about the death penalty are driven, at least in part, by their religiosity. An assumption can be drawn from the black theology literature that when blacks display strong religious identification, they are often led to oppose the death penalty due to the tradition of black theology, which expresses solidarity with the oppressed. The literature also suggests that when whites are driven to oppose the death penalty on moral or religious grounds, they are not necessarily prone to adopt a concern for the racial politics associated with it. Equal numbers of black and white activists indicated that they were mobilized by their moral outrage, yet the racial disparities found with the death penalty did not serve to mobilize these two groups at nearly the same level. Black activists, and black men in particular, were much more likely to express that they are driven to the movement by the racial disparities associated with the death penalty. My initial findings thus far in the interview, therefore, appear to support the literature focused on white versus black theology. A connection made between religion/morality and a concern about racial disparities among black anti–death penalty activists, however, is a link that is not so easily drawn. It is not clear whether the same individuals who identify as religious also take a position toward the racial politics of the death penalty that is consistent with the theories of black and white theology. A look at the effect of gender on this relationship illustrates my point. While the black men I interviewed are more likely than black women to

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express a concern about the racial politics of the death penalty, black women are more likely than their male counterparts to identify as religious. An examination of the factors that mobilized the Latinos in my study to join the anti–death penalty movement reveals that morality plays a central role. Each of the nine Latinos I interviewed indicated that they are morally opposed to the death penalty. When they elaborated upon their moral objections, seven of them indicated that their religious affiliation with the Catholic Church contributed to their morally driven opposition to the death penalty. While it was typically not the factor that in and of itself brought them into the movement, these Latinos acknowledged the role that their religious upbringing had in shaping their notion of morality. This did not preclude them from also acknowledging the role that race played in mobilizing them into the movement. Since the majority of my sample of Latinos resides in Puerto Rico, the concern about race as it operates with the death penalty was usually couched in terms of nationality. The imposition of federal death penalty charges by the U.S. government upon several Puerto Ricans had elevated their consciousness about the possibility of an execution of one of their own. Their concern about racial disparities fueled their outrage regarding what they viewed as an abuse of power by the federal government. They are fully aware of the extreme racial disparities found with the federal death penalty, and feel victimized as a people by these disparities. The views of the Latinos are further illustration of the convoluted link between religiosity, morality, and racism simultaneously driving communities of color into the anti–death penalty movement. This complicated relationship between racial concerns and religious identification is explored further in chapter 5, with my examination of the frames that the activists use to advance their message. Turning next to an examination of the responses of activists who indicated that it was some personal experience that led them into the movement, differences in terms of race became clear. While 35 percent of whites indicated that it was some personal experience that led them to the anti–death penalty movement, 65 percent of blacks stated the same. In addition, two of the nine Latino activists were driven to the movement by a personal experience with the death penalty. Recall that personal experience with the issue of the death penalty can take different forms. A number of activists in the anti–death penalty movement felt compelled to become active because they have had a loved one either sentenced to death row or murdered. Including the two former death row inmates, I found that 30 percent of blacks and two of the Latinos became mobilized due to such a highly personal experience. Only 10 percent of whites, however, identified the personal experience of losing a loved one to death row or to murder as the primary motivation for their activism. The two white women who

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comprise this 10 percent of whites joined the movement after they lost a family member to murder. Another category of activists who joined the movement out of their personal experiences did so after becoming more intimately connected to the issue of the death penalty through their occupations. This group of activists is comprised of several attorneys, a former government official, a doctor, a college professor, and a former police officer. The majority of those in this group of professionals touched personally by the issue of the death penalty (57 percent) are black. Whether personally affected by experiences with loved ones or at the workplace, therefore, the black activists were significantly more likely than the white activists to become mobilized against the death penalty as a result of some personal experience with the issue. Those activists initially driven to the movement from their personal experiences pointed to additional motivations for their participation. It certainly makes sense that there would be other reasons for their decision to become so heavily involved in such an unpopular cause. After all, if the experience of having a loved one on death row or murdered were enough in and of itself to drive individuals to the anti–death penalty movement, we would see many more people within the movement. Blacks and Latinos in particular would be much more prevalent in the rank and file of the movement, given the disproportionately high numbers of racial minorities who are both victimized by murder and sentenced to death row. Almost twice as many blacks than whites indicated that they were driven to the movement as a result of some personal experience. When I asked the activists to describe what sustains their energy and keeps them committed to the movement, however, equal numbers of white and black activists pointed to some personal experience with the death penalty. Controlling for gender, all of the whites who indicated that their personal experience with someone on death row sustains their activism were women. My finding that no white men identified a connection or identification with death row inmates as a factor that sustains their activism is revealing. It can be argued that white men are the least able among my interviewees to identify with death row inmates in terms of where they tend to be situated socially, politically, and economically. Certainly the race and class of the white male activists are diametrically opposed to that of the vast majority of death row inmates. Equal numbers of white men and white women, however, had identified some personal involvement with the issue of the death penalty, primarily driven by their occupational experiences, as initially mobilizing them to join the movement. Yet my findings further suggest that these personal experiences apparently did not provide sufficient motivation for the white male activists to “keep going” in their mission to abolish the death penalty.

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Turning next to an examination of the responses of black and white activists with regard to that which sustains their activism, it is clear that factors other than personal experience are essential to their ongoing commitment to the movement. Several prominent themes arose when I asked the activists to share what keeps them going and sustains their ability to forge ahead in the struggle against the death penalty. Activists typically identified more than one of these themes in response to my question. Taking a second look at the activists’ remarks, some differences between the black and white activists emerge. Blacks were only slightly more likely (20 percent) than whites (10 percent) to express that they are encouraged to continue their activism out of a sense that what they are doing is simply “the right thing to do.” The same difference was found among those blacks (20 percent) and whites (10 percent) who indicated that they keep going from a desire to create a “better world.” The same percentage of black and white activists (25 percent) expressed that they are sustained by a connection that they feel with death row inmates, either through a personal relationship with an inmate or an ability to identify with the condemned in a special way. At first glance, race doesn’t seem to have an effect on who is sustained in this manner, yet when controlling for gender, interesting results are found. The number of black men and black women driven by some connection with death row inmates is very similar, yet the entire 25 percent of whites who report such a connection as sustaining their activism are women. If the principles upheld by fighting for “the right thing” or striving for a “better world” aren’t necessarily enough to sustain white male activists and a connection with death row inmates does not fuel them, how are they and other activists able to remain so dedicated to the movement? The most common response provided by whites, especially white men, as to what sustains them is the hope that they will be successful in their efforts to abolish the death penalty. A very optimistic tone was taken by 50 percent of whites, and 60 percent of white men, when they excitedly proclaimed eventual victory in the struggle to abolish the death penalty. The significance of race is revealed when this finding is contrasted with the percentage of blacks (15 percent) who expressed similar enthusiasm about the ultimate outcome of their efforts. This difference that I found between black and white activists in how much their activism is sustained by a hopeful spirit is not surprising given the reality of racism in America. In other words, it is easier for whites, and white men in particular, to remain hopeful that their efforts will be rewarded when they live in a society that operates to their advantage. As the recipients of white privilege, they are conditioned to expect to be heard by others and to be able to affect the political process as a result. This is even more so the case for those activists who are the recipients of white

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male privilege, as both their race and their gender afford them with certain privileges. The finding of such a small number of blacks expressing a hopeful attitude is also to be expected given their experience with racism in society. Contrary to whites, blacks learn early in life that the dominant white power elite generally do not hear their voices. They often struggle to make their voices heard in spite of this reality, not necessarily out of an expectation to be heard, rather because the alternative is to succumb to certain defeat. For blacks in the anti–death penalty movement, it appears that they are generally not sustained by hope alone. It is likely that their dedication to the movement emerges from an integration of their identities as an activist and that of an African American, such that resisting the death penalty becomes yet one more struggle required of them to fight oppression. When I interviewed the Latinos for my study, I found an immensely more hopeful tone within their comments. I fully suspect that the timing of my interviews with this segment of my sample, more than anything, contributed to the positive outlook that they possess about the direction of the movement. They certainly do not appear to be at all naïve about the difficulties that the movement is facing toward their aim of abolition. This is particularly evident among the Puerto Ricans who were anxiously awaiting the federal trials of the four cases of Puerto Ricans pending at the time of my interviews. At the same time, the cautious optimism that they tended to impart as they spoke was undeniably related to the hope in the atmosphere generated by the election of President Barack Obama. I interviewed several of the Latino activists just days after Obama took office. One Latina summed up the general elated tone of her fellow Latino activists when she exclaimed, “We have Obama now!” The last of my interviews with Latinos in the movement were conducted just days after the victory of abolition in New Mexico. I suspect that if I had interviewed the black activists in my sample in the wake of these exciting times for the movement, their tone would have been much more hopeful than it was when they spoke with me, which was during the administration of President George W. Bush. A greater percentage of black activists (30 percent) than white activists (10 percent) had difficulty expressing what sustains their activism, indicating that they don’t know what drives them, for they “just do it.” I imagine that many blacks would share similar sentiment about surviving day-to-day in a racist society, let alone as an activist, operating in overdrive much of the time. Black women were more likely than any other group to relate such feelings, for 50 percent of them had difficulty pinpointing why they are able to “keep going” in the movement. In sum, my question asking what keeps them active yielded a hopeful response among white activists that their efforts will be rewarded with the abolition of the death penalty. The most common response of the black activists, on the other hand, was that

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they don’t know what else they would be doing and they are not able to pinpoint why they are able to remain so dedicated to this cause. Another racial difference I found regarding the factors that sustain the energy of the activists has to do with the social relationships formed as a result of their involvement within the movement. Twice the number of whites (30 percent) than blacks (15 percent) indicated that they remain active because of “the people” they meet in the movement. Looking further at the responses of blacks, it is remarkable that all who reported being sustained by their fellow activists are women. Not a single black man I interviewed stated that he is encouraged to remain active in the movement by the relationships he has developed with other activists. While they did not say the inverse, that they remain active in spite of the people in the movement, it is interesting that they are the only group that completely failed to mention the social network of the movement as reinforcing their commitment to the cause. This same group of black male activists is also the one that, more than any other group, pinpointed a concern with the racism of the death penalty as driving their activism. Could it be that the black male activists feel that their focus on the racism associated with the death penalty is not embraced by their fellow activists? If so, that may distance them from the other activists and leave them feeling not completely satisfied with the social network of activists. Regardless of the reason, it is significant that whites more frequently than blacks, particularly more than black men, express feeling rejuvenated by the people in the movement, a movement that is dominated by whites. Anti–death penalty activists, while generally more politically left leaning than the general population, are not immune from the effects of living in a society that continues to be largely segregated along racial lines. As a result, they may have a comfort level that varies in social situations according to the racial composition of the setting. Greater attention is paid to the complex and contradictory ways that race shapes the participation of activists throughout the next several chapters as I take on a closer examination of the structural and cultural dimensions of the anti–death penalty movement.

NOTES 1. Doug McAdam, Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency 1930– 1970 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982). 2. DPIC, 2009. 3. Alberto Melucci, “The Symbolic Challenge of Contemporary Movements,” Social Research 52, no. 4 (1985). 4. Verta Taylor and Nancy E. Whittier, “Collective Identity in Social Movement Communities: Lesbian Feminist Mobilization,” in Frontiers in Social Movement

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Theory, ed. Aldon D. Morris and Carol McClurg Mueller, (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992), 104–29. 5. See appendix B for a table which illustrates the religious affiliations of the activists within my sample, among other demographic data that describe my sample. 6. Herbert Haines, Against Capital Punishment: The Anti–Death Penalty Movement in America, 1972–1994 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996). 7. Mark Peffley and Jon Hurwitz, “Persuasion and Resistance: Race and the Death Penalty in America,” American Journal of Political Science 51, no. 4 (October 2007): 996–1012. 8. Peffley and Hurwitz, “Persuasion and Resistance.” 9. Peffley and Hurwitz, “Persuasion and Resistance.” 10. Peffley and Hurwitz, “Persuasion and Resistance.” 11. Peffley and Hurwitz, “Persuasion and Resistance.”

3 Political Opportunities and Constraints on Activism

In order to understand how the internal factors occurring within any social movement shape its ability to meet with success, it is crucial to place the movement within a political context. Before providing my analysis of the internal dimensions of social movement activity operating within the anti–death penalty movement, therefore, I have dedicated this chapter to an examination of the political environment in which the contemporary movement has developed. Political process theorists use the concept of the political opportunity structure, briefly introduced in an earlier chapter, to illustrate external factors that impact social movements. This concept provides insight into the ways in which the power structure has presented specific opportunities for and constraints upon the anti–death penalty movement. This chapter examines the activists’ impressions of the impact that these opportunities and constraints have had on their movement.

REALIZING FURMAN: A DUBIOUS SUCCESS In the most extensive account that exists of the modern anti–death penalty movement in the United States, Herbert Haines notes that the progress of the movement has waxed and waned since the early colonial days.1 Haines identifies four distinct periods of time in our history when the movement against the death penalty emerged with vitality, only to fade away after making limited progress. The most notable success of the movement came at the close of the third era of anti–death penalty activism with the 1972 Supreme Court ruling in Furman v. Georgia. What initially appeared to be the end of the death penalty in the United States was soon exposed for the 97

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marginal victory that it proved to be, as the death penalty was reinstated four short years later. In an effort to explore the various ways in which the politics of our nation have historically shaped the struggle over the death penalty, I asked the activists to provide their impressions of how we reached the point in 1972 when the Supreme Court deemed the death penalty unconstitutional, only for it to be reinstated after such a brief time. The vast majority of the activists in my study became involved in the movement in the fourth era of activism identified by Haines, which was sparked by the return of the death penalty in 1976 and continues to the present time. Though most of them were not involved in the anti–death penalty movement in the 1970s, many of the activists nonetheless voice strong opinions about the successes and failures of the movement during that period. The role of political opportunities and constraints in the progress of the anti–death penalty movement is apparent in the comments of the activists. A majority of them were quick to note that activists who fought the death penalty in the early 1970s saw very different times from those facing activists in the movement today. With the culmination of the Civil Rights Movement came increased attention to the racial disparities found among those who receive the death penalty. The heightened awareness of the racial injustice found with the implementation of the death penalty helped to create the political space for the movement to push for the abolition of the death penalty. Many of the activists I spoke with referred to the nation’s elevated consciousness about racism as the impetus for the Furman decision, yet perhaps Malcolm best summarizes the common sentiment expressed. Malcolm is a forty-five-year-old African American who became active in the movement against the death penalty through his involvement with the National Conference of Black Lawyers. His comments below reflect the emphasis that a significant number of activists placed upon how the Civil Rights Movement brought attention to the racism found with the death penalty. In 1972, that was a time when a lot of so-called well-settled social principles were being questioned. Everything was being questioned. You just couldn’t get around how racist the society really was. Outright segregation and what people are now calling apartheid in America had only recently been outlawed. By ’72, all of the laws and explicit rules saying black people must enjoy or use inferior conditions while white people have the best conditions were all off the books. But all of that stuff had just been eliminated from the books within about five or six years in 1972 so everybody was really clear that there is a hard-core element of racism in place. Then in 1972, after four years of Nixon, the struggle against racism and what little was said about poverty had crystallized to the degree that people could see that there was hard-core racism in the application of the death penalty.

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The attention to the death penalty brought by the Civil Rights Movement was aided by other factors as well. In fact, the political climate of the period that brought the 1972 ruling against the death penalty was shaped by a number of events. The Vietnam War sparked protests around the country, and the peace and student movements that grew as a result hastened efforts of anti–death penalty activists to expose the abuses of the power structure. The Supreme Court in existence at the time of the landmark Furman decision was a much more liberal court than any we have seen since. All of these factors coalesced and promoted a climate in the nation that made it much easier for the arguments of anti–death penalty activists to be heard. One activist sums up the era leading to the 1972 ruling quite well with the following words: It was more liberal times with more liberal courts, just more liberal everything. It was on the heels of the late ’60s and Vietnam and all these horrible abuses of authority. Some people were disturbed by abusive power and authority. National conscience was high.

Another activist broadened the political context in which the Furman decision took place to an international level. When Diana, a Latina in her early forties, described the political climate that provided for the Furman success, she argued that the movement of Canada, Britain, and other European countries toward death penalty abolition contributed to the consciousness of the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1966, Britain had legally acknowledged with the posthumous pardon of Timothy Evans that it had made a horrible mistake. Largely as a result of the realization that an innocent man had been executed, Britain abolished the death penalty in 1969. Britain joined the growing number of European countries, as well as Canada, that had either already abolished the death penalty or were moving toward abolition.2 The impact of the global move toward abolition upon our Supreme Court is noted within Diana’s remarks. We had the Supreme Court and so we had enough individuals who were going to be with us philosophically on the issue. That was critical. It was based on different reasons. For some, it was because it was unfair to the poor. The other one was about racism and then Marshall and Brennan said that across the board, this isn’t right. Internationally, of course Britain was right there with abolition because in the sixties they had recognized that they had executed an innocent person, Timothy Evans. So Britain was heading in that direction as well, along with other European countries and Canada too.

Social movement theorists who have emphasized the role of “political opportunities” in social movements have argued that mobilization efforts take a backseat to the contributions of the political landscape in the emergence and

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success of social movements. The argument is that “movements are less the product of meso level mobilization efforts than they are the beneficiaries of the increasing political vulnerability or receptivity of their opponents or of the political and economic system as a whole.”3 The successes arising from the Civil Rights Movement, for instance, are frequently viewed as due more to the relationship that existed at that time between the black and white political communities than the mass mobilization of black activists.4 Cloward and Piven assert that the most important fact underlying the domestic politics of the 1960s and early 1970s was “the massive movement of disenfranchised blacks from the rural South to the urban North where they became at least nominal participants in electoral politics.”5 Despite the leverage black newcomers brought to the North, blacks initially received little for their votes, and their circumstances often deteriorated even as their numbers grew. When faced with antagonistic community relations, Northern mayors favored their older white constituents over the growing numbers of blacks. Although urban blacks had been overwhelmingly loyal to the Democratic Party for nearly four decades, their votes were increasingly perceived as up for grabs. It became obvious by 1960 that the black vote had become critical in presidential elections. It was only after Democratic leaders began to push civil rights issues, however, when they were able to redeem themselves in the eyes of urban blacks. By taking a strong stand on civil rights, Kennedy won back some of the blacks. The political lesson seemed clear: The urban black vote had not only become critical, it had become volatile as well. The new Democratic administration began to look for ways to strengthen the allegiance of urban blacks.6 Many of the activists I interviewed would seem to agree with this lesson that the gains and setbacks of social movements are often inevitable consequences of the politics of a given time period. Quite a few of the activists, in fact, adamantly stated that the anti–death penalty movement had little to do with the 1972 success. The comments of Mark, a thirty-fiveyear-old white man, typify the realistic outlook of activists who recognize the limited role of the movement in achieving this victory. The anti–death penalty movement did not achieve that success. It was political manipulation. We had a liberal court. It was not an issue that people had built their political careers around at that time. Because it was already there, people were not campaigning to have it. The movement had nothing to do with it. It was not a victory for the movement. It was a victory for lawyers and a liberal Superior Court. . . . There was not a groundswell of the movement pushing for abolition of the death penalty.

Just as the political climate in the years proceeding 1972 led to the Furman decision, changes brought by the politics of our nation led to the setback that came just a few short years later in 1976 with the reinstatement

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of the death penalty. What was initially hailed as a success by anti–death penalty activists was soon realized for the failed effort at abolition that it proved to be. After the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, activists realized the battle before them and the modern anti–death penalty movement began to grow.

A TURNING OF THE TIDE: EXECUTIONS RETURN By the time that the Furman decision was handed down in 1972, a course of events had already been set into motion creating the political atmosphere that allowed for the Gregg decision. The tide had already begun to change. Though most of the activists I interviewed were not yet involved in the movement at that time, they nonetheless have a strong sense of the factors that existed and contributed to the decision to reinstate the death penalty. A significant number of the activists shared that a backlash to the gains made by the Civil Rights Movement and other socially progressive movements was underway by the time that the Supreme Court allowed for the death penalty to be reinstated in 1976. Though she was a small child, twenty-six-year-old Colleen described the mood of the country that existed in the mid-1970s in such convincing terms that one might be surprised to find that she had not experienced it as an adult. In the following quote, Colleen describes how politicians used law-and-order rhetoric to undermine the gains that had been made during the civil rights era. There was a backlash. I think that the Republicans basically took up the law and order mantra of Barry Goldwater because he used law and order as a cover for racism. He equated civil rights protesters with criminals. And Nixon kind of picked up on that and I think there was a real effort from the Republicans that was then picked up by the Democrats that equated the movements of the ’60s with lawlessness and criminality and, therefore, to attack the advances of the Civil Rights Movement and the other movements, they needed law and order rhetoric to do that . . . the movement was dying down. There was that backlash. I think that they just took advantage of the situation.

A dramatic shift had occurred in public opinion by the early 1970s that revealed a nation significantly less concerned with civil rights issues than it had been during the 1960s, when the public had attached an all-time high level of importance to such issues. A series of Gallup polls indicated that a concern for “race relations” had reached its highest in 1965 with 52 percent of people surveyed identifying it as the nation’s most important problem. This contrasts sharply with the 7 percent of survey respondents in 1971 who similarly pointed to race relations as our most important

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problem.7 The decline in society’s focus on racial conflict no doubt had several causes, perhaps the most obvious being the growing attention given to the Vietnam War. The emergent law-and-order rhetoric emphasized in Colleen’s comments above certainly shaped public opinion in this regard as well. As pointed out by Andrew von Hirsch, law-and-order policies “exploit popular resentment of crime and criminals.”8 While the post–civil rights era in which we live has made it socially unacceptable for individuals to make blatantly racist or sexist remarks, the same cannot be said of public discourse regarding criminals. In the United States, we tend to believe that people choose their fate in life, relying on individualistic notions to explain various social ills that befall them. Arguably, the segment of the population that has always been safest to place blame upon for their plight, however, is the group we view as “criminal.” Recognized as an achieved status, those identified as “criminal” are easily dismissed as having chosen to commit crime and, therefore, have no one to blame for their punishment but themselves. Those we label as “criminal” have been argued as the group that is easiest for us to “sink our teeth into as far as guilt-free marginalizing.”9 Among those identified as criminals, certainly those who wind up on death row after committing heinous murders elicit the least sympathy. The activists who shared their stories with me were far from naïve about the image of death row inmates that they are fighting and the political environment in which this image was created. As a veteran of the police force in Washington, D.C., James can still vividly recall the attitude that existed toward criminals in the 1970s. An African American man in his midfifties, James had this to say about the time period leading to the 1976 Gregg decision: That was part of the era where it was good, where it was politically correct, to be hard on people who commit crime, locking them up and throwing away the key mentality. And the death penalty was a part of that. And the political agenda was that the Republicans were in. They were part and parcel responsible for that mentality. . . . Also, this law and order thing. It was a backlash from the Civil Rights Movement.

The decline in public concern about racial issues in the 1970s only intensified the stigma placed on criminal offenders due to the link that was increasingly being made between racial minorities and crime in the lawand-order rhetoric embraced by politicians and rampant in the media. The emergence of a “white backlash” to the Civil Rights Movement occurred just as the more militant wing of the Black Power Movement became widely publicized as the face of the movement.10 As the Black Power Movement took on more radical tactics, it broadened its focus to “embody a

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holistic attack on the complex patterns of institutional racism in which the interests of those who had earlier ‘supported’ the movement were implicated.”11 During the era of the Black Power Movement, “black nationalism was inextricably linked to the criminal imagery of that generation.”12 According to scholarly and popular lore, black nationalists and other radicals were a nihilistic band of activists bent on rioting and social upheaval, functioning under the convenient but specious cover of championing racial justice and equality. As J. Edgar Hoover said when he appeared before the 1971 House Appropriations Committee on Internal Security, it was a group draped in “selfmade propaganda, depicting its role as that of an armed revolutionary vanguard calling for the overthrow of a fascist United States.” Others, like House Republicans on the same committee, insisted that the party was “a subversive criminal group, using the façade of politics and Marxist-Leninist ideology as a cover for crimes of violence and extortion.”13

The federal government responded by instituting measures of social control that succeeded in equating minority protestors with lawlessness in the public eye. Between 1966 and 1969, for example, “twenty states added antiriot sections to their penal codes.”14 The most aggressive initiatives were conducted by the Counterintelligence Division of the FBI to monitor and harass, in hopes of shutting down completely, groups such as the Black Panther Party (BPP) that were viewed as subversive and a threat to the status quo. The operations carried out via COINTELPRO were typically illegal, as they included such repressive activities as conducting unwarranted electronic surveillance, sending bogus mail to cause internal strife within the BPP and other organizations, and engaging in harassment arrests.15 On a cool Chicago October night in 1969, the lengths that the FBI was willing to go to in order to eliminate the BPP became clear when at 4:00 a.m. agents burst into the home of BPP leader Fred Hampton, assassinating him and Mark Clark in their sleep.16 The BPP was not the only group of activists that was targeted by COINTELPRO, however, as they also illegally tracked the activities of other revolutionary groups, including the American Indian Movement (AIM) and the Young Lords Party (YLP).17 During the Nixon and Ford administrations, “the attack on Indian demonstrators and particularly on American Indian Movement activists was brutal and grisly, with a far greater ratio of deaths and imprisonments than any other movement.”18 Two of the most notorious examples of FBI assaults against AIM activists include the plot to assassinate Leonard Peltier, who remains a political prisoner since 1976, and the murder of John Trudell’s family.19 Trudell, the last national chairman of AIM spoke out at a march in Washington, D.C., in 1979 after he was warned not to speak out. Less than twelve hours later, his wife, three children, and mother-in-law were killed by an arsonist in their Nevada home.20

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In his account of the history of the Young Lords Party, Miguel “Mickey” Melendez (leader of the New York branch) credited the many FBI infiltrators of his organization for the eventual demise of the party. Melendez laments, “Cointelpro can claim success in disrupting the Puerto Rican liberation movement in the United States.”21 Coinciding with the image of black, Native American, and Latino insurgents was a highly publicized rise in the crime rate in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is not difficult to see how a fear of crime became synonymous with a fear of racial minorities. The effects of this stigma placed upon racial minorities have persisted over the decades that have followed the COINTELPRO era. An example can be found in recent studies of the hiring practices of employers. For instance, research has found that when potential employers are prohibited from running criminal background checks on black applicants, this “actually decreases their chances of being hired, probably owing to employer suspicions that a young black male may have been in trouble with the law.”22 The political opportunity structure that created this backlash also allowed for the death penalty to be reinstated in 1976, just four years after a concern about racial injustice had played such a significant role in the decision to stop executions. Perhaps the comments of Franklin, a fifty-one-year-old white lawyer, best portray the emphasis placed on the political opportunity structure among those activists contemplating the causes of the 1976 setback. Even as they were reenacting laws, the public opinion went much higher in favor of the death penalty because crime was going higher, but also the Republicans started using crime as a wedge issue. The Democrats started fleeing the field and people became afraid to make arguments. . . . So it would make sense as a matter of public opinion where you don’t have any faith in government, you see crime going up, you see riots, which was another thing we had in the late ’60s. Then sympathy for people of color was going down during this period. . . . The concern over people’s constitutional rights was not particularly great and people were basically saying we care about stopping this out of control crime as part of an overall society that was getting out of control and the only way we can see to do that is to have the death penalty. The same court that had thrown out the death penalty was the same court that Nixon had attacked for being bleeding heart liberals and weak on crime in general so they didn’t trust them.

Just as a majority of the activists were willing to admit that it was not the efforts of the anti–death penalty movement that had won the success of Furman, they were equally critical of the movement when they spoke of the factors that led to the 1976 setback. Several activists stated that those who were in the movement when the Furman decision occurred became overly confident about this success and prematurely sat down on the job. Leslie,

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an African American attorney in her early thirties, shared this sentiment in the following remarks: It might have been kind of complacency. One of the things that happens is that we get victories and then we just kind of sit back. We are also very crisisoriented. . . . We are a very reactionary movement. . . . I think that people saw that [Furman] as kind of a win and probably moved onto other things that they were interested in, thinking that they had defeated this thing and there is no way that people are going to be able to reinstitute it in ways that are going to seem fair. So I think it [Gregg] was a sneak attack type of thing. I think people were moving on to other things and counting it as a victory.

Chano is among the handful of activists I interviewed who was involved in the anti–death penalty movement during the 1970s. He was one of very few Latinos in the movement when he began working on the issue of the death penalty with Amnesty International. He recalled participating in anti–death penalty events with Amnesty approximately one year before the 1976 Gregg decision, given the threat that the death penalty might be reinstated. Chano has remained extremely active in the movement over the decades that have followed the huge setback that came with Gregg. While he has occasionally observed the complacency that Leslie refers to in her above comments, Chano has also found that the movement has difficulty dealing with failure. From this perspective, movement activists may have momentarily given up the fight after the Furman win, not because they believed that they had sufficiently defeated the death penalty, rather because they felt defeated when they saw the imminent threat of its return. The other thing that our movement isn’t good at is accepting failure. If we fall down and fail, we say, “I can’t go on. I can’t do it!” We’ve got to be stubborn. We need to say, “I know what I’m doing is right” and you believe what you’re doing is right and you go out and do it. That’s what you have to do. That’s been my premise. You’re doing a good thing.

Other activists who were critical of the movement’s failure to disrupt the course of events that led to the 1976 Gregg decision focused more on internal rifts within the movement. They spoke of the division commonly noted by those in the movement as taking place between lawyers and grassroots activists. More on the strained relationship between these two groups follows in subsequent chapters focused on organizational dynamics and framing processes. In the present section, however, it is noteworthy that when activists blamed the 1976 setback on internal problems within the movement, it was the cleavage that often lies between lawyers and grassroots activists that received the most attention.

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As noted above, the success of the Furman decision was won in the courts due to the efforts of some very talented lawyers. Upon reflection, several activists I spoke with shared that they are not surprised by the subsequent reversal of the Furman decision because they believe that in their earnest venture to fight the death penalty, attorneys did not draw upon the rankand-file movement to aid them in their efforts. It is debatable as to whether the small number of grassroots members involved in the movement at that time could have created a different outcome. Several activists nonetheless feel that the attorneys overestimated their ability to achieve and sustain the abolition of the death penalty on their own. As stated by a forty-threeyear-old African American woman, not only was the movement particularly small at the time that the Gregg decision was made in 1976, but “the movement has also had an over-reliance on lawyers and, as a result, has not taken advantage of trying to affect the public.” Another African American woman in her forties was critical of lawyers as she responded to my question asking what led to the reinstatement of the death penalty. Her comments below charge them with disregarding activists until much too late in the struggle that was taking place in the mid-70s. This is the arrogance of lawyers: “I’ll write the best brief and therefore we will win!” They do not understand that there is this dynamic between public opinion and public pressure. . . . There are still some litigators who don’t want anything to do with the activists because they are convinced they can solve it, and so what ends up happening is that the courts surprise them, they screw up the brief, and then they say “Okay, now it is time for you guys to do something.” But it is a little too late.

One attorney even admitted that more attention was placed upon the strategies of lawyers than was necessary at this stage of the movement against the death penalty. Though he was not yet involved in the movement at the time, this African American defense attorney in his late thirties had this to say about how the movement failed to capture and utilize public opposition against the death penalty to intercept the revival of executions: I think that what the Supreme Court did in 1972 was really, in effect, impose a moratorium of a sort. . . . And at that point I think what we missed was the political opportunity. We let lawyers do litigation when at that point the real emphasis should have been more political. . . . So we had a lot of public momentum that we could have built, but the critical mistake was letting it stay as a legal challenge.

Having studied the circumstances surrounding Supreme Court decisions while she was in law school, Diana discovered that the problem with the 1972 Furman decision is that it failed to reflect public opinion. She agreed that the Court’s decision was driven by lawyers, rather than by a grassroots

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movement. Had activists been working hard to build a grassroots movement, perhaps the Supreme Court’s Furman decision would not have been so easily and quickly challenged. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court’s views didn’t mirror that of the general public. Legislative decisions are supposed to reflect what the people believe and so the various states went back and tried to quote fix their statutes to comport with what was supposedly going to be lawful punishment.

Certainly the various factors that had converged to build the political atmosphere that prompted the Furman decision had an indisputable effect on the anti–death penalty movement. In spite of the backlash that led to the setback four years later with the Gregg decision, many activists in the movement against the death penalty duly note the colossal impact of the politics of the period of the 1960s and 1970s on their movement. In his book written about the “legacies of the sixties,” Paul Lyons remarks, “It is impossible to overestimate how much the civil rights, feminist, and environmental movements have transformed the political culture.”23 One need only look to the extensive adoption of lethal injections that occurred in the late 1970s as the more “humane” alternative methods of electrocutions and gassings to see how the political landscape has transformed even the administration of the death penalty. Herbert Haines has observed that “flawed executions” have the potential to pose “powerful threats to otherwise supportive public attitudes toward capital punishment.”24 The need to paint a more humane face on executions can be argued as an outgrowth of the post–civil rights era, which has transformed the way in which many express their views on controversial issues. The method of lethal injection has even faced widespread scrutiny in recent years, as states began in the summer of 2006 to challenge what was originally thought to be a simple, humane method for execution. As it turns out, lethal injection is far from simple, and what had appeared to be “humane” is the effect of a paralyzing agent, the second of a three-drug “cocktail” that prohibits the inmate from exhibiting the pain that has been argued not only to exist but also to violate the Eighth Amendment by constituting “cruel and unusual punishment.”25

THE CURRENT POLITICAL LANDSCAPE After the activists shared their perceptions of the gains and setbacks of the anti–death penalty movement that have occurred in recent decades, they spoke about the current political atmosphere that provides the backdrop for their efforts to abolish the death penalty. They were asked to explain why they believe that the prevailing political atmosphere is making it more

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or less difficult for the messages of the movement to be received. The vast majority of the activists indicated that they find the politics of our nation operating in a manner that poses great challenges for the anti–death penalty movement. It is important to remind the reader that I interviewed most of the activists for this study during the Bush administration. The Latino activists are an exception, as I interviewed them after President Obama took office. Their comments about the political opportunity structure took a much more hopeful tone than that of their non-Latino fellow activists. The final section of this chapter elaborates upon the recent changes in the political opportunity structure that leave the Latino activists feeling optimistic about the movement’s ability to build a more racially diverse constituency and reach abolition. Presently, I focus on the reactions of the white and black activists to the political opportunity structure as they saw it during the Bush administration. Many of the factors that had emerged by the mid-1970s, with the resurrection of the death penalty, were voiced by the activists as relevant once again in the ongoing struggle against the death penalty. The law-and-order rhetoric that took root even as progressive social movements of the 1960s were gaining momentum has only flourished in the decades since executions resumed. The tough-on-crime policies that have emerged have filled our nation’s prisons, such that the United States currently incarcerates nearly 2.3 million of its citizens, which is a 500 percent increase over the last thirty years.26 The Bureau of Justice Statistics reported in 2005 that this figure represents a record thirty-three-year continuous rise in the number of those incarcerated in our nation.27 The punishments given to criminals have undoubtedly become harsher over time, as seen in mandatory minimum sentences and “three-strikesyou’re-out” legislation. Aside from the growing recognition in academia of the problems that arise from the prison industrial complex,28 the reality of crime does not match the public fear of crime in America. Studies of the relationship between various groups’ victimization rates and their concerns about crime have uncovered significant discrepancies between the two.29 Official FBI statistics confirm that violent crime is no higher now than it was in the 1970s and the rate of violent crime has actually dropped.30 Despite the falling crime rates since 1991, however, the number of those we have incarcerated since that time has increased by more than 50 percent.31 Our nation’s prison population has increased every year since 1973, causing us to reach the point at which today we are “five to ten times more likely to lock up our citizens than are other nations.”32 What then has led to the public fear of crime that has only intensified over the time since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976? For the vast majority of those activists I interviewed, the answer is clear: It is the outcome of the hard work of conservative politicians. As stated by Rosalind,

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a thirty-seven-year-old African American woman, “The conservatives have worked really hard over the last thirty years to get things where they are. They’ve gone to one of the most elemental emotional appeals of people and that’s fear. It’s like a political tool.” Maggie, a white woman who is also thirty-seven years old, concurs: “I look at the fact that the airtime on the news that crime gets has gone up even as crime has fallen off the scales and I think that politicians exploit that very much.” As suggested by Maggie’s statement, politicians are aided considerably by the media in their efforts to alarm the public about crime. The media perpetuate the notion that crime is out of control, thus are largely responsible for the schism that is typically found between the public’s perception of crime and the actual crime rate. According to the Center for Media and Public Affairs, crime coverage was the number one topic on the nightly news over the past decade. From 1990 to 1998, homicide rates dropped by half nationwide, but homicide stories on the three major networks rose almost fourfold.33

When individuals become angry about some crime that has occurred in their community, various forms of media encourage and magnify their anger. Politicians are then summoned to address the demands of the community and somehow “fix” the crime problem. Bonnie Berry uses the term “social rage” to refer to “an emotion, a cognition, or behavior; the source or manifestation of which is social.”34 She argues that politicians cater to this social rage because “there is a political profit to be made by satisfying a public desire.”35 It has been asserted that the goal of crime control is no longer to deter crime, rather to provide a measure of “expressive justice,” which is designed to “provide a catharsis for the rage and confusion that people feel about crime.”36 Though many believe that such a catharsis becomes an unfulfilled promise, it is evident that the political opportunity structure has nonetheless aimed to make use of the death penalty to strive for some measure of expressive justice. In his book entitled The Executed God, Mark Taylor maintains that the death penalty is perpetuated by what he terms a “political theatrics of terror,” which he defines as “a way of ruling through spectacles that create fear and disseminate regimentation and compliance with growing state powers.”37 His book is a call to the Christian community to become active in the anti–death penalty movement by creating a “theatrics of counterterror” in order to liberate the public of the fear imposed upon them by the state.38 For many of the activists I interviewed, a relationship between the fear of crime and some political agenda imposed by the power structure is

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abundantly clear. A young African American woman who practices as an attorney sums up this relationship well with the following remarks: Politicians have taken an easy area like crime and really hyped the public up to believe that we have to do something about it. . . . But this is an easy area for politicians to get the American public behind them because of all the media hype and people feeling unsafe. I think that people think that there is nothing you can do with some people except to execute them.

A retired African American police officer, James, echoes this sentiment with his statement: “If you believe your community is so inundated with crime, you will give the legislature and police carte blanche to do anything they need to do to make your community a safe place.” The authority given to the state in its most extreme form includes the power to decide with the institution of the death penalty who “deserves” to die. Fear of crime among the public, therefore, yields intimidation by the state. Mark Taylor aptly notes the “theatrical effect” of the death penalty with his description of how this form of punishment, among others, is utilized by the power structure to cast terror on the public. He argues that the death penalty is intended to “register terror in the wider public to reinforce the power of the state over all of our lives.”39 Perhaps the most astute illustration of this argument is found with his interpretation of the “curtained window” that at once shields and reveals the harsh reality of executions. As the curtain is opened and closed before and after an execution, much like the stage curtain of the theater, it serves “not only the function of showing and concealing but also of building a sense of drama.”40 Most of the anti–death penalty activists who shared their stories with me are keenly aware of the difficulties that the political opportunity structure has posed and continues to pose for their mission. At the same time, a significant number of them also made mention of the political shift that has taken place in recent years, opening up some space for the messages of the movement to be heard. While the number of executions has climbed over the years since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, so too has the number of innocent people freed from death row. It is this growing attention to the risk of executing innocent people that has once again turned the political tide, though this time it is turning in a welcome direction for anti–death penalty activists. The Death Penalty Information Center reports that thirty-seven people were executed in the United States in 2008, which is a dramatic decrease from the number of executions that had taken place during 1999, when ninety-eight people were executed.41 That was the highest number of executions for any year since the 1976 reinstatement of the death penalty. Since 1999, however, there has been a steady decline in not only the number of

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executions but also the number of death sentences handed out in our nation. In 2008, the number of death sentences dropped to the lowest level we have seen in our nation since the death penalty was reinstated over thirty years earlier.42 Even as the number of people who have been executed and sentenced to death row has fallen dramatically, the number of innocent people released from death row has grown to over 130.43 These statistics reveal that after the number of executions reached its peak in 1999, the death penalty was being recognized more and more as flawed. What anti–death penalty activists had known for years was finally gaining some legitimacy in the wider society. By the end of the year, proposals were being submitted by various legislators, judges, and religious leaders that pushed for a moratorium on the death penalty. Skepticism about the death penalty grew markedly as we entered the new millennium. In January 2000, Governor George Ryan in Illinois became the first politician to introduce a declaration for a moratorium on executions.44 Ryan avowed, “Until I can be sure with moral certainty that no innocent man or woman is facing a lethal injection, no one will meet that fate.”45 Governor Ryan started a national trend at the turn of the century that has steadily been taking place over the last few years. Moratorium legislation has been introduced in numerous cities and states across the country, which has placed the issue squarely in the public eye. Legislators have only become increasingly more courageous with the bills that they are introducing, as the focus has moved more from a moratorium on the death penalty to total abolition. By the middle of 2009, already eleven states had introduced abolition bills within the year.46 While these bills have already died in several states (i.e., Colorado, Connecticut, and Maryland), anti–death penalty activists are hopeful that other states will follow the example set by New Mexico when this state abolished the death penalty on March 18, 2009.47 Public opinion polls indicate that an accompanying shift in attitudes toward the death penalty has also been taking place. In February 2000, just one month after Governor Ryan’s bold move for a moratorium, a Gallup Poll revealed that public support for the death penalty dropped to its lowest level in nineteen years. While a majority of the population (65 percent) indicated in a May 2006 Gallup Poll that they support the death penalty, this is still a significant drop in pro–death penalty sentiment from its peak of 80 percent in 1994.48 The May 2006 Gallup Poll further found that while 65 percent of people support the death penalty, this figure drops to 47 percent when the option of life without parole is offered as an alternative to the death penalty.49 Numerous other polls have generated similar findings. A national poll conducted in 2007 by RT Strategies and commissioned by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) found that 58 percent of Americans voice support for a moratorium on executions until issues of fairness

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can be resolved. In addition, 87 percent of people surveyed indicate that they believe some innocent people have been executed in recent years.50 Several activists offer explanations for the change in the public reaction to the death penalty. They interpret the increased willingness now found in the wider society to look at the problems with the death penalty as an inevitable reaction to the political environment that has existed since the death penalty was reinstated. Chris is one of the national leaders of the anti–death penalty movement. His words illustrate the sentiment shared by several others who seek to account for the growing recognition in society of the unfairness associated with the death penalty. I think that one thing that came out of the return of the death penalty was that people in their rush to execution and their bloodlust would cause a negative public reaction. You can’t take the attitudes that exist in places in Texas without causing a public reaction. The rush to execute people, to give inadequate counsel, to allow prosecutors to detain evidence helped lead to the ninety-five innocent people being released, which has led to the reverse public reaction. So in those ways the sort of fascist nature of the politics around the death penalty, the complete uncaring of who lives and who dies, has helped lead to the backlash that has helped us.

The activists who view the shift in public opinion as an inevitable result of the politics of our nation indict liberal as well as conservative politicians for promoting the conditions that inadvertently created space for the anti–death penalty movement. In the following remarks, Colleen explains how politics across party lines have unwittingly enabled many Americans to become enlightened about the abuses in the power structure. Right now there’s been a backlash in public opinion to some extent. People are like, “Okay, we can blame welfare mothers and hate immigrants and lock people up all we want but has this really made my life any better?” I think it’s a backlash to the backlash. Opinion polls around the country show that people support things like gay rights, abortions, whatever. . . . People are kind of shifting to the left of issues. I think eight years of Clinton, just seeing the policies of the Republicans being continued, but under the cover of “This is good for you. I care about poor people.” I think the people, on a certain level, kind of see through that.

There was a hopeful tone in the comments of those activists who spoke of the political atmosphere in our nation shifting in a direction that is more likely to embrace their message. Though the gains made with moratorium legislation have offered them hope, particularly because Republicans as much as any other political party members took the lead in this effort, the activists remain guarded. It is as if they have learned a lesson from the premature celebration of those who believed in 1972 that the Furman deci-

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sion had secured the abolition of the death penalty. The lesson of Furman is clear: A moratorium on executions does not automatically lead to abolition of the death penalty. Much like a jilted lover who discovers the possibility for love later in life, therefore, activists are excited and wary at the same time by the possibilities they find with the recent shift in the political opportunity structure. One activist summed up her mixed feelings well when she concluded her remarks about the hopeful time in which we live by stating, “So yes, there is space opening, but I am not getting too happy.” The reluctance exhibited by the activists to “get too happy” with the recent wave of support for moratorium efforts can be understood and appreciated with a conceptualization of the power structure as a series of “reform filters.” Alberto Melucci devised this concept to refer to the way in which “a political system filters demands and selects those of them that can be dealt with through the decision-making process.”51 From this perspective of the state, reforms are only granted as a last resort after going through a filtering process that determines which demands of a social movement are influential and can be co-opted without threatening the power structure. When social movements make demands that challenge the interests of the state, “measures are likely to pass only as pale reflections of initially radical demands that have been altered fundamentally so as to be in alignment with some dominant interest.”52 Melucci’s notion of the state operating as a “reform filter” provides one lens from which to view why it is prudent for anti–death penalty activists to look upon the success of moratorium gains with caution. The advances that have inspired hope in activists over the last couple of years may indeed be attributed to efforts by the state to filter out the demands that are least threatening to them as they seek to appease a disturbed public about the growing number of innocent people exonerated. Politicians may have no intention of ever endorsing legislation proposing abolition of the death penalty, regardless of what the studies that are being conducted during the moratorium eventually reveal. It can certainly be argued that while the push for moratorium legislation may appear to be an accomplishment, it can be used to undermine the movement’s eventual goal of abolition. Those governments granting moratoriums on executions typically mandate that studies be conducted during the moratoriums to determine any problems that lie with the death penalty. Even if these studies find defects with the death penalty, politicians may discount the findings of the study or offer some interpretation of the findings that do not call for abolition of the death penalty. If that were the eventual outcome of a moratorium, executions would resume within a political climate that emerges as more resistant to the messages of the movement. In his analysis of Melucci’s concept of the reform filter of the state, Steven Buechler describes this danger. “The imagery of the state as a reform filter captures the process whereby seemingly ‘successful’ movement

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initiatives can be turned back against the underlying interests of those very same movements.”53 The extent to which the activists are able to foresee such an outcome of a moratorium campaign becomes clear in the next chapter, which is focused on the organizational dynamics of the movement. There is a visible tension between those who see a moratorium as the first step toward abolition and those who see it as a risky strategy that carries the potential to undermine the goal of abolition. Before taking a closer look at this tension, among other organizational dynamics operating within the movement, racial issues are next brought into the discussion of the political opportunities and constraints that help to shape the anti–death penalty movement. The racial disparities found with the death penalty necessarily thrust it into the multitude of issues that have become racial political in nature due to the changes that have been taking place in our political climate over the last few decades.

RACE MEETS THE POLITICAL OPPORTUNITY STRUCTURE As the changes that have occurred with our nation’s current political opportunity structure are examined, it is impossible to overestimate the impact of race on these changes. The law-and-order rhetoric of politicians, which fuels the fear of crime found in the public, contains a visible racial component. The relationship between the law-and-order theme and racial fears in society is alluded to above with the connection that had been forged by the time the death penalty was reinstated in 1976 between lawlessness and civil rights protestors. In the decades that have followed, the law-and-order theme has endured. Its ongoing link to race, though now subtler, is unmistakable. In the 1980s, both Reagan and Bush solicited support “by linking crime to blacks and blacks to Democrats through a campaign of at best thinly veiled racial symbolism.”54 Perhaps the most famous example of the link often made during this time period between blacks and criminality could be seen with the “Willie Horton” ads that ran during the presidential campaign of George H. W. Bush. At a time when his opponent, Michael Dukakis carried a big lead in the polls, the Bush campaign ran a political commercial that fueled the stereotype of the “dangerous black man.”55 This 1988 commercial informed the public about a horrifying night during which Horton had terrorized a white couple for twelve hours, raping the woman in front of her fiancé. Horton had gone on a rampage in 1987 after leaving a Massachusetts prison on a furlough that had been permitted by a policy that Dukakis had endorsed. Bush’s efforts at race baiting were successful at elevating white racial fears of black men, further sealing the link being drawn by conservative politicians between black men and violent crime.

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By the early 1990s, one Gallup poll revealed that over half of all blacks surveyed believed that racial prejudice motivated the law-and-order agenda pushed by politicians, while only a third of whites shared this belief.56 In response to this climate, Clinton was faced with the task of allaying public fear of crime without sharpening the racial divisions that were apparent. He did so by developing a strategy to address crime that included support for the death penalty and tougher federal sentences.57 The message of Clinton’s administration was a call for individual responsibility, rather than one focused on civil rights. Harsher penalties for prisoners were instituted during Clinton’s tenure, including those which came with the “boot camp” prison movement and the “truth in sentencing” movement.58 Boot camp advocates reasoned that physically exhausting “hard time” would have a strong deterrent effect, as well as encourage rehabilitation through discipline and character formation, and thus reduce the recidivism rate. “As a high priority of the Clinton Justice Department, dozens of federally funded boot camps were set up across the nation.”59 The “truth-in-sentencing” movement was also a product of the Clinton era, calling for the convicted to complete at least 85 percent of their sentences.60 When it came to Clinton’s position on the death penalty, he made it clear during his presidential campaign that he was not afraid to administer the ultimate punishment. He left the campaign trail in 1992 to preside over two executions in his home state of Arkansas. The more famous of the two was carried out in March 1992 against Rickey Ray Rector, a mentally retarded death row inmate who had killed two men and then turned the gun on himself, destroying half of his brain with a gunshot injury to the head.61 After President Clinton was elected, he did not shy from his original position of support for the death penalty. On April 24, 1996, he signed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. This legislation contained severe restrictions on the availability of federal habeas corpus to state prisoners, including death row inmates. Among other restrictions, this law limited the time that capital defendants had to file any federal habeas petition to no more than six months after his final state court hearing.62 The severe restrictions that came with the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act have had a disproportionate impact upon racial minorities, given the racial disparities that exist with capital sentencing. Turning to an examination of the federal death penalty record, the racial disparity is found to be significantly worse than that of the states. Since 1988, 73 percent of the defendants that the federal government has sought to prosecute have been racial minorities. Currently, fifty-seven inmates, including two women, sit on federal death row and 61 percent of them are racial/ethnic minorities.63 The Clinton administration, as well as other presidential administrations, has failed to protect us from racially biased applications of the law.

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At the same time that race has been sufficiently linked to crime on a bipartisan level, the political climate has perpetuated the myth that we live in an inclusive, colorblind society. The former United States Representative and 2008 Green Party presidential candidate, Cynthia McKinney, is one of very few political figures who has openly confronted the problems that come with our nation embracing a colorblind perspective. For instance, McKinney has challenged groups such as the “Campaign for a Color-Blind America” as a “divisive force in the democratic process that attempts to deny the existence of racism in contemporary American society.”64 The illusion thriving in the United States that we have arrived at a place where race has declined in significance interferes with the ability of many individuals to see the racial politics associated with the death penalty. In his study of the narratives that jurors construct as they arrive at a death sentence for capital defendants, Fleury-Steiner has noted the importance of a colorblind perspective among those white jurors who develop “the story of individual responsibility.”65 Describing the way in which this narrative is constructed, Fleury-Steiner explains, Generally speaking, cultural distance reveals how whites objectify the black defendant—how they come to see him as representative of an inferior race. More specifically, how jurors see themselves and their surroundings may influence such discourse in one of two ways. First, more-educated whites resort to a more explicitly race-neutral or “color-blind” discourse that reveals a heightened awareness of both time and place. They do contemporary racial hegemony by emplotting stories of their own experience into the broader narrative of evaluating the defendant’s responsibility for the crime.66

Many of the activists I interviewed frequently find that a colorblind perspective conveniently arises in the rhetoric of those who support the death penalty. This concern is reflected quite well in the comments below of one young African American woman I interviewed who spoke of the environment that conceals the reality of race. Race is still such a sore issue and people, even in their heart of hearts, want to think we’ve gotten past that. I think they are just in denial about race. They think we’ve moved past that, that law is colorblind. It doesn’t matter if you’re black, white, or Asian, if you kill somebody you should get the death penalty. And not really looking at it. It’s a denial thing. People are just playing the race card when it is convenient.

Though the power structure has painted an image of a colorblind society for its constituents, the significance of race persists. The relevance of race to the issue of the death penalty has certainly not gone without notice among those who have dedicated themselves to the struggle to abolish the death

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penalty. Race has been stressed as a key element in the issue of the death penalty for many years by those who have emphasized the racial disparities that have been found in capital sentencing statistics. The attention given to racial disparities in the Furman decision was crucial in the decision to stop executions in 1972. Yet the ability of anti–death penalty activists to push their cause with a focus on racial disparities has diminished over the years since Furman. With the 1987 case of McCleskey v. Kemp described in chapter 1, the Legal Defense Fund mounted what Herbert Haines has deemed “the last gasp for a line of attack” centered on the racial disparities in capital sentencing.67 While the statistics from the Baldus study of racial disparities found on Georgia’s death row were not questioned by the U.S. Supreme Court, it ruled against McCleskey because it was argued that these statistics do not prove the intent to discriminate.68 The outcome of the McCleskey case sent the message that further claims of discrimination made by anti–death penalty lawyers would most likely fall on deaf ears unless somehow space was to open in the political opportunity structure allowing for such information to be heard. In an effort to assess the extent to which this space has been created, if at all, I asked the activists to share their thoughts about how issues of race and racism have affected the movement against the death penalty. The vast majority of the activists acknowledged that accusations of racial discrimination are not likely to receive the consideration that they once did, which only adds to the challenges already confronted by the movement. In the statement below, Martin articulates quite well how issues of race and racism have hindered the ability of the movement to elicit sympathy for its message. A college professor of criminal justice courses, this thirtyfour-year-old African American man shared the difficulty he has faced getting students with an interest in criminal justice, let alone those people he encounters in the larger society, to remain open to the reality of racism in the United States. I think in the post–civil rights era, which is where we are now, race and racism issues have become trivialized to the point where people are not taking these issues seriously, including African Americans. I think that so many people are suffering from this sort of bizarre racial fatigue where they think that society is past these issues. And they are tired of it so, therefore, the realities of the vestiges of slavery and segregation become invisible because we don’t want to deal with them. We want to act as if they don’t exist. We want to pursue the idea of a colorblind society. So I think that that affects the anti–death penalty movement also because when you talk about the penalty being subject to arbitrary and discriminatory application, I think that there’s just a general environment where people say, “So what?” And that deals with a much more deep-seated problem with the country as a whole.

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The “racial fatigue” that Martin speaks of not only seems to be present in American society, but has also reared its head to some extent within the anti–death penalty movement itself. A significant number of activists vocalized criticism about the amount of attention that activists within the movement give to the issue of race. Typically, it was the black activists who expressed discontent about what they perceive as a tendency of the movement to downplay the racism that they see as so intimately connected to the death penalty. It was at this point in the interview when many activists first noted the overwhelming presence of whites, as well as the relative absence of people of color, in the anti–death penalty movement. Upon closer examination, it is not difficult to see the association often made in the activists’ remarks between the racial composition of the movement and the tendency many saw for the participants to downplay race. One African American woman hints that the whites in the movement are more inclined, as a predictable effect of white privilege, to slight the impact of race on the death penalty because they simply do not have a personal investment in fighting racism. She made the following remarks to illustrate this point: I think that because the movement is predominantly not people of color, I just don’t think race is a dominant thing in their head. For somebody like me, race is very predominant because it’s so obvious. Race is not going to resonate with everybody. But I do think there are some people in the movement who know it, it’s just not an issue for them.

Rosalind is another African American woman who similarly explained the tendency she finds for white activists to neglect race in their discussions of the death penalty as a by-product of white privilege. She finds this neglect particularly evident among those white activists “who are passive and don’t believe in the death penalty for religious reasons.” For these activists, she declares, “race has nothing to do with it for them. Racism is not a concern of theirs and is not involved in any aspect of their work.” Yet another African American woman, Yvonne, would concur with the view that whites largely neglect race in their analysis of the death penalty because they typically have not had to experience racism firsthand. She goes a step further, however, by placing this phenomenon in the context of the political opportunity structure. Yvonne states, We have a generation of people who have grown up post–Civil Rights Movement, for whom the racial dynamic is something that happened in the way back, people who grew up watching Bill Cosby. If it is not real to you, you have to be persuaded, you have to see it. I find this in the anti–death penalty movement as well as anywhere else, in terms of organizational and individual,

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people who are unaware of racism. So I think that question of how race impacts the movement has to do with power dynamics and who is in charge.

If we can agree that the majority of white activists in the movement today do indeed fail to fully recognize the impact of race on the death penalty, the question remains whether this omission can be explained simply as an innocent consequence of their inability to personally identify with the victims of racism. Indeed, it appears that many of these white activists would have just as much difficulty, if not more, identifying with those on death row. Despite the typical incapability of anti–death penalty activists to relate to the experience of being on death row, they are nonetheless driven to fight for the lives of the condemned. It is particularly remarkable that white, middle-class individuals become passionately involved in a movement that advocates for people who are so overwhelmingly different from them in terms of their race, class, and general life experiences. To the extent that activists are driven to action on behalf of death row inmates by their conscience, it certainly seems that they should also be capable of expressing greater sensitivity toward issues of race and racism than that which is witnessed by many of the black activists I interviewed. Some of the black activists who spoke of their experiences with those white activists who do not focus on the racism of the death penalty are more critical with their interpretation of this neglect on the part of white activists. They view many white activists as fully aware of the claims of racism associated with the death penalty, yet unwilling for some reason to utilize this information as an organizing tool. Several African American activists shared sentiment such as that expressed by Joyce, an attorney in her fifties, suggesting that white activists are not simply neglecting race due to a lack of identification with the victims of racism. Instead, Joyce is among those who note a conscious resistance among white activists to embrace questions of race regarding the death penalty. Joyce describes what she has observed at meetings with white activists whenever the topic of race arises. “What you find so many times is that people will say, and I have had this happen with white people who could be called liberal or even progressive, ‘Why do we always have to talk about that?’” The African American activists I met were not alone in their critique of those white activists who neglect to emphasize race in their discussions of the death penalty. Some whites I interviewed also seemed to agree with the view that many white activists in the movement do not give issues of race and racism the attention they deserve in their efforts to organize against the death penalty. Rebecca is a fifty-year-old white woman who shared that she finds other whites in the movement resistant toward doing outreach in the

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communities that are filled predominantly with poor racial minorities. She spoke about this concern with me at the mental health facility where she works as a therapist with adolescents. In reference to her position that those in the anti–death penalty movement fail to include the voices of the poor, as well as those of racial minorities, Rebecca has this to say: I think that that is one of the flaws in the movement. We don’t tend to meet in North Philadelphia. . . . Amnesty International has not done outreach, though it claims to do it. We have to get into the communities and talk to those people on their terms, not come in and say that we can fix this for you.

Joan is also critical of the limited efforts made by the overwhelmingly white anti–death penalty organization that she represents in Maryland. Speaking of her organization, this college professor in her forties complains, We have a hell of a time getting our organization to be diverse. We talk about it and then we don’t do anything. I think that in order to get true diversity in our organizations we would have to take on some of the issues that are important to other groups, like police brutality.

Even among those white activists who were not openly critical of the amount of attention that the movement devotes to racial issues, several of them conveyed a sense that perhaps they should be more mindful of this matter. When I asked them how issues of race have impacted upon the movement, they mused for a moment before responding in a manner that suggested that they are keenly aware of their fellow activists’ criticisms, such as those of Joyce, Rebecca, and Joan. For instance, Caroline is a white woman who indicated that she senses a perception among blacks in the movement that is very different than her own regarding how white activists in the movement treat issues of race. As one of the national leaders of the movement, Caroline has had contact with a number of organizations involved in the movement. Her comments below hint that a bifurcation exists in the perspectives of activists along the lines of race. I think that people of color would feel like there was racism within the movement. I know that people have felt discriminated against. I don’t really feel like I can speak to that. It hasn’t really been my observation. My observation has been that the organizations that I work with are pretty integrated, but I think that people of color would say that they felt differently.

Kenneth, a white man in his forties, is extremely active with his organization in Virginia. He modestly attributes his dedication to the movement against the death penalty to the extreme urgency that exists to save lives in his state, which is second only to Texas in the number of people it executes each year. He acknowledges the undeniable role that race plays in who gets

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executed in Virginia, yet he chooses not to emphasize the racial component of the death penalty as he talks with people about his position. I don’t use the race thing much. A lot of people get funny around it because they don’t want to admit that racism still exists. As you can tell, I don’t use it much. I don’t focus on race, even though only two white people have been executed for killing black people out of eighty-two people executed since 1982.

Kenneth’s remarks suggest that his decision not to stress “the race thing” in his arguments against the death penalty may be a strategic move on his part. He seems to recognize that many people in today’s society are not open to hearing such arguments. The conservative backlash to the Civil Rights Movement has certainly imposed constraints on activism in the decades since the 1976 reinstatement of the death penalty. Given this political environment, perhaps white activists choose not to focus on racial issues simply because they don’t expect to be viewed with any legitimacy if they do so. Franklin, a white male attorney I interviewed, blames the changing face of racial discrimination since the 1960s for his decision not to emphasize race in his anti–death penalty arguments. He explains, Some people find it difficult to make arguments about the racial discrimination of the death penalty when the racism by prosecutors, juries, and judges is less totally obvious and less overt than it was before. It makes it more difficult for people dealing with the cases and with public opinion it makes it harder to make the argument than it used to be.

Robert is an African American NAACP leader who also points the finger at changes in our political opportunity structure. He states, “I think there is a component of racism in our society that has also made it more difficult to make the moral authority of the arguments around race and the death penalty.” Other African American activists were not as forgiving in their interpretations of the failure of many white activists to give racial issues adequate attention. For instance, Malcolm assumed an aggravated tone when he made the following remarks. I think that racist values or racist feelings and along with that, among other things, embarrassment about racist traditions of society terribly affect the effort to mount an honest and effective campaign against the death penalty. First of all, I think most of the white people in the U.S. are racist. I don’t trust white people. I don’t care who they are. I don’t trust white people. In the movement it is troubling because first of all, not every white person wants to hear it. Nobody wants to talk about the bad stuff. Some of the white people, particularly those I know in Amnesty, have been downright delusional. They don’t want to talk about race.

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Malcolm was not the only African American activist I met suspecting those white activists who downplay race of harboring racist motives. Joyce proclaims, “There may be some racism, even unconscious, in the movement.” James is yet another African American taking this perspective, as revealed by his comments below. In the movement itself I have had experiences where race mattered in relationship to how we went about addressing things. I remember in D.C. when we were being confronted with the congressionally imposed death penalty. . . . As we talked about the issue and developed a strategy to do the education, whites did not necessarily want to do it in communities which were 99 percent black. And again I’m not sure if that was a direct result of individuals being racist, but clearly it was an example of the impact of race on our society and the conditioning that goes along with it and supports it. It’s not always conscious. People could say they’re not racist, but if you’re not doing something proactively to be that way, then you are doing it unconsciously.

It is extremely difficult, if not downright impossible, to determine the motives behind those whites or any others who choose not to emphasize the racial aspects of the death penalty. At the same time, it should not go unnoticed that if, in fact, anti–death penalty activists are not placing the same emphasis on race that they once did, an examination of the political opportunity structure can assist us in our efforts to understand why. Regardless of whether such a neglect of race is a strategic move on the part of whites or if it is a result of conscious or unconscious racism, the relevance of the political opportunity structure is crucial in exploring these or any other theories of the decreased attention given to race in the movement. Anti–death penalty activists have historically been overwhelmingly left leaning in their political perspectives. Much of the attention given in this chapter to the effects of the political opportunity structure on the anti–death penalty movement has focused thus far on the law-and-order approach of conservatives. In an effort to understand the retreat of many anti–death penalty activists from discussions about racial issues, however, it is also important to focus on how the political opportunity structure is affected by the approach of liberals. Scholars of social movements frequently note that the New Left movements of the 1960s “succeeded in transforming the culture and polity but failed abysmally in becoming a credible, institutional force.”69 The left has indeed struggled in its efforts to articulate a vision of society in recent decades that the public can embrace. Carl Boggs is one of many social movement theorists who strive to analyze the legacy of the New Left of the 1960s for new social movements. The left brought about its own demise, he argues, because it “failed to supply the organization and leadership needed

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to keep centrifugal tendencies under control.”70 Boggs cautions against accepting the “total break” account of the collapse of the New Left in the 1960s, however, as he asserts that doing so not only eradicates the historical meaning of this era, but also underestimates the connection he postulates exists between the New Left and new social movements. The themes that permeated and galvanized the New Left—participatory democracy, community, cultural renewal, collective consumption, and the restoration of nature—have been typically carried forward into the modern ecology, feminist, peace, and urban protest movements that have proliferated since the early 1970s. At the same time, whereas the New Left failed to establish durable organization, constituencies or even a theory of its own development, the new movements represent a far more mature and stable representation of local democratic struggles that grew out of the earlier period. The immense diversity of new social movements, which increasingly shapes progressive politics today, suggests an obsolescence of those global solutions and strategies that the left has historically embellished.71 As those on the left struggle to regain legitimacy in recent years with their activity in new social movements, they continue to encounter critics. Several scholars who have investigated the left have uncovered a weakness with the approach of liberals that upholds the comments of those activists above focused on the decreased emphasis of many anti–death penalty activists on racial issues. Liberals have been accused of demonstrating a level of discomfort with the working and middle classes and the lives that they lead. This criticism suggests that there is an element of class in addition to one of race that has an interactive effect upon how those on the left organize social movement activity. Paul Lyons submits: “The utopianism within the New Left and its successors in identity political movements has been deeply intolerant, even contemptuous, of the struggles of mainstream Americans to sustain family life and make a living in an increasingly fragmented and insecure environment.”72 To support his argument that the left has historically neglected working people, Lyons draws from the insight of David Stiegerwald, who is also critical of the New Left in his book The Sixties and the End of Modern America. In their efforts to transform the political opportunity structure, Stiegerwald argues, many 1960s radicals engaged in a silencing of a large part of the population which was not racist, that lived the inequalities of U.S. society, that was not particularly keen to embrace consumer culture, and that struggled to hold on to values in disrepute—independence, hard work, patriotism, and pride among them. The unrepresented in the sixties were that oft-mocked repository of decency, common Americans, white, black, Hispanic, Appalachian, and otherwise, who held to the work ethic, saw through the liberal hypocrisy and militant boasts, wanted simply to be given room to live.73

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The view that these scholars offer of the “liberal hypocrisy” that they have observed allows for an appreciation of the activists’ comments above regarding some of their white peers. Reflected in the activists’ remarks is the perception that many white activists have not only failed to give race the attention it deserves in their discussions of the death penalty, but they also have not been fully inclusive of racial minorities and working class people. Gordon MacInnes is among those who would not be surprised to hear these observations. MacInnes has noted that white liberals have paid a political cost due to their silence around racial issues that were viewed by many as radical. He argues that white liberals were so concerned about how they would be received by those within the political structure that they supported, if only through their silence, “ideas about race and racial issues that violated American’s civic culture.”74 MacInnes is unapologetic with his conclusion that liberals are no more prone to fight racial discrimination than are conservatives. In their efforts to gain political favor, therefore, it seems that white liberals may well be sacrificing the support of those racial minorities and more progressive whites who could be mobilized by knowledge that the death penalty is closely linked to racial discrimination. There continues to exist in the United States a political atmosphere that largely negates the reality of racism. This is certainly true when looking at the recent discourse surrounding the death penalty. Just five days before Timothy McVeigh was executed by the federal government in June 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft claimed that a study of racism and the death penalty that was conducted by the Department of Justice did not show any evidence of bias.75 At the same time, Ashcroft was not able to offer a sound explanation for the finding of the Department of Justice that, from 1995 to 2000, 80 percent of all the federal cases submitted involved defendants who were racial minorities.76 Many of the activists I interviewed, particularly those who are African American and Latino, agree that information revealing the racial biases of the death penalty needs to be sufficiently examined and utilized in order to mobilize more racial minorities to join them in their efforts. It is not enough, they argue, for activists to simply hold an ideal that state killing is wrong. As aptly stated by Paul Lyons, “The legacy of the Sixties should remind us that good intentions aren’t enough.”77 Chano’s words are typical of those that I heard time and time again from his fellow activists who think that the movement needs to push the race issue. Race of victim and perpetrator is still out there and where we have had the most killings has been in the deep South, which is the Bible Belt, where we’ve had all the lynchings. There is a relationship there that we cannot walk away from. And if we are going to attract Latinos and blacks, you really have to talk

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about the race issue. That has been one of the things that has held us back in our movement.

CALCULATING RISKS In order to sufficiently analyze how social movements mobilize support for their cause, it is important to consider the risks that potential constituents face, yet somehow negotiate, in the process of becoming activists. Such risks vary in intensity and degree, depending on the social movement. Certainly the dynamics of organizations within a social movement, as well as the cultural opportunities provided by protest frames, play a role in creating the necessary incentives for people to risk becoming activists. The next two chapters more fully examine these dimensions of mobilization for anti– death penalty activists, yet this section focuses on the role that the political opportunity structure plays in the mobilization of these activists in spite of the risks they encounter. Though changes in the political environment over the last few decades have had a variable effect upon the anti–death penalty movement, apart from the very recent push for moratorium legislation across the nation, clearly the movement has faced more constraints than opportunities. In an effort to evaluate the impact of political constraints on the activists I interviewed, I asked them to share the risks that they are confronted with due to their participation in the anti–death penalty movement. Advocating for the lives of convicted murderers, they frequently told me, does not meet with sympathy in the larger society. The hysteria produced by the power structure over the level of crime, even in the face of a declining murder rate, has only served to reduce the possibility of a public receptive to the messages of the movement. No, the activists declared, they are not expecting to win any popularity contest or even receive recognition for their efforts. For a significant number of the activists I met, indeed, the risks for their activism are many. The first risk that the activists tend to articulate as a consequence of their activism is social in nature. While they are not necessarily ostracized for their involvement in the movement against the death penalty, they describe a kind of social tension they feel when their activism becomes known. One African American woman shared that she feels like her college instructors belittled her in front of her classmates “because of what I stood for.” Another African American woman spoke of the reaction she gets from people when they learn that she is a defense attorney for death row inmates. “People say, ‘Why do you do that? What would possess you to set murderers free on an unsuspecting public?’ You always get ‘Why?’” One white woman shared that once when she went on the radio to speak of her position against the death penalty, she was afraid to leave the radio station

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because the people who called in to the station were so outraged. She said that she has learned that “When I speak it’s almost that I have to put on a certain armor when I do it.” As they spoke of the social pressures they face to abandon their efforts, the activists did not appear to be shaken by these pressures. When they became involved in the movement, they were already quite aware that they were joining an unpopular cause; therefore, they were more or less prepared to cope with such a reaction. The indignant reaction that activists commonly receive, however, does not necessarily stop with strangers in the larger society who are appalled by their dedication to fight the death penalty. What some of the activists express as a much more painful consequence of their activism is the reaction they receive from their close family and friends. Yvonne describes the alienation she feels from her family in terms that reveal the pain associated with the reality that her family neither agrees with nor respects her life’s work as an activist in the anti–death penalty movement. She has been involved in the movement for nearly two decades now and has dedicated most of these years to the movement as both a volunteer and a paid professional activist. Yvonne recalls when her brother was to be married and her mother sat her down and said “The family felt like we had to talk to you. Whatever you do, when you go to the wedding, there are two things: don’t talk about that work you do, that anti-execution stuff and don’t wear none of that African stuff!” She said that a big risk she has endured, therefore, is that “I cannot talk about who I am and what I do with my family. They don’t know me. They don’t know who I am. And that is hard.” Betty can identify very closely with the pain Yvonne expresses. In her late fifties, her children are now grown and on their own, yet she vividly recalls the pain she felt when her work in the movement led her children to demand of her, “Why can’t you be like the other moms?” For others, it is the reactions of supervisors or coworkers that have been most disheartening. Indeed, some of the activists profess that they have jeopardized their careers by the sacrifices they have made to wed their occupational and activist lives by becoming professional activists in the movement. When Michelle, an African American woman in her early forties, left her work at the Southern Poverty Law Center to become the director of Death Penalty Focus, a friend warned her that she was taking a huge risk with her professional reputation. Chris is a national leader in the movement who can sympathize with Michelle’s position. This African American man in his late thirties left his prestigious position as a lawyer at the Legal Defense Fund to become the Director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. While his peers at LDF tended to maintain a position against the death penalty, Chris describes the perception of downward mobility that they nonetheless held about his career move.

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People at the Legal Defense Fund thought I was crazy to come down here to the coalition. People at the Legal Defense Fund become judges and professors, they don’t become grassroots activists. It’s not so much an ostracism, it just leaves you in a lonely place.

While they may have lost some credibility among their peers, both Michelle and Brian could at least say that these coworkers were sympathetic to the cause that they were joining and respected their commitment. The same cannot be said of the occupational environments of Paul and James when their activism became known. Though now retired from his position as a political official at age seventy, Paul is a white man who asserts that he is not viewed by many of his fellow politicians with the same level of respect that he had attained prior to his activism. Recalling an encounter with a pro–death penalty politician he worked with in the past, Paul states, It is funny because one senator told me “Paul, I have always had a lot of respect for you, but I think you have lost it.” I have lost political capital. So for me to focus on other issues, I have been a little bit tainted.

The hostility that James faced at his workplace was not at all subtle. Like Paul, this African American man in his fifties is retired. When he was working as a police officer, however, James faced a great deal of criticism from his fellow officers. His allegiance to the police force was frequently questioned when he was vocal about the police abuses that he witnessed. The hostility directed toward him rapidly escalated after he testified on behalf of a man who had been charged with killing a police officer. After receiving death threats against him and his family, James was compelled to sue the police union in D.C. for making slanderous remarks about him. James was not the only activist who experienced such a significant risk to his well-being as a result of his involvement in the anti–death penalty movement. Nearly half of all the activists shared that they have faced some type of harassment or the threat of physical harm, either from strangers who support the death penalty or representatives of the criminal justice system. Many activists indicated that they have received threatening phone calls or “hate mail” at the offices of their organization or at their residences. Some have also felt physically threatened when they attended death penalty demonstrations or events. One activist recalled that his car was sabotaged when he went to attend an execution in Texas. Another shared that when present at an execution vigil in Delaware, she became the target of bottles thrown out of the window of a passing truck. Several activists have faced intimidation by the KKK when they protested in southern rural areas. The activists’ comments about the risks to their physical safety reveal an atmosphere created by the power structure which has allowed many

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proponents of the death penalty to feel comfortable with being outspoken, if not outright hostile, toward the activists. Perhaps most revealing of the constraints imposed upon anti–death penalty activists, however, is the comfort level demonstrated by agents of the criminal justice system who have harassed the activists. Most commonly, it is the police whom activists fault for the harassment that they encounter. Many activists stated that the police assigned to work at the demonstrations that they attend have harassed them. Several leaders of local and national organizations are convinced that the police have tapped their phones and have stopped them excessively when they are seen on the roads. At a demonstration on the steps of City Hall, Louise, an African American woman, was threatened by a white police officer. She was told to go away because “we don’t want your kind here.” When she has gone to visit her son on death row, Louise has also felt threatened by officers at the prison. A small minority of the activists proudly declared that they have been arrested for civil disobedience after attempting to negotiate with the police at demonstrations. While these activists had prepared to be arrested, they were typically ill prepared for the level of antagonism that they would experience during their arrest. Mark is a white man who is highly involved in an anti–death penalty organization in Pennsylvania. He recalled the times that he has been arrested for civil disobedience and said that the last time he was arrested state police assaulted him with pepper spray because he was one of the organizers of the event. Robert, an African American in his forties, sums up the sentiment of the activists who spoke of the various risks that they face due to their activism: There are risks all of the time because in many ways, you’re going against the grain. I’ve been threatened. . . . It’s something that you just kind of learn to live with. You have to be careful, but not allow it to stop you.

The activists present a strong commitment to the movement against the death penalty, despite the risks posed by their involvement. In keeping with Robert’s remarks above, they unanimously agree that there is a need to be unrelenting in the struggle to abolish the death penalty. While they demonstrate extreme loyalty to the cause, it is important for the activists to be aware of the risks associated with involvement in the movement. Such awareness is necessary so that in their efforts to mobilize potential participants, they can organize their movement activities in a manner that will attempt to offset these risks with incentives for action. My findings reveal that the pressures which attempt to discourage the activists’ involvement in the movement affect their social, occupational, and, though less often, physical lives. As the activists shared the various risks that they encounter as a result of their involvement in the movement, the level

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of loyalty they demonstrate to their cause was apparent. This was found to be the case across racial lines. The attention brought to the risks the activists encounter ultimately adds a more microlevel view of the impact that the political opportunity structure has upon the lives of the activists. It further yields a greater understanding of the difficulties that the movement has with its efforts to mobilize constituents who may not be willing to take such risks. Turning to an examination of the challenges that come with mobilizing Latinos in the anti–death penalty movement, it is apparent that the political opportunity structure plays a significant role in the low number of Latinos found among the ranks of abolitionists.

THE IMPACT OF THE POLITICAL OPPORTUNITY STRUCTURE UPON LATINO PARTICIPATION Broadening my examination of the anti–death penalty movement’s struggle for racial diversity to include Latinos reveals both openings and challenges brought by the political opportunity structure. As noted in the previous chapter, the six Puerto Rican activists who spoke with me shared that they were mobilized to join the anti–death penalty movement upon learning that their fellow citizens on the island of Puerto Rico could be subjected to execution by the federal government. In 2000 the first case of Puerto Ricans charged with capital murder arose since the federal death penalty was reinstated. Between 1790 and 1963, the United States federal death penalty was responsible for the execution of 340 people for various crimes, including murder, piracy, rape, rioting, kidnapping, spying, and espionage.78 When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1972 that the state statutes were unconstitutional, the federal government also ceased executions. Eventually, the federal statutes were rewritten, and the federal death penalty was reinstated in 1988. More than twenty years have passed since the federal death penalty was reinstated and the number of people sentenced to federal death row has steadily climbed to fifty-seven. There has been a sharp increase in both the number of defendants charged with a federal capital offense and the number of cases for which the attorney general has authorized seeking the death penalty. These increases can be attributed largely to two statutes that have been written into law since the federal death penalty was reinstated. The 1988 statute deemed murder a capital offense when committed in the course of a drug kingpin conspiracy. The statute that bears the most responsibility for elevating the number of federal death penalty cases was enacted in 1994, as part of an omnibus crime bill. With this bill, the federal death penalty was expanded to include an additional sixty offenses, such as the murder of certain government officials, kidnapping resulting in death,

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murder for hire, carjacking resulting in death, and even some crimes that do not result in death.79 An examination of the defendants who have been chosen for federal death penalty prosecutions reveals a significant degree of racial bias. A report prepared by the Death Penalty Information Center analyzing data from the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project found a degree of racial bias with the federal death penalty that “exceeds even pre-Furman patterns.” 80 Under the SS 848 statute first enacted in 1984, the “continuing criminal enterprise,” racial bias has reached staggering levels when compared to the pre-Furman racial breakdown. The federal government employed the death penalty for a variety of crimes prior to the 1972 Furman decision. But the racial breakdown was also just the opposite from current death penalty prosecutions. Between 1930 and 1972, 85% of those executed under federal law were white and 9% were black. The dramatic racial turnaround under the drug kingpin law clearly requires remedial action. Three-quarters of those convicted of participating in a drug enterprise under the general provisions of SS 848 have been white and only about 24% of the defendants have been black. However, of those chosen for death penalty prosecutions under this section, just the opposite is true: 78% of the defendants have been black and only 11% of the defendants have been white.81

The racial breakdown of all defendants for whom the federal government has sought the death penalty since it was reinstated in 1988 points to a considerable amount of disparity, with 73 percent of the cases being tried against racial minorities.82 As of 2001, those defendants who were sentenced to federal death row include the following: 50 percent black, 18 percent Latino, 7 percent Asian, and 25 percent white.83 The Latinos I spoke with are well aware of the racial disparities that are found with the federal death penalty. The activists from Puerto Rico indicate that such disparity only accelerates their anxiety about the federal death penalty being used against them. When the federal government first began to bring Puerto Ricans up on capital charges, it was met with great resistance. When the first case went to trial, it was denounced by local politicians, scholars, members of the legal establishment, and residents, calling it a “betrayal of the island’s autonomy, culture, and law, in particular its Constitution.”84 In 2000, a federal judge ruled that the death penalty could not be given to two defendants because the death penalty is “locally inapplicable.”85 This decision was reversed by the U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in June 2001, and the defendants were tried under the federal death penalty statute. Acosta-Martinez and RiveraAlejandro were acquitted July 31, 2003.86

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The six Puerto Rican activists I interviewed were a part of the resistance that erupted on the island when the federal government first threatened to send Puerto Ricans to death row. Since that time they have remained quite active with their abolitionist organization. The Puerto Rican Coalition Against the Death Penalty (PRCADP) is currently the largest group of Latino abolitionists who have affiliated themselves with the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. It is a coalition of forty-two different organizations on the island. While their primary concern is keeping the death penalty far away from their island, they are also fighting to abolish the death penalty for everyone. As the PRCADP organizes against the death penalty, they are working to attract not only their fellow citizens of Puerto Rico to the movement, but also Latinos in the United States. At the 2009 Annual Conference of NCADP, a group of Puerto Ricans presented a paper that they had prepared for their fellow abolitionists in the states. The title of the paper is “Yes We Can! Organizing Latino Communities to Abolish the Death Penalty in the United States.” Their comments reflect the many political opportunities that present themselves at this point in time which strengthen the mandate to recruit more Latinos into the movement. They maintain that so far this has not been a priority within the movement, as they submit, “The ‘promotion’ of the abolitionist movement in the Hispanic communities has not received the importance it deserves.”87 Yet the members of PRCADP are not dissuaded by this neglect, rather they proceed to offer arguments as to why the time is ripe to build the number of Latinos in the movement, along with recommendations of how best to do so. The title of their presentation borrows from the infamous campaign slogan of Barack Obama, “Yes We Can!” suggesting that the changes brought by the election of President Obama have given the PRCADP new opportunities to advance their message and push for abolition of the death penalty. They recognize the tremendous growth in political power brought by the increase of Latino voters in the recent election, “up from 6 million in 2004 to 10.5 million in 2008, for a 35% increase.”88 This political power of the Latino community only stands to increase with the demographic changes that we are seeing with this segment of the population. Census data found in 2006 that Latinos comprised 14.8 percent of the U.S. population.89 Even more noteworthy is the growth rate of this group. Between 2000 and 2006, the United States saw a growth rate of 6.1 percent, yet the growth rate for Latinos during this same time period was 24.6 percent.90 The growing presence of Latinos in the United States and on the voter registration lists has helped to build the ranks of the Democratic Party. An analysis of the electorate in the 2008 presidential election found that Latinos voted for Democrats Obama and Biden (67 percent) over Republicans McCain and

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Palin (31 percent) by a margin of more than two to one.91 Across the nation, all of the Latino subgroups voted Democratic by heavy margins. This is a significant shift from the 2004 election, when approximately 40 percent of the Latino vote went to George W. Bush.92 While the increased support of Latinos for the Democratic Party does not ensure greater opposition to the death penalty, it increases the likelihood of such opposition. Public opinion polls and studies of attitudes toward the death penalty find greater support for the death penalty among Republicans than Democrats. For instance, a recent study of death penalty attitudes in Texas found that “more than 80% of Republicans can be classified as ‘hard’ supporters, in contrast to only 58% of Democrats.”93 Indeed when the attitudes of Latinos toward the death penalty are examined, a strong basis is found for the Yes We Can! attitude of PRCADP. As this organization has noted in its report, a 2007 study by the Death Penalty Information Center found that 68 percent of Latinos favor a moratorium on executions.94 The Puerto Rican activists are further encouraged by the fact that most of the Latin American countries are abolitionists. Every Spanishspeaking country has abolished the death penalty except for Cuba and Guatemala.95 In April 2008, Cuban President Raul Castro announced his decision to commute the death sentences for nearly all of those on death row in his country. Approximately thirty inmates benefited from this decision. Only three remain on death row in Cuba, though all three are under appeal and Castro mentioned that their cases would soon be reviewed by Cuba’s Supreme Court.96 The widespread opposition to the death penalty found within Latin American countries combined with the rising immigration rate of Latinos to the United States creates a political opportunity for the movement to draw more Latinos into its ranks. The changes that come with the transition from one presidential administration to another have also brought political opportunities to the movement’s effort to attract more Latinos, even when constraints appear to prevail in the political atmosphere. During the Clinton administration, the Justice Department guidelines allowed for local opposition to the death penalty to be taken into account when capital charges were filed. The guidelines stated: “In states where the imposition of the death penalty is not authorized by law, the fact that the maximum federal penalty is death is insufficient, standing alone, to show a more substantial interest in federal prosecutions.”97 Under the Bush administration, in 2001, the Justice Department eliminated that sentence from the guidelines. As a result, the Justice Department operating under the Bush administration sought the federal death penalty much more often and in more places. On a regular basis, officials overrode local recommendations not to seek the death penalty.98

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The political opportunity structure during the Clinton administration certainly seems to have created an opening for Latinos and others to freely speak out against the death penalty. As stated by a former Justice Department official who served under Attorney General Janet Reno, “The Reno Justice Department was much more willing to listen to local assessments.”99 The political opportunity structure of the Bush administration that followed, on the other hand, might initially be presumed to have constrained the activism of abolitionists. The harsh application of the federal death penalty that came with the Bush administration, however, is exactly what mobilized the PRCADP activists who spoke with me to organize and build a coalition to abolish the death penalty. As stated by Miguel, a Puerto Rican who is very active with PRCADP, prior to 2000, the death penalty had been “a non-issue in Puerto Rico.” Even with all of the publicizing of the issue done by PRCADP, it is still “not on the front burner.” Miguel speculates that the minimal attention may be due to the fact that the federal capital trials of Puerto Ricans thus far have not led to death sentences. He presumes that if one of the four pending capital cases of Puerto Ricans leads to a death sentence, “I think that will move the people.” The interviews that I conducted with Latino activists took place on the heels of the Obama victory. As they spoke excitedly about the changes brought by the election of President Obama, it was clear that they see new political opportunities for the anti–death penalty movement. The Obama administration carries great potential, they argue, for their messages to be heard. The word “hope” popped up time and time again as they shared their reaction to the current political atmosphere. Several of them cautioned that the movement should not be lulled by the post-election euphoria into thinking that success is imminent, as there is still hard work that must be done in order to achieve abolition. Angelica’s comments were typical in this regard. I think it will be much easier than it was with Bush, but I am not also saying that we have it made now with Obama because he has made some comments that I’m like, “Whoa! What are you saying?!” But it’s a lot better than it used to be. The general atmosphere, just even having a black president, feels like there’s hope. And I think it is called the era of hope. Yeah, I think we have a better chance, I’m not saying that we’re there yet, but we have a better chance to get the message across, absolutely!

Another Latina who shares the hope expressed by Angelica draws as much strength from the international movement toward death penalty abolition as she does from the election of President Obama. Diana worked very hard alongside many tireless activists in New Mexico to build support there for the repeal of the death penalty. She points out that Governor Bill

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Richardson made note of the international context in his statement when he signed into law on March 18, 2009, the repeal of the death penalty in New Mexico. Diana hopes that the “one world vision” of Obama eventually moves him in a similar direction. I think it is much less difficult for the messages of the movement to be received in the current political climate. It is really very positive for our movement right now. Having Obama in there now is going to help us, even though he personally says that he does support the death penalty under certain circumstances. I still think that fundamentally we can get him to shift within at least eight years. The international movement is going to become more and more important, given his one world vision. It was certainly important to Governor Richardson. He mentioned it, it was an issue.

The statement that Governor Richardson issued on the day that he signed House Bill 285, Repeal of the Death Penalty, is posted on the website of his office.100 He cites many reasons for his decision to support the abolition of the death penalty in New Mexico. Among them is indeed a concern for the way that our nation is viewed around the world for the company that we keep with our reluctance to join the international movement away from the death penalty.101 From an international human rights perspective, there is no reason the United States should be behind the rest of the world on this issue. Many of the countries that continue to support and use the death penalty are also the most repressive nations in the world. That’s not something to be proud of.102

Governor Richardson’s comments on that momentous day further address his concern with the possibility of executing innocent people and the questionable deterrent effect of the death penalty. Then he adds a concern about the racial disparities found on death row when he says, “And it bothers me greatly that minorities are overrepresented in the prison population and on death row.” It is noteworthy that Governor Richardson made a comment about the racial disparity found with the death penalty for several reasons. Most importantly to the subject of my research, it is remarkable that he advanced an argument against the death penalty that had not been popular for more than twenty years, since the 1987 McCleskey defeat. Arguments against the death penalty based on race had largely been abandoned by activists in the movement who no longer saw them as strategically viable within what is often deemed a “post-racial” society. On the day that he moved New Mexico to abolition, Governor Richardson disclosed that he had reached his decision at “the end of a long, personal journey,” which had begun with him as “a firm believer in the death penalty as a just punishment.” Apparently, an increased awareness of the racial disparities found

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with the death penalty had played enough of a role in his journey that he felt compelled to mention such disparities as he defended his decision to sign the abolition bill. Perhaps racially based arguments have become effective once again, enough that a politician who had aspired just a year earlier to attain the highest office in the country would be willing to risk losing political capital with his emphasis on the racial disparities found on death row. Could it be that the racial disparities found on New Mexico’s death row were so glaring that Governor Richardson felt compelled to mention them in his statement to the press? Not so at all. An examination of the inmates who sat on death row in New Mexico when Richardson made the historic move to abolish the death penalty in his state find only two men, both white. In addition, only one man has been executed in New Mexico since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Again, this man was white. What about the race of the four men who have been exonerated from New Mexico’s death row since 1976? Once again, white men. The absence of racial disparities among those on death row, the executed, and the exonerated in his state make the governor’s bold decision to emphasize the racial disparities of the death penalty that much more remarkable. Clearly, he was referring to the national statistics of racial disparities that are found across our nation’s death rows. Richardson’s emphasis on racial disparities is further noteworthy when his statement is contrasted with that which Governor Jon Corzine gave to the press slightly over a year earlier. Corzine released a statement to the press on December 17, 2007, when he signed a bill that abolished the death penalty in New Jersey. Corzine deemed that day “a momentous day—a day of progress—for the State of New Jersey and for the millions of people across our nation and around the globe.”103 As Governor Corzine proceeded to defend his decision to sign the abolition bill, he made no mention of the racial disparities associated with the death penalty, even though more than half of the men who sat on his state’s death row at the time were black.104 Perhaps himself a Latino, Richardson is apt to be more sensitive to racial disparities when they occur, or perhaps his status as an ethnic minority gives him more of a license to address discrimination than is given to his white colleague. I suspect that the question surrounding the differences between Corzine and Richardson with regard to their willingness to call attention to the racial disparities of the death penalty has a complex answer. At the same time, the changes that have occurred within the political opportunity structure during the year and three months that passed in between the statements of these two governors must be taken into account. A comparison of the political atmosphere of our nation at the time that the death penalty was abolished in New Jersey to that found when New

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Mexico joined the list of abolitionist states reveals how quickly things can change. Most visibly, the conservative Bush administration was replaced with the liberal administration of President Obama. Could it be that the different administrations had an influence on each of the two governors’ decisions about whether to highlight the racial disparities found with the death penalty? Perhaps Corzine thought that such an argument would fall on deaf ears and possibly subject him to accusations of playing the “race card.” On the other hand, perhaps Richardson felt encouraged by Obama’s race and/or liberal politics to bring race into his statement. The election of our first black president has indeed made history and appears to have renewed our nation’s conversations about race. When it became clear during the presidential primaries that Barak Obama was likely to win the Democratic nomination, political pundits, scholars, and media representatives set the tone for these conversations as we began debating the significance of race in today’s society. Did Obama’s momentum signify the “end of racism,” as many of those leading these discussions would have us believe? Would Barack Obama’s rise to the presidency further solidify the colorblind perspective, neutralize race, and effectively silence those who make claims of the persistence of institutional racism in our society? Or would we recognize his story as an exception to the general rule of life as experienced by the vast majority of African Americans in the United States? Would the presence of a person of color in the Oval Office strengthen the confidence of those who wish to call attention to the persistence of racial discrimination? Finally, they may feel as though they will be heard by someone who can appreciate firsthand the reality of racism. These questions remain largely unanswered as we are still early in President Obama’s term. Outside of his infamous speech on race that Barack Obama gave during his campaign in Philadelphia, he has arguably not devoted a great deal of energy to maintaining racial dialogue or instituting policies with the aim of addressing the issue of racism in America.105 Speculations abound about how the above questions will eventually be answered in the history books. In the final chapter of this book, I offer my own conjecture about the impact of the Obama administration upon the anti–death penalty movement’s ability to successfully advance arguments about the racial disparities found on our nation’s death rows. Several of the Latino/a activists who spoke with me addressed their impressions of the movement’s ability to be heard when discussing the racial aspects of the death penalty, “now that we have Obama.” They remain hopeful that the Obama administration will give them the authority to both speak about race and be taken seriously when they address its impact upon the meting out of the death penalty. As race is boldly spoken to more frequently by the movement, the Latino/a activists are also confident that they will be able to attract more racial minorities to their cause. Having

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been involved in the movement for several decades now, Chano has seen the popularity of race-based arguments against the death penalty ebb and flow depending upon the changes in the political atmosphere. With the recent change in political power on Capitol Hill, he sees an opening for activists to push the issue of race and the death penalty. Race has always been an issue and now it’s highlighted by the fact that we have an African American president and an attorney general who is willing to talk about this issue. I think it would behoove us without calling everybody a racist to talk about the implications because I’ll bet you that on a lot of issues the Justice Department is going to look at the racial factor. I think the issue of race and the death penalty has to be presented to Holder at some point in an organized meeting with black and brown leadership and good white folks. You just have to do what you can do.

Given the opportunities that our current political atmosphere appears to offer the movement, why then are there not more racial minorities rushing to join ranks with abolitionists? This is a difficult question to address, as there is a variety of complex factors that go into formulating an answer. Subsequent chapters of this book continue to take on the endeavor of disentangling these factors and examine how they serve to maintain a low number of racial minorities in the struggle against the death penalty. Toward that aim, this chapter closes by directing our attention to a common constraint that the Latino/a activists revealed to me when asked to explain the features of the political atmosphere that make it difficult for Latinos to find their way to the movement. Nearly all of them commented on the national attention that is given to the immigration issue and the impact this has had on Latino communities. They emphasize that it is all too often negative attention that is given to those who are perceived as immigrants. Latinos who live in the United States need be neither undocumented nor recent legal immigrants to the country in order to be viewed as such by those who find them an easy scapegoat for the economic crisis facing our nation. A common concern communicated by the Latino activists is that many Latinos across the nation may be reluctant to get involved in the movement against the death penalty, or any other form of activism that challenges the government, due to fear and/or a desire to assimilate. They fear the consequences of drawing more attention to themselves at a time when they are frequently the victims of discrimination and scapegoating. They may worry that becoming known for defending the lives of the “monsters” on death row would only draw more negative attention to themselves when they are trying simply to “fit in,” as one Latina activist contends. I think another reason why the Hispanic community doesn’t get involved is because they are having their own struggle to try and fit in. If fitting in means

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that I will just take what the general population believes in, and that is the death penalty, then I would. And I can understand it because there is so much struggle to be in a country that is not yours and to be accepted. You look for ways to fit in. If that means believing in the death penalty so you are part of the mainstream.

Isabel is Puerto Rican, thus her citizenship status protects her from becoming a target of immigration officials working for the government. Although the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) has no need to scrutinize Puerto Ricans, Isabel’s comments suggest that she is fully aware that many people in the states view her and other Latino/as as a monolithic problem. The individuals who perceive Latinos as a problem range from those who are smugly intolerant of Latinos seen as “taking over” the country to those far right racists who engage in hate crimes in hopes of “eliminating the problem” altogether. Isabel recalls discrimination that she experienced when she left Puerto Rico to study in the states. This personal experience sensitized her to the issues that many Latinos face in the United States on a regular basis. Even though I don’t have to worry about the immigration issue, I studied in the states and there was discrimination from me being a Latina. There was discrimination because I was a Latina, but I was a hard bone to take, I was always very sure of myself. Listen, when they have those laws that you cannot speak Spanish while you work, like they did in Florida, that it has to be English only, they (Latinos) are afraid because there is a lot of discrimination.

Miguel adds to this view of the constraints posed by the political opportunity structure with his observations about the socioeconomic status of many Latinos, who are struggling to survive day in and day out. Not only does their low income interfere with their ability to attend movement meetings and events, since they work long hours for low wages, but it may also leave them dependent on the government for financial assistance. When they are dependent on the government, Miguel argues, Latinos are reluctant to engage in any social movement activity that is critical of the government. He has found this to be the case in Puerto Rico as well as the states. A lot of Latinos are poor people and so they are very government-dependent so it is very hard for them to speak out against public policy for fear that there may be some reprisal for them coming out. It happens in Puerto Rico, not necessarily with the death penalty issue because there’s not the death penalty in Puerto Rico, but if you try to go to the community and organize, just to get a street fixed, just to get a traffic light put in, it is hard to find people to speak out because “If I do this, then I lose some other aid I’m getting from government.” So even on other issues, it is hard to get them to speak out. It is so easy for them to be controlled because of their dependency on the government.

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The Latino activists provide an excellent description of some of the constraints in the political opportunity structure that affect Latinos. It is easy to see the challenges that PRCADP is faced with as they work to organize Puerto Ricans on the island. The obstacles that they are confronted with on a macro level play a role in shaping the strategies that they develop as they work within their organization to educate their community and build their coalition. With the next chapter, I examine some of these strategies that PRCADP and the other anti–death penalty organizations draw from as they work to build their ranks and convey their message to the larger society.

NOTES 1. Herbert Haines, Against Capital Punishment: The Anti–Death Penalty Movement in America, 1972–1994 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996). 2. In 1976 Canada achieved abolition when the House of Commons passed a bill that replaced the death penalty with a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole for twenty-five years for all first-degree murders. William A. Schabas, The Abolition of the Death Penalty in International Law (Cambridge: Grotius Publications, Ltd., 1993). 3. Doug McAdam, “Culture and Social Movements,” in New Social Movements: From Ideology to Identity, ed. Enrique Larana, Hank Johnston, and Joseph R. Gusfield (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994). 4. James W. Button, Blacks and Social Change: Impact of the Civil Rights Movement in Southern Communities (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989), 209. 5. Richard A. Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, The Politics of Turmoil: Essays on Poverty, Race, and the Urban Crisis (New York: Pantheon Books, 1974), 273. 6. Cloward and Piven, Politics of Turmoil, 275. 7. George H. Gallup, The Gallup Poll, Public Opinion 1935–1971, vol. 3 (New York: Random House, 1972). 8. Andrew Von Hirsch, “The Future of the Proportionate Sentence,” in Punishment and Social Control, ed. T. G. Blomberg and S. Cohen (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1995), 131. 9. Bonnie Berry, Social Rage: Emotion and Cultural Conflict (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1999), 100. 10. McAdam quoted in Jo Freeman and Victoria Johnson, Waves of Protest: Social Movements Since the Sixties (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1999), 340. 11. McAdam quoted in Freeman and Johnson, Waves of Protest, 339. 12. Fergus, Liberalism, Black Power, and the Making of American Politics, 92. 13. Fergus, Liberalism, Black Power, and the Making of American Politics, 92. 14. McAdam quoted in Freeman and Johnson, Waves of Protest, 343. 15. Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall, Agents of Repression: The FBI’s Secret Wars against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement (Boston: South End Press, 1990).

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16. Churchill and Vander Wall, Agents of Repression. 17. Churchill and Vander Wall, Agents of Repression. 18. Churchill and Vander Wall, Agents of Repression, 353. 19. Churchill and Vander Wall, Agents of Repression. 20. Churchill and Vander Wall, Agents of Repression. 21. Miguel Melendez, We Took to the Streets: Fighting for Latino Rights with the Young Lords (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2007), 197. 22. Harry Holzer, Steven Raphael, and Michael Stoll, “Perceived Criminality, Criminal Background Checks, and Racial Hiring Practices of Employers,” Discussion Paper No. 1254-02, Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 2001, quoted in Todd R. Clear, Imprisoning Communities: How Mass Incarceration Makes Disadvantaged Neighborhoods Worse (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 63. 23. Paul Lyons, New Left, New Right, and the Legacy of the Sixties (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996), 214. 24. Herbert Haines, “Flawed Executions, the Anti–Death Penalty Movement, and the Politics of Capital Punishment,” Social Problems 39, no. 2 (1992): 301–14. 25. Ellen Kreizberg and David Richter, “But Can It Be Fixed? A Look at Constitutional Challenges to Lethal Injection Executions,” Santa Clara Law Review 47, no. 3 (2007). 26. The Sentencing Project, 2009. 27. The Sentencing Project, 2006. 28. Angela Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete? (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003); Allen M. Hornblum, Acres of Skin: Human Experimentation at Holmesburg Prison (New York: Routledge, 1998); Joel Dyer, The Perpetual Prison Machine: How America Profits from Crime (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2000); Amanda George, “The New Prison Culture: Making Millions from Misery,” in Harsh Punishment: International Experiences of Women’s Imprisonment, ed. Sandy Cook and Susanne Davies (Boston: Northeastern Press, 1999). 29. Frank Furedi, Culture of Fear: Risk-Taking and the Morality of Low Expectation (London: Continuum, 2002). 30. Berry, Social Rage, 92. 31. The Sentencing Project, 2006. 32. Clear, Imprisoning Communities, 4–5. 33. Vince Beiser, “How We Got to Two Million: How Did the Land of the Free Become the World’s Leading Jailer?” in “Debt to Society,” special report, Mother Jones, July 10, 2001, www.motherjones.com/prisons/overview.html. 34. Berry, Social Rage. 35. Berry, Social Rage, 99. 36. David C. Anderson, Crime and the Politics of Hysteria: How the Willie Horton Story Changed American Justice (New York: Times Books, 1995). 37. Mark Lewis Taylor, The Executed God: The Way of the Cross in Lockdown America (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001). 38. Taylor, Executed God. 39. Taylor, Executed God. 40. Taylor, Executed God. 41. DPIC, 2009.

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42. DPIC, 2009. 43. DPIC, 2009. 44. The decision of this pro–death penalty Republican governor to issue a moratorium was prompted by the thirteenth exoneration of a death row inmate in Illinois. He was alarmed by the fact that during the same period in which his state had executed twelve people, a greater number of people had now been found innocent and released from death row after spending as much as seventeen years on Illinois’ death row (DPIC, 2009). 45. DPIC, 2009. 46. DPIC, 2009. 47. DPIC, 2009. 48. DPIC, 2009. 49. DPIC, 2009. 50. Richard C. Deiter, “A Crisis of Confidence: Americans’ Doubts about the Death Penalty,” Death Penalty Information Center, June 9, 2007, www.deathpenalty info.org. 51. Alberto Melucci, Challenging Codes: Collective Action in the Information Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). 52. Steven M. Buechler, Social Movements in Advanced Capitalism: The Political Economy and Cultural Construction of Social Activism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). 53. Buechler, Social Movements. 54. Linda Faye Williams, “Race and the Politics of Social Policy,” in The Social Divide: Political Parties and the Future of Activist Government, ed. Margaret Weir (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1998). 55. Clear, Imprisoning Communities. 56. Leslie McAneny, “Racial Overtones Evident in Americans’ Attitudes about Crime,” Gallup Poll Monthly, December 1993. 57. Williams, “Race and the Politics of Social Policy.” 58. Clear, Imprisoning Communities. 59. Clear, Imprisoning Communities. 60. Clear, Imprisoning Communities. 61. Marshall Frady, Annals of Law and Politics, “Death in Arkansas,” The New Yorker, February 22, 1993, 105. 62. Hugo Adam Bedau, The Death Penalty in America: Current Controversies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 244. 63. So far, the number of federal cases is relatively small compared to state capital prosecutions. However, the numbers are increasing, and under legislation currently being considered in Congress, the federal government would play a much wider role in death penalty prosecutions. Since 1988, the federal government has authorized seeking the death penalty against 382 defendants (Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project, June 28, 2006). 64. “Senator Cynthia McKinney on Georgia’s Political Climate,” Democracy Now! March 6, 2006, www.democracynow.org. 65. Benjamin Fleury-Steiner, “Narratives of the Death Sentence: Toward a Theory of Legal Narrativity,” Law & Society Review 36, no. 3 (2002): 549–76. 66. Fleury-Steiner, “Narratives of the Death Sentence,” 560. 67. Haines, Against Capital Punishment.

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68. Haines, Against Capital Punishment. 69. Lyons, New Left, New Right. 70. Carl Boggs, The Socialist Tradition: From Crisis to Decline (New York: Routledge, 1995). 71. Boggs, The Socialist Tradition, 203. 72. Lyons, New Left, New Right, 215. 73. David Stiegerwald, The Sixties and the End of Modern America (New York: St. Martin’s, 1995), 242. 74. Gordon MacInnes, Wrong for All the Right Reasons: How White Liberals Have Been Undone by Race (New York: New York University Press, 1996), 21. 75. The New Abolitionist, July 2001, www.nodeathpenalty.org. 76. The New Abolitionist, July 2001, www.nodeathpenalty.org. 77. Lyons, New Left, New Right, 222. 78. DPIC, 2009. 79. DPIC, 2009. 80. U.S. Congress, House, Racial Disparities in Federal Death Penalty Prosecutions 1988–1994 (Washington, D.C: Death Penalty Information Center, 1994); Staff Report by the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights Committee on the Judiciary One Hundred Third Congress, Second Session March 1994. 81. Ibid. It is worth noting that “some of the death penalty prosecutions under SS 848 have been against defendants who do not seem to fit the expected ‘drug kingpin’ profile. In a number of cases, the U.S. Attorneys have sought the death penalty against young inner-city drug gang members and relatively small-time drug traffickers. In other cases, the death penalty was returned against those directly involved in a murder, while the bosses who ordered the killings were given lesser sentences.” 82. Of the 382 approved prosecutions, 278 (73 percent) were against minority defendants. Of these defendants, 104 have been white, 64 Hispanic, 16 Asian/Indian/ Pacific Islander, 3 Arab, and 195 African American. Of the 44 inmates currently on federal death row, 26 (59 percent) are members of a minority group (Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project, June 28, 2006; DPIC 2009). 83. Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project, June 28, 2006. 84. Adam Liptak, “Puerto Ricans Angry That U.S. Overrode Death Penalty Ban,” New York Times, July 17, 2003. 85. U.S. v. Martinez & Alejandro, No. 99-044 (Dist. Ct. D.P.R. July 17, 2000). 86. U.S. v. Martinez & Alejandro, No. 00-2088 (1st Circuit Court of Appeals, June 6, 2001), Associated Press, August 1, 2003. 87. “Yes We Can! Organizing Latino Communities to Abolish the Death Penalty in the United States,” presented by the Puerto Rican Coalition Against the Death Penalty for the participants in the 2009 Annual Conference of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty; prepared by Edgardo Roman-Espada and Julie Cruz-Santana, members of the Steering Committee of the Puerto Rican Coalition Against the Death Penalty. 88. PRCADP “Yes We Can!” (They further note that the Latino vote was a decisive element in the electoral process for the states of Florida, Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico.) 89. PRCADP “Yes We Can!”

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90. PRCADP “Yes We Can!” 91. Mark Hugo Lopez, “How Hispanics Voted in the 2008 Election,” Pew Hispanic Center, November 5, 2008. 92. Lopez, “How Hispanics Voted.” 93. Scott Vollum, Dennis R. Longmire, and Jacqueline Buffinton-Vollum, “Confidence in the Death Penalty and Support for Its Use: Exploring the ValueExpressive Dimension of Death Penalty Attitudes,” Justice Quarterly 21, No. 3 (2004): 521–46. 94. Deiter, “Crisis of Confidence.” 95. According PRCADP, the following countries have abolished the death penalty: Venezuela, 1863; Costa Rica, 1877; Ecuador, abolished by the 1897 and 2008 Constitutions; Uruguay, 1907 incorporated abolition into article 163 of Uruguay’s Constitution; Colombia, abolished by legislation in 1910 to amend the 1886 Constitution (article 29); in Panama, born as an independent state in 1903, the death penalty was never applied; Mexico, the 1917 Constitution prohibited the death penalty for political crimes and applied it to certain specific crimes, abolished for all crimes in 2005; Argentina, the 1853 Constitution prohibited the death penalty for political crimes, abolished for all crimes in 2008; Puerto Rico abolished the death penalty by law in 1927 and through Constitution in 1952. PRCADP, “Yes We Can!” 96. Castro added that although the death penalty remains legal in his country, “Cuba understands and respects the arguments of the international movement advocating its elimination or a moratorium; for this reason our country has not voted against such initiatives in the United Nations” (Human Rights Tribune, April 30, 2008, www.humanrights-geneva.info). 97. Liptak, “Puerto Ricans Angry.” 98. Liptak, “Puerto Ricans Angry.” 99. Liptak, “Puerto Ricans Angry.” 100. State of New Mexico, “Governor Bill Richardson Signs Repeal of the Death Penalty,” news release, March 18, 2009, http://www.governor.state.nm.us/ press/2009/march/031809_02.pdf. 101. In 2008, 95 percent of all known executions were carried out in only six countries: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United States, Pakistan, and Iraq (DPIC, 2009). 102. State of New Mexico, “Governor Bill Richardson.” 103. “Governor Corzine’s Remarks on Eliminating the Death Penalty in New Jersey,” news release, December 17, 2007, www.state.nj.us/governor/news/news/2007/ approved/20071217b.html. 104. When Corzine abolished the death penalty in New Jersey on December 17, 2007, eight men sat on death row in that state, including five blacks and three whites. 105. On March 18, 2008, Barack Obama made a stop while campaigning for president in Philadelphia to give a speech on the topic of race in America. This speech was largely driven by the need that he felt to respond to what was viewed by many to be racially divisive comments made by Obama’s minister, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Jr.

4 Organizational Dynamics in the Movement

While the impact of the opportunities and constraints imposed by the power structure upon social movements is undeniable, it cannot alone account for the successes and failures of the anti–death penalty movement. It is also crucial to consider the role that the organizational dynamics play in reaching the structural potential of the movement for action. An interaction exists between the manner in which organizations engage in social movement activity and the conditions created by the political opportunity structure. Such an interactive effect has been observed, for instance, with the decline of the Civil Rights Movement. Doug McAdam notes that as the organizations in the Civil Rights Movement changed their methods of organizing, the forces of the outside power structure responded in a manner that, in turn, suppressed insurgency of the masses. The growing threat posed by the shifting goals and tactics of insurgents served to mobilize increased opposition. The result was a less supportive balance of opposing and supporting forces confronting the movement and a consequent decline in insurgent activity.1

Many theorists have examined the role that organizational dynamics play in the development of social movements. Despite the various orientations of those asking how organizations operate to develop and sustain social movements, the questions of most social movement scholars eventually center on how individuals are mobilized to participate in collective action. The resource mobilization theory emerged in the 1970s as the dominant approach in the analysis of the origin of social movements. Resource mobilization theorists brought attention to the problem of mobilization as they 145

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sought to explain how political action and interests are mobilized within organizations. The mobilization of resources in the struggle to abolish the death penalty has always been difficult. As noted in the previous chapter, the political climate of our nation has created an environment that brands the anti–death penalty movement as a very unpopular cause and typically allows for those involved in the movement to be looked upon with disdain. Haines notes that the difficulty that those in the movement have winning support for their cause has as much to do with the constituency of the movement as with the issue itself.2 The most direct beneficiaries of the anti–death penalty movement, death row inmates, are distinctly different from other movement beneficiaries in that they are virtually unable to contribute money or other resources to the cause. In an effort to determine how such mobilization obstacles impact upon the anti–death penalty movement, I asked the activists several questions focused on the organizational dynamics within the movement. They were encouraged to provide a critical look at the activities of the organizations within the movement so that I may evaluate the extent to which the strategies of these organizations can be held accountable for the mobilization problems commonly acknowledged by the activists. As I examine their responses in this chapter, I highlight the primary areas of contention that arise among activists regarding strategies and tactics utilized by the organizations within the movement.

ORGANIZATIONAL ACTIVITIES Typically, the activists are affiliated with at least two organizations in the anti–death penalty movement, including a local organization in their state of residence and the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP). The activists were asked to evaluate the organization that they are most closely associated with, which is generally their local or state affiliate of NCADP. Next they were asked to place the views of their local organization within the larger context of the national anti–death penalty movement. The activists I interviewed identified a total of sixteen different state and local organizations that they participate in most closely.3 In addition, several individuals and national leaders of the movement indicated that they are solely or most closely associated with NCADP, the national umbrella organization. All of the various organizations represented by the activists fit the bestknown definition of a social movement organization. McCarthy and Zald have defined a social movement organization (SMO) as “a complex, or formal, organization that identifies its goals with the preferences of a so-

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cial movement or a countermovement and attempts to implement those goals.”4 All of the activists I interviewed identified as their ultimate, common goal the elimination of the death penalty in the United States. Where a significant number of the activists diverge is how they believe that they might realize this goal. The differences in how anti–death penalty activists envision ending the death penalty became more and more apparent as the activists responded to the questions I asked them regarding the organizational dynamics of the movement. The activists were first asked to describe the activities of the organization that they identify most closely with in the movement against the death penalty. The activities most frequently noted are those focused on public education. Nearly all of the activists stress the need to educate the public about the death penalty. The methods by which they strive to educate people are many. For instance, the activists tirelessly distribute literature and speak at community events, public rallies and demonstrations, conferences, churches, as well as communicate their message through the mail and Internet. The aspects of the death penalty that activists emphasize in their efforts to educate the public vary significantly, however. Some wish to educate people about the immorality of the death penalty by linking it to violence, human rights violations, or an assault on religious principles. Others feel the need to inform people about the unfairness they find with the death penalty, by focusing on accusations of its arbitrary, discriminatory, classist, and racist nature. Still others are more focused on educating the public about the flaws or impracticality of the death penalty, promoting increased awareness of its failed deterrent effect, the risk of executing innocent people, or its astronomical economic costs. In the next chapter, I provide a more detailed analysis of such framing processes utilized by anti–death penalty activists. Regardless of the type of information about the death penalty that the activists work so hard to impart to the public, implicit in all of their comments is the belief that if people in society were to have a greater knowledge about the death penalty and the manner in which it is applied, they would be much more likely to oppose this form of punishment. The remarks of the activists reflect what is commonly referred to as the “Marshall hypothesis.” Justice Thurgood Marshall proposed that attitudes in support of the death penalty can be attributed simply to a lack of knowledge about issues surrounding the death penalty. He submitted that an informed public would oppose its legalization. The Marshall hypothesis has been tested several times, and research has shown at least qualified support for the assumption that an informed public would favor the abolition of the death penalty.5 McCarthy and Zald have categorized individuals and organizations in society along dimensions that portray their relationship to social movements.6

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They make a distinction between adherents, constituents, the bystander public, and opponents. Adherents are those who believe in the goals of the movement, and constituents are those who provide resources in some fashion for the movement. The bystander public includes those nonadherents who are not opponents of the movement, rather those who simply witness social movement activity. Anti–death penalty activists target all of these groups with their public education campaigns. The information about the death penalty that activists choose to emphasize and the strategies that they employ in their activism are guided by, at least in part, their view of the groups delineated by McCarthy and Zald that they believe are most crucial to reach. Many of the activists view their primary task as one in which they are converting adherents to constituents, while others are focused more on turning nonadherents and/or opponents into adherents. The distinction in the targeted audience between activists is one that I found to be vital in order to gain an understanding of the variety of strategies that are utilized. Though public education campaigns were the most frequently mentioned activities organized by the activists, a close second includes various legislative efforts designed to effect change in death penalty legislation. Many activists dedicate their time toward lobbying and appealing to others to write letters to their legislators. One activist in Washington, D.C., said that a primary activity of his organization is writing sample legislation for state legislators that can be introduced on Capitol Hill. Another activist said that his organization in Pennsylvania formed a coalition with others that had as its mission to pay a lobbyist who would lobby on behalf of death row inmates to effect policy changes. The national attention recently given to moratorium legislation described in the previous chapter manifests in the remarks of the many activists who, at the time of my interviews with them, were channeling their energy toward achieving a moratorium on executions in their state. Maggie is an anti–death penalty activist in New York. When I met her, she was dedicating most of her time as the only paid staff member of her organization toward building support for a moratorium. Her comments reveal a common strategy of activists in many other states at this time. What we are focusing on now is building support for a moratorium by going to local organizations as well as local governments and asking them to endorse and we are hoping that by doing that to build momentum that will enable us to go to the legislature and say “All of these people support a moratorium.”

Not long after my interview with Maggie, she and her fellow activists in New York would find themselves celebrating a victory in their fight against the death penalty. New York’s highest court held on June 24, 2004, that the

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state’s jury instructions were unconstitutional and that the constitutional flaw in the existing statute could only be fixed with the passage of a new law by the legislature.7 Many experts have predicted that the state’s statute may never be reenacted, yet in the meantime, Maggie and her fellow activists are essentially in the midst of a moratorium on executions in New York. For those activists who hope to achieve the same level of success seen in New York, none of the audiences categorized by McCarthy and Zald are out of the realm of those whom they wish to target.8 Their arguments for a moratorium on executions, however, are best designed to reach their opponents who support the death penalty. Activists who push for a moratorium are essentially arguing that even when individuals support the death penalty in principle, they must recognize that there are flaws with the way that it is being administered. Moratorium advocates further submit that the death penalty should not be carried out with such flaws; therefore, a moratorium is called for in order to grant time for studies that can examine these flaws. The vast majority of activists I interviewed have done some organizing around building for a moratorium. While those in the movement have generally accepted the strategy of working for a moratorium as a viable one, several activists revealed that it has been a rather rough road for many along the way to reach this level of acceptance. Activists involved in the movement against the death penalty have traditionally referred to themselves as “abolitionists,” and anything less than complete abolition of the death penalty has been seen as unacceptable. The ultimate failure of the 1972 Furman decision to achieve abolition was evidence for many activists in the movement that a moratorium does not guarantee success. The focus on abolition espoused by the organizations that have sprung up over the decades since Furman can be seen in the names of many involved in the movement, such as the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and those state affiliates that have followed the lead of this umbrella organization by incorporating “abolish” in their name. The successes that have emerged in recent years through moratorium legislation, coupled with a growing cognizance among activists of the challenges posed by an increasingly conservative power structure, has convinced many “abolitionists” that the moratorium strategy is worth their efforts. Many are hopeful that widespread moratorium legislation may lead to eventual abolition of the death penalty. Although the moratorium strategy is endorsed by most activists in the movement today, quite a few of them do not view this work, or any other work in the legislative arena for that matter, as their primary area of concern. Activists who push for either a moratorium or the abolition of the death penalty typically view their activism as an expression of their passionately felt opposition toward the death penalty. Other activists who also share in such passionate beliefs are driven more by a commitment that they feel

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toward individuals facing the death penalty. In order to grasp the differences between these two types of activists and enhance our understanding of the various ways that individuals are mobilized to strategic action, Mark Taylor distinguishes between two types of organizations involved in the anti–death penalty movement.9 One type of organization Taylor has observed encompasses those involved in the mainstream movement who are focused on achieving a moratorium or abolition of the death penalty. Religious groups and human rights organizations are among those included in this group of organizations which “work out of a sense that the death penalty is wrong in some fundamental sense.”10 The second type of organization identified by Taylor, while not necessarily at odds with the first type characterized, includes those who view their role in the movement as serving as advocates for those on death row. Some individuals and organizations taking this approach may well choose to highlight the individual cases of particular death row inmates as a strategic move to illustrate the flaws with the death penalty. Others serving as advocates for death row inmates are simply driven by a genuine concern for the lives of actual death row inmates and their families. Several of the activists I interviewed fall into this category of activists who are acting more as advocates for the direct beneficiaries of the anti–death penalty movement. Though such responses were definitely in the minority among the activists when I asked them to describe the activities of their organization, a few of the activists responded that their organization is involved in providing direct assistance to death row inmates in some manner. For instance, one of the activists spoke proudly of the efforts made by his organization to form a chapter called Friends and Families of Death Row Inmates. His organization provides transportation for members of this chapter to and from the prison that houses death row in his state so that inmates may have visitors. In addition, this chapter of his organization has sent representatives to the government to demand better treatment for death row inmates and their families. Upon hearing the various responses of activists about the activities of their organizations, I was not at all surprised to hear them proceed with descriptions of conflicts that have emerged between activists who adopt different approaches toward their common goal of eliminating the death penalty. Certainly there are those who are able to appreciate how different activities of their fellow activists serve to complement each other and only enhance the ability of the movement to advance its cause. It should come as no surprise, however, that a movement struggling for resources contains discord between activists who feel strongly that the different strategies they employ are most likely to achieve eventual abolition of the death penalty. In the sections that follow, I provide a brief glance at some of the more

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prominent areas of contention between activists regarding strategies utilized in the movement.

PUBLIC EDUCATION STRATEGIES: VIGILS VERSUS CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE The activists I interviewed were eager to share the activities in which they and others in their organizations participate as they strive for the elimination of the death penalty. They demonstrated both relentless commitment and humility as they spoke of the work that they have engaged in for the movement. After the activists detailed the activities of their organizations, I asked them to critically evaluate the ways in which they believe that their organizations have been effective, as well as the ways in which they have been ineffective, in their efforts. As they responded, it did not take long for me to detect some tension between the various individuals and organizations represented in the movement over the range of strategies utilized. Generally speaking, the activists presented themselves as being open to people and organizations within the movement exercising any and all methods toward the common goal of public education. As indicated in the section above, the activists see a huge part of their work as providing information about the death penalty to those outside of the movement, and they frequently presented an urgency in doing so that stimulated some very creative ideas toward that end. For instance, one activist said that he carries flyers with him wherever he goes and seizes upon opportunities to distribute them in such unlikely places as his envelopes for the bank teller or in library cubicles. Another young activist gave a devilish smile as she recalled a time when she and several other activists in New York camped out at a hotel where President George W. Bush was campaigning for the presidency at a fundraiser luncheon. She said that she and the others from her organization somehow managed to sit in the balcony’s front row in the room where the then-presidential candidate spoke the next day. When Bush took the platform, they began chanting as they threw down upon the $1,000-aplate chicken dinners bunches of flyers that contained pictures of those people he had executed in Texas and blasted him for his record on the death penalty. Despite the urgency in which the activists express the need to educate the public about the death penalty, a significant number of them reveal disagreement within the movement about how to do so. The most obvious tension that emerged around this issue seems to be between the strategies of candlelight vigils and civil disobedience. While many activists identified

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candlelight vigils as an important part of their efforts to demonstrate to the public how they feel about the death penalty, others indicated that they are vehemently opposed to the strategy of holding vigils when executions take place. More often than not, the same activists who scorn vigils as a strategy prefer the direct action strategy of civil disobedience. Conversely, those activists who are supportive of the strategy of vigils tend not to view civil disobedience as helpful to the movement’s efforts at educating the public. The comments of several activists reveal the tension that is frequently found between those who promote either the strategy of candlelight vigils or that of civil disobedience. Allen is a white man in his forties who lives in Delaware, the state that ranks third in the number of executions per capita.11 He shared that his organization holds candlelight vigils at the prison when executions occur. Echoing the words of others I interviewed from his anti–death penalty organization, Allen stated that he feels that it is important to “have a presence at executions to try and say that not everybody believes that this is the right thing to do.” While Allen’s words reflect the sentiment of most of the activists I met in Delaware, they don’t speak for all. Sheila is a sixty-year-old white woman who is a strong advocate for the individuals on death row in Delaware and their families. She reluctantly attends the candlelight vigils on the nights when those inmates she has come to know quite well are being executed. She states that she feels compelled to be there on behalf of the executed and the family members, yet she is very uncomfortable with the lack of outrage that she witnesses at the vigils. She questions the motives of her fellow activists who participate in silent vigils during the moments when someone is being executed. The DCODP (Delaware Citizens Opposed to the Death Penalty) think that this is all they are obliged to do, just to oppose the death penalty and say that they oppose the death penalty. . . . I don’t believe that they really want to save the lives of the death row inmates. It has gotten to the point where they just want a big vigil. . . . If I could do one thing for DCODP, I would change the “oppose” to “opposing” the death penalty.

While Sheila holds the minority view about candlelight vigils among activists in Delaware, her sentiment is echoed by activists in virtually every other state in the region in which I selected subjects for my research. The strongest statements against vigils came from a couple of activists in Pennsylvania. Mark is a white man in his mid-thirties who heads up one of the anti–death penalty organizations in the state. His view of those who push for vigils at the time of executions, whom he refers to as “candle clutchers,” essentially equates them with proponents of the death penalty. Mark admits that his organization has participated in candlelight vigils, yet says

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We’ve done a couple very begrudgingly. We try to maintain a little bit harder. I hate candlelight vigils; they are basically reactive gestures. There are some people who seem like they are junkies for execution night vigils and we call those people a highly derogatory name. Some of us refer to them as “candle clutchers.” They are certainly not abolitionists. We call them passive abolitionists, also known as pro–death penalty. That’s how harsh we get about it. If you’re passive about the death penalty, but you don’t do anything to shut it down or are unwilling to do anything controversial, our attitude is basically that it does just as much to keep the death penalty going as people who are avidly pro–death penalty. So in the end, you might as well be pro–death penalty.

Mark’s comments are bolstered by those of another member of his organization in Pennsylvania. Though Renee, an African American woman in her mid-thirties, seems to appreciate the dedication of those who commit their time to attending vigils, her frustration with this form of organizing is readily apparent in her words below. If I hear “We Shall Overcome” one more time, I am going to throw up! You know, you have all these executions and people are losing their lives and if I hear about the be-all-and-end-all candlelight vigil, I’m going to scream. We need to be a lot more aggressive. I don’t understand how people can be so pious. It is almost so routine. On the one hand, you want to be eternally grateful for people who feel enough about this issue that they are going to go out, take an evening and protest, but that is not what it is going to take to end the death penalty. Screaming, getting yourself arrested if you can, showing your rage and anger, but not this sort of pious behavior of singing “We Shall Overcome” and then praying.

The comments of activists who are more supportive of the strategy of candlelight vigils often indicate that they have some awareness of the feelings of their fellow activists who, like Sheila, Mark, and Renee, object strongly to the method of holding vigils at executions. When they acknowledged that this area of contention lies within their organization, some activists who embrace vigils took on a slightly defensive posture as they sought to denounce the preferred method of civil disobedience among their peers. Shelly is an activist who is from the same organization in Pennsylvania as Mark and Renee. This white woman in her forties admitted that she has become less involved in the organization, at least in part, as a result of the more “in-your-face” tactics that the organization has adopted. Her remarks below reveal the tension that I frequently found between those who endorse vigils and those who promote civil disobedience as the more effective method of organizing against the death penalty. The group now is much more into civil disobedience. They are much more confrontational. . . . They are a little more younger, more energetic, more out

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there, more in your face. . . . They like to brag about getting arrested, but that’s not the goal. If their goal is getting arrested, then they’re doing a good job. If it’s public education, I’m not so sure that’s what they’re doing. When I was involved, we went for more one-day conferences and we did things in a quiet way.

The tension that is evident between members of the same Pennsylvania organization over the strategies of candlelight vigils and civil disobedience also manifests between different anti–death penalty organizations working in the same areas. I got the sense that it was largely such contention over tactics and strategies that actually led to the development of new organizations that could offer alternative methods of organizing from those of the more traditional organizations that existed at the time. An example of such interorganizational discord can be found between two groups that are located within the same general area in Maryland. While the Coalition Against State Executions (CASE) and the Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP) make earnest efforts to work together to achieve the elimination of the death penalty in Maryland, there nonetheless exists strong disagreement over the best way to voice their opposition. As an active member of CASE, Joan reveals the tension that lies between her organization and CEDP. This white woman in her forties said that it is her organization that holds vigils during the times when executions are scheduled to occur in Maryland. As she spoke, I could imagine her and others from CASE holding their breath when their fellow activists from CEDP decide to show up for the vigils they sponsor. When there is an execution, we sponsor the vigil. We hardly ever, never in our memory, have we sponsored a demonstration. We do the vigils. . . . We’ll organize the vigils and one of the reasons we do that is that we don’t want the Campaign organizing the vigils because we feel like if they organize it, then it will be aggressive, hostile, and confrontational and we don’t want them to be like that. We want to be in charge of the tone. They come and they are fairly cooperative. Sometimes it’s hard because we want silence and they want to have chanting.

Tony is an African American in his early thirties who is very active with the Maryland chapter of CEDP. He accuses his fellow activists from CASE of being very concerned about receiving credit for the moratorium that several different organizations were working toward in Maryland. According to Tony, the vigils that they sponsor wind up being little more than show, so that CASE can claim that it was their efforts that won the moratorium. It’s a race for the credit. There are a lot of egos involved. The Campaign doesn’t care who gets the credit for it [moratorium]. We don’t care if the governor

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holds up your letter with your letterhead on it and says that I received this letter and it touched me and I prayed and I’m not going to do it anymore. . . . We don’t care. We just want to get more people educated and more people mobilized and no one cares to get the credit. Other organizations are very concerned. It’s their money, their resources, and they feel that we are very close. “When this thing is over, I want to be the one holding the torch!” And that is all that vigils are. Vigils are more visuals than vigils. “We sat out there and did you see us?”

As a resident of New Mexico, Diana feels fortunate to live in a state that has not carried out executions on a frequent basis.12 She has not had much opportunity, therefore, to participate in execution vigils. She indicates that she is not particularly a fan of such vigils when they occur at executions around the country, yet neither does she feel as though civil disobedience is an effective strategy for the movement. With more of a puzzled tone than the aggravated one detected in the above words by Shelly and Joan, Diana wonders aloud why civil disobedience is considered necessary by some of her fellow activists. She seems to be open to discussion about this strategy among her peers, yet does not appear convinced that it is at all helpful to the movement. I must say that I’m not a vigil type person myself. It’s not enough direct action for me. I think for some people it is more ceremonial for them, maybe it works for them. It’s just not for me. I’m not really into the civil disobedience thing either. I have to ask, why do we do it? Why do we need to do it? What is the purpose of it, that we couldn’t be doing some other means that wouldn’t involve us going to jail? I don’t think that it gives the movement a good name. I just think that there are a lot more things that we could be doing besides engaging in illegal conduct. I think it is about what works for you, it doesn’t work for me. I feel like I’d just be asking, “Why am I doing this? This is purposeless. There is so much more that I could be doing that is more effective in getting the message out.” Talking about the issue, to me, that is much more effective. For other people, I can appreciate what works for them.

Through his research of the movement against the death penalty, Haines discovered similar disputes over strategies among activists within the movement.13 Outside of a few incidents that occurred during the first few years after the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, Haines found that acts of civil disobedience declined in the years that followed. He asserts that this method of organizing became less utilized primarily because executions were on the rise and activists found themselves having to scramble to save the lives of the condemned. As much as anything, the decline in acts of civil disobedience was due to the acceleration of capital punishment’s pace in the United States. The abolitionists

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who had planned and carried out such actions before now found themselves overwhelmed by more immediate tasks, such as locating lawyers to stave off scheduled executions. There was too little time for purely symbolic actions and too little money for bail and legal defense.14

Haines acknowledges, however, that the strategy of civil disobedience remains one that many activists consider to be essential to increasing the visibility of the movement. At the same time, he found a general sentiment among those who looked upon the strategy of civil disobedience less favorably that such acts would not be received well in our nation given the current political climate. Though many within the movement did not necessarily express disdain for the strategy of civil disobedience itself, they expressed to Haines that such a strategy would not be received as well as it was during the Civil Rights Movement because we live in a much more conservative society today.15 The change that Haines found in the strategies emphasized by anti–death penalty activists due to the political climate serves as a good example of the relationship that exists between the political opportunity structure and the organizational dynamics of a given social movement. On the other hand, the political opportunity structure cannot completely dictate the actions of those within a social movement. The activists I met who verbalized a desire to see more displays of outrage within the anti– death penalty movement through more acts of civil disobedience and fewer silent vigils are fully aware of the political atmosphere that they are up against. The fact that these activists, albeit a noticeable minority, continue to perceive civil disobedience as a viable and necessary method of protest against the death penalty is indicative of not only a difference of opinion among those in the movement, but also a significant difference in perception as to how to best challenge the power structure of our society. Their contrasting views on how to confront the powers that be can be seen in the differences that were revealed when they spoke about the groups they view as the most crucial audience to target with their activism.

TARGET AUDIENCE: POWER STRUCTURE OR GRASSROOTS? Those activists who prefer silent vigils to acts of civil disobedience tend to indicate that they are most concerned with reaching their opponents within the power structure and/or those individuals categorized by McCarthy and Zald as “adherents,” who either lie within the power structure or who are perceived as having influence with powerful politicians. Indeed, one of the reasons that activists shared with Haines in the early 1990s that they were opposed to utilizing civil disobedience as a primary method of organizing is because they felt that doing so would alienate the influential support

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that they had been able to amass at that point. One of the board members of NCADP told Haines that he opposed any official recognition of civil disobedience as a strategy for activism because it would “drive away several important organizational affiliates, discourage new ones from coming aboard . . . and give aid and comfort to many of our opponents in spreading the false and pernicious idea that abolition of the death penalty is based on radical left-wing principles.”16 Although the above quote was noted by Haines in 1990 at the annual NCADP conference, I was met with similar rhetoric over ten years later from the activists who also do not endorse civil disobedience as a primary organizing tool. Such activists frequently state that civil disobedience will not allow their movement’s message to reach those within the power structure, whom they view as the most important recipients of this message. The comments of Walter, a white man in his fifties, illustrate this concern well. I think we have to be talking to conservatives, to people who disagree with us. We have to be talking with leaders, conservative leaders, and that requires a certain way of speaking, be ready to meet somebody halfway. If you hit somebody over the head with a sign that says the death penalty is murder, you’re just not going to get anywhere. . . . But the death penalty could be eliminated if we bring those factions together on what they can agree with. That is not an approach that all groups take. They don’t realize that there are many people who do not feel comfortable talking to them and their style of rhetoric and their whole approach.

Walter’s words are echoed by David, a white man in his thirties, who states, “Yes, we should target the people who are in favor of the death penalty. . . . We need to go and get those fiscal conservatives and Republicans to understand that we have a system that is not fair.” Tiffany is an African American woman who is a defense attorney of capital defendants in Pennsylvania. She went so far as to suggest that it is not only important for the movement to change its strategies from less confrontational ones to those that will be received better by adherents and opponents, but it is also important to change the very appearance of its constituency. The movement, she argues, could be much more successful if it had an “image consultant.” In trying to get a broader base of support, you need to, for better or for worse, not look like you’re on the liberal fringe. . . . I have a lot of friends from law school who are opposed to the death penalty, but cringe at the idea of coming out and standing among these people who. . . . It’s just not the world they want to be a part of. They may agree, but it’s not the people who they hang out with. If you want to pick up middle America or a mass of people, you can’t have this image of being this marginal side group and I think that it does have

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that image. I was at a protest here this summer; it was nice, but we looked like WTO or this protest community and it alienates mainstream people. Or people who are mainstream don’t hear the message because they think so much that it is a bunch of crazy people. . . . There is an investigator here who looks like he fell out of Cape Cod. He’s tan; he looks like he should be on a golf course. His name is Joe and we want him at all times in front of the cameras. That’s the thing. You want this really mainstream white American view out there saying, “This is the worst thing.” It just lends that image.

Yvonne is an African American activist in New York who has distanced herself from the anti–death penalty organization on whose board she once served because she grew tired of them “being stuck in a mode.” She describes their mode of operation with the following words. The orientation was very much for years about politicking behind closed doors with selective legislators. . . . They are very threatened by anything new, and what they perceive as being radically different, because they feel we must appeal much more to the mainstream.

Unlike those activists who prefer vigils to acts of civil disobedience, those who might fall into the “marginal side group,” characterized by Tiffany in the above quote, seem to be more concerned with directing their message to the bystander public than to their opponents. They do not seem convinced that politicians, especially those who are conservative, would do anything differently if anti–death penalty activists were able to reach them with the messages of the movement. In fact, many strongly believe that those who compose our power structure are fully aware of all the information that they need in order to eliminate the death penalty, yet choose not to do so because doing so would not serve their interests. The death penalty, many activists maintain, serves as an oppressive tool that politicians will not easily abandon. It is the bystander public who must be targeted, in addition to adherents, according to these activists. Bringing in this group of people who McCarthy and Zald assert are not opponents, rather simply witness movement activity, will allow the movement to build a grassroots constituency. A strong grassroots movement can then demand that the power structure abolish the death penalty. Of all the activists I interviewed, it was those from local chapters of the national organization called the Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP) who most strongly advocate for building a grassroots movement against the death penalty. The activists I spoke with who represent this organization participate in three of the sixteen chapters across the country, in New York, D.C., and Baltimore. They model their efforts to abolish the death penalty on the strategies of the Civil Rights Movement. In a pamphlet published by CEDP in 2001, the commitment of those within this organi-

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zation to grassroots organizing is clear. The following excerpt from their pamphlet upholds the general consensus among those who feel that it is more productive to target the bystander public than their opponents who are located within the power structure. The Campaign to End the Death Penalty is committed to building a grassroots movement to abolish the death penalty in the United States. The stories of the Death Row 10 are the clearest reasons why this campaign must be undertaken. Their cases show that the politicians and officials who run America’s criminal justice system consistently defend even its worst excesses. Therefore, justice can only be won by building a movement that insists on it despite official intransigence.17

Stan is a thirty-year-old activist who leads the CEDP chapter in D.C. The enthusiasm he demonstrates as he speaks about the work of his organization is truly contagious. He is critical of mainstream organizations in the movement for their tendency to “build a strategy around the minimal set of respectable demands.” If the movement would only work to mobilize “ordinary people,” Stan contends, it could be more successful. I find that there is too much of an orientation on the halls of power and lobbying and too much concern with leaders and not enough of an optimism that’s imported by a sense of where ordinary people are at. . . . If the death penalty movement could have more, and I’m talking about the mainstream abolitionist movement, bring more substance and vision and inspiration, more agitation and scale and scope to it, rather than minimal sets of demands. . . . I think it’s happening slowly, but I’m just impatient with how slow people are to shake off and feel that there is a huge audience out there and being able to speak to them in a way that would inspire them.

The activists who represent the Campaign to End the Death Penalty fall more into the type of organization characterized in the above section by Mark Taylor as advocates of specific death row prisoners. While this camp of activists does not disagree with the eventual end goal of abolitionists or of that achieved by a moratorium, they believe that the best way to push their message of opposition toward the death penalty is through highlighting the cases of specific death row inmates. Through their advocacy of specific cases, they feel that they are able to make the abuses of the criminal justice system real for the bystander public that they feel is so crucial to mobilize in their efforts to build a grassroots movement. The Death Row 10 referred to in the above pamphlet excerpt is a prime example of the cases that they emphasize. The story of Aaron Patterson is only one of the ten death row inmates in Chicago that CEDP activists are working so diligently to expose. Patterson and the others who embody the Death Row 10 all have horrendous tales of police brutality to tell that

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occurred when they had “confessions” tortured out of them.18 CEDP activists work hard to humanize the Death Row 10 and others on death row, through such programs as “Live from Death Row,” in which they provide a forum for the public to hear death row inmates speak via conference calls about such things as their cases and the abuses they have endured on death row. While CEDP activists may be the most well known among their peers within the movement for their advocacy of death row inmates, they are not alone in utilizing such efforts to bring attention to the death penalty. There are activists from other organizations within the movement who have recognized the value of educating the public about the cases of specific death row inmates, particularly when these individuals are believed to be innocent of the crimes for which they have been sentenced. Typically, when activists from these other organizations speak about the need to advocate on behalf of death row inmates, they voice what appears to be a growing concern for the need to mobilize at the grassroots level. Debbie is a white woman in her sixties who is a member of Murder Victims’ Families for Reconciliation (MVFR), an organization that includes some of those who are most personally affected by the death penalty. She states that one of the most valuable contributions that her organization is able to make to the movement is the legitimacy that the experiences of its members bring to the issue. The members of MVFR are able to dispel the common retort of those outside the movement, “How would you feel about the death penalty if it were your loved one murdered?” When MVFR members advocate on behalf of specific death row inmates, they are able to reach a wider audience as a result of their shared experience of having loved ones murdered. Debbie now regrets the way that her organization elected to build a membership that could aid the anti–death penalty movement. Recognizing the value of grassroots organizing, she makes the following remarks. In a way I wish that we had begun more grassroots. We kind of started at the top and worked down. We were a handful of people from all over the country who formed a board and then went out looking for members. I wish that we had organized locally first and then went the other way because it is very hard the way we did it.

There is a growing tendency to recognize the need to devote more time to organizing at a grassroots level. This trend is being seen at the national level in addition to the statewide efforts being made by some local anti–death penalty organizations. In the annual report released by the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP) in 2000, two projects were introduced that are designed to build on the movement’s efforts at grassroots

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organizing and advocacy. The 2000 annual report of NCADP submits that the decline in public support for the death penalty shown in recent polls, as well as the growing attention given to wrongful convictions, warrants more attention to grassroots organizing: “Given the decline in public support for capital punishment, NCADP believes that the time is ripe for its Grassroots Education and Mobilization (GEM) initiative.” The following excerpt from NCADP’s 2000 annual report suggests that another project they plan to initiate in the coming year, “Advocacy Link,” can aid the movement well in their efforts to build their constituency at the grassroots level. Since the reinstatement of capital punishment in 1976, the anti–death penalty movement has been bi-polar, with grassroots activists on one side and capital litigators on the other. While the efforts of the two poles have always run parallel, direct collaboration has occurred on a somewhat limited basis. The impressive results of such cooperation has inspired NCADP to invest significant time and resources to shoring up formal relations between anti–death penalty activists and attorneys. “Advocacy Link” is a project focused on bridge-building between the capital litigation and grass-roots abolitionist communities to create an effective model of advocacy on behalf of persons facing a death sentence.19

Many of the activists who spoke about the audience that they target with their message reinforce the “bridge-building” strategy proposed with the “Advocacy Link” initiative, as they expressed the importance of incorporating a variety of strategies that target both the power structure and the grassroots. The activists who recognize the value that both of these approaches offer the movement’s potential for success believe that there is enough room for both strategies to be utilized effectively. This sentiment was expressed in words similar to those stated by one woman who had an urgency in her tone when she exclaimed, “I think that the message has to be put everywhere! Wherever people are going to listen to you, you have to go! You talk to the families, you talk to the people who are opposed, you talk to people in positions of power, and little by little . . . .” Several of the Puerto Rican activists were especially emphatic with their view that the movement needs to give more attention to the grassroots. They are also open to working with the power structure, however, as they have seen the value in targeting that audience as well. Given the general outrage on the island toward the federal government for imposing the federal death penalty on their people, these activists have been quite successful in their efforts to have local politicians, legislators, judges, and others who work within the power structure speak out in one voice with them. While the Puerto Rican activists appreciate the value of targeting both the power structure and the grassroots, they feel that the movement has been slighting the grassroots approach. These activists urge the movement to continue

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their work in the legislative arena, yet to also work more on building the grassroots across the nation. The comments below of Jorge illustrate this perspective that I found with the Puerto Rican activists. We have to complement one strategy with another, there is no problem with that, but we have a problem with the exclusiveness and they have to recognize the power of the grassroots and the communities. We have to compliment their strategies . . . it’s all important.

Jorge went on to describe an initiative that the PRCADP is launching called the Caribbean Abolitionist Network, in which they plan to mobilize people in countries across the Caribbean by traveling to different places and encouraging local people who have been personally affected by murder and/or the death penalty tell their stories. He is hopeful that this approach will allow them to focus on the grassroots, as they “build it from the floor.” He describes the plan of his organization for this initiative. We are working right now on an initiative in the Caribbean and we are calling it the Caribbean Abolitionist Network. That is what we want to build, we want to have more activists, more organizations in the Caribbean, not people from Europe or the States telling people why the death penalty is bad, but having murder victim families from the Caribbean, having exonerees from the Caribbean talking and making public opinion and mobilizing in their respective countries.

Miguel’s comments echo the concern in Jorge’s voice as he cautions against allowing the whites who dominate the movement in the states to address those communities that they are not familiar with, when they haven’t taken the time to do the grassroots building that he feels is crucial to win supporters. Referring to the perception that many outside of the movement have about the cause that abolitionists are fighting, Miguel begins, It’s viewed as an elitist cause and many times they view it as “here comes these white people, these white middle-class people, to lecture us on what we should do and what’s right and what’s wrong, without really considering what we think about it.” When we go in there, we are going in there frequently with no ideas of what they should learn, how they should think, and without really doing the grassroots, seeing what they feel, and identifying with them and I think that is so hard to do.

Pablo listens intently as Miguel speaks, nodding in agreement. Adding to the point of his friend, Pablo continues, Maybe we can teach the people themselves to move the message to the same community, not from someone outside of the community who comes well-

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dressed and in a fancy car to my community to speak about us. If I don’t feel identified and if I am from those kind of communities, I don’t feel as identified and I am not going to trust someone who comes from the outside to speak to us.

Although Miguel and Pablo are critical of the movement’s efforts toward building a grassroots movement, they are confident that the hard work required to do so would definitely pay off. They shared an example of a grassroots movement that took hold on the island of Vieques in Puerto Rico and was successful in driving out the U.S. Navy base that had been there for approximately sixty years. Puerto Ricans had become increasingly agitated by the environmental contamination and subsequent health threats against its people from the bombing exercises conducted on the military base in Vieques, thus amassed a huge grassroots movement and eventually managed to drive the U.S. military out of Vieques in 2003.20 As he spoke about having recently witnessed that grassroots movement, Miguel was obviously inspired and excited about the possibility of mobilizing Puerto Ricans in a similar manner around the issue of the death penalty. I just can’t stress enough the grassroots! In Puerto Rico we have this small island off of Puerto Rico called Vieques where the Navy used to practice for many years. I grew up on the island right beside it. The Navy used to practice there for many years. It was there for almost sixty years and just two years before they left, nobody would have ever thought it was possible. It was a given that they would always be there. It all started with the people of Vieques. It was really grassroots and everybody joined in and it happened. So I think it is important to just follow their leadership instead of imposing leadership from above. So I support a grassroots approach because I can’t see myself imposing my views.

Diana is also confident that a grassroots approach, combined with appeals to the power structure, works best because this Latina activist has seen it work firsthand. She worked alongside many people in New Mexico to win the support of Governor Richardson to abolish the death penalty in their state. She was absolutely exuberant when we spoke, just days after Governor Richardson had signed the abolition bill into law. Diana was quick to attribute this legislative victory to the grassroots movement that she helped to build in New Mexico. It couldn’t have happened without all the grassroots. You have no idea how many years since 1997 this group has been out there at the concerts, signing up the names. All that grassroots stuff is how we built our membership! That’s how we got people’s names so that they could become involved, even if it was only one call every other year when the death penalty bill was heard. It was a huge thing that they did for us! It wouldn’t have happened without them. It’s at the grassroots level, that’s where it happens! Even Governor Richardson said, “I

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did this because this is what the people of New Mexico want!” The polls were showing it, that 65 percent of New Mexicans were in favor of alternatives to the death penalty.

A common strategy used by activists who aim to build a grassroots movement is to expose the injustices found with particular cases of individual death row inmates. As they publicize the outrageous points around a specific case, individuals begin to question the competence of the criminal justice system. Activists who utilize this strategy hope that the outrage and empathy generated by the chosen case will build and swell into a grassroots movement that will move its participants to oppose the death penalty for all. This strategy of focusing on individual cases in an effort to build the ranks of the movement does not come without contention among activists. This contention is due, in part, to the dispute that often arises when activists highlight the case of any individual death row inmate with their anti–death penalty campaigns. The general sentiment of those who oppose this strategy is summed up well by the words spoken by one activist: “There are over 3,000 people on death row across the country. We can’t just focus on one or two cases! They all need our help, not just a few!”

ADVOCATING FOR INDIVIDUAL DEATH ROW INMATES The movement against the death penalty has frequently relied on individual capital cases as a means to advance their message that the death penalty is unconstitutional, inequitable, inhumane, and/or otherwise in need of abolition. Indeed, if it were not for the 1972 landmark Georgia case of William Furman, the death penalty may not have been eliminated across the United States, if only for several years.21 Death penalty proponents have also used individual cases to advance their position for the death penalty, most famously with the case of Troy Gregg. The Gregg decision, also ruled in Georgia four short years after the Furman decision, allowed for the death penalty to be reinstated on a state-by-state basis after statutes were rewritten to reflect the changes required by the ruling.22 Despite the huge setback that Gregg v. Georgia caused the movement, individual cases continue to be advanced by lawyers and activists in the struggle to move toward the abolition of the death penalty. In recent years, major legal developments with individual cases have brought significant gains to the movement, such as forbidding the death penalty for the mentally handicapped (2002) in Atkins v. Virginia and for juvenile murderers (2005) in Roper v. Simmons, removing virtually all limitations on the presentation of mitigating evidence (2006) in Holmes v. South Carolina, and

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requiring the jury to decide whether aggravating factors have been proved beyond a reasonable doubt (2002) in Ring v. Arizona.23 The above cases of individual death row inmates serve as examples of some of the gains that have been made in the legislative arena toward the movement’s goal of death penalty abolition. While they may not have similarly resulted in landmark Supreme Court decisions, there are many other death row inmates that anti–death penalty activists have emphasized as they make appeals to the public to join them in their activism. These inmates are not chosen at random, rather they are strategically selected as those cases viewed as most likely to elicit sympathy from the wider public and mobilize potential activists into the movement. Next I offer an analysis of several such death penalty cases that have gained national recognition, in part due to the attention brought by the anti–death penalty movement as it seeks to build its ranks. The contention that often arises in the movement when some activists invest time and resources in their advocacy of particular cases is more easily found with some of these cases than others. These individual cases of advocacy for death row inmates are relevant to my study in that they illustrate the significance that race plays in the movement’s selection of the cases that it chooses to call attention to and, ultimately, its ability to mobilize a racially diverse constituency.

KARLA FAYE TUCKER AND JUDIAS BUENOANO The two individuals highlighted in this section share the extremely unusual distinction of being among the eleven women who have been executed since 1976.24 In order to appreciate the rarity of such a distinction, it is important to consider several statistics about the prevalence of women on death row. Since 1973, 162 women have been sentenced to death row, constituting about 2 percent of all death sentences.25 As of January 1, 2008, there were fifty-six women on death row across the nation.26 Female murderers become less likely than male murderers to face eventual execution at every stage of the criminal justice process. Women account for one in ten arrested for murder, one in fifty who are sentenced to death at the trial level, one in sixty-seven presently on death row, and only one in one hundred death row inmates who have been executed since 1976.27 Given such a low number of women who have actually been executed, we would naturally expect their stories to capture a great deal of media attention. Outside of the extremely dedicated death penalty abolitionist, however, most people in society are not likely to recognize the names of the eleven women who have been executed. They may recognize the name of Aileen Wuornos, who was executed in 2002 by the state of Florida, because Charlize Theron made her name famous. Theron won an Academy Award in 2004 for playing Aileen

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in the movie Monster. If anyone else among the eleven executed women could be argued to have gained the same degree of notoriety as Aileen Wuornos, it would be one of the two women featured below. I will begin with the story of the woman whose name most people were most likely to have recognized as they read the title of this section. Next I will follow with story of the second woman named in the title as I consider the impact of both cases upon the anti–death penalty movement. Karla Faye Tucker was executed in Texas, the state which has executed far more people than any other state in the nation since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976 by the U.S. Supreme Court.28 The death penalty case of Karla Faye Tucker gained international prominence throughout the fifteen years she spent on Texas’s death row and particularly around the time of her execution in 1998. Tucker was not typically mentioned by the activists I interviewed for my study. Not only was my sample drawn primarily from the Mid-Atlantic region of the nation, but when I began my interviews, it had also been several years since Tucker’s execution, thus the attention around her case had subsided. Despite the tapering interest in Karla Faye Tucker, her case is worthy of consideration when attempting to account for the scarcity of racial minorities within the anti–death penalty movement. At about 3:00 a.m. on June 13, 1983, Karla Faye Tucker and Danny Garrett were high on drugs when they drove to the home of Jerry Dean with the hopes of stealing his motorcycle. They weren’t expecting him to be home, yet to their surprise found him and Deborah Thornton there when things suddenly took a horrifying turn. Instead of stealing a motorcycle, Tucker and Garrett committed two murders. The details of the murders were truly gruesome, as Karla Faye repeatedly stabbed both victims with a pickax and immediately boasted about her part in the murders, claiming that it had been an orgasmic experience. The horrific nature of the murders brought instant media attention to the case, yet interest in Karla Faye Tucker soon grew by leaps and bounds to a level of international prominence after she was sentenced to death row and publicly professed her conversion to Christianity. Tucker became the first woman to be executed in Texas since the Civil War and the second woman to be executed in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Initially, the most intriguing aspect of Karla Faye’s story appeared to be her gender, since women make up such a small fraction of those on death row. The media were not alone in their fascination with Karla Faye, as she received support from around the world and made unlikely allies from diverse backgrounds, including civil libertarians and religious conservatives. Karla Faye was more than just a woman to those who became fascinated by her story. She was an attractive white woman who many people believed had a true religious conversion. Tucker was not the only one who professed a conversion, however, as Pat Robinson, Jerry Falwell, and other religious

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conservatives had been staunch supporters of the death penalty prior to joining the campaign to save the life of Karla Faye Tucker. Pat Robertson, the founder of the Christian Coalition, was particularly outspoken with his support of clemency for Karla Faye Tucker. He argued that Tucker should be spared because she had been rehabilitated and transformed through her strong faith as a born-again Christian. On February 18, 1999, approximately one year after her execution, Robertson shared with a crowd gathered in New York by the Association of the Bar of the City of New York that he still believed that it is important to retain the death penalty for “vicious killers” who have not been reformed.29 He added that mercy and clemency should be granted to those, like Tucker, who are able to demonstrate that they have had a “genuine change of heart.”30 While Robertson focused most of his comments on the Tucker case, he also shared concern about the disproportionate use of the death penalty against the poor and racial minorities as he called for a campaign against the “culture of death.”31 Shortly after Tucker’s execution, syndicated columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner Ellen Goodman was among those who expressed a skeptical view of the sudden conversion displayed by those religious conservatives who came from an unwavering pro–death penalty position prior to their endorsement of Tucker. Goodman’s words below reveal the skepticism often expressed by those who were not convinced that real change had occurred among religious conservatives who defended their support of Tucker. A Christian Broadcasting Network reporter explained why her pro–death penalty view became pro-Tucker: “She didn’t fit what we thought people on death row were like.” An evangelical commentator supported this born-again murderer as a “miraculously sweet-spirited little soldier in the war against criminal wickedness.” The watchword shifted from vengeance to redemption, from justice to mercy. Like many, I found myself uncomfortable with these sudden friends of mercy. I don’t doubt for a minute that her whiteness, her femaleness, her photogenic Christian-ness made her the exception.32

On one level, it is certainly easy to understand why Tucker may not have “fit” with the typical conception of a death row inmate. There are few white women on death row, both then and now. Furthermore, few women on death row have received as much attention for both their physical attractiveness and religious conversion. On another level, Tucker is not that unusual. Many others on death row have also experienced dramatic transformations during their time on death row, religious or otherwise, which have turned them into vastly different people from the ones they were when they first came to death row. Indeed, if given the same media attention that Tucker received, a significant number of death row inmates would be able to change the images typically assigned to them. Quite possibly, they might

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no longer be automatically viewed as “monsters,” rather be given the opportunity to be seen as much more sympathetic characters.33 The likelihood that the compassion given to Karla Faye Tucker by those who had previously favored the death penalty would be transferred to others on death row is very slim, however, since those who “fit” the public image of a death row inmate are disproportionately black or Latino and almost entirely male. A significant part of the reason why Tucker was able to elicit so much sympathy from former advocates of the death penalty, after all, was because she was so different from “them,” from the rest of those who sit on the death rows across our nation. Rev. Jim Wallis, editor of the progressive Christian magazine Sojourners, was among those at the time of Tucker’s execution who challenged religious conservatives to broaden their newfound opposition to the death penalty to all death row inmates. In the same skeptical tone expressed by Ellen Goodman, Wallis stated that the test is “to apply that same compassion to a young black man who has had a conversion to Islam.”34 More than a decade has passed since Tucker’s execution and religious conservatives have not remained as outspoken against the death penalty as Goodman and Wallis may have liked, yet the impact of Tucker’s notoriety upon the anti–death penalty movement has produced an opening for the movement to reach a wider audience with its message of abolition. The message of the movement certainly seems to have reached more ears, yet were more people mobilized to join the movement? The level of media attention that Tucker garnered was seen as unprecedented at the time of her execution. She was often referred to as the “poster child” of the anti–death penalty movement. The sympathy that she was able to generate had successfully changed the terms of the public discourse around the death penalty from retribution to redemption, if only for a time. At the same time, the effect of the Tucker execution upon efforts to build the ranks of the anti–death penalty movement is uncertain. This atypical death row inmate had certainly elevated the national consciousness to the issue of the death penalty, yet had she also brought new faces into the movement? And if Karla Faye Tucker had indeed mobilized more people to join the fight against the death penalty, the question remains, who was most likely to be mobilized by her case? This becomes a crucial question when turning to the questions raised by my study concerning the racial diversity found with the movement. When anti–death penalty organizations across Texas and around the nation made the strategic decision to focus on the individual case of an attractive white woman as they campaigned against the death penalty, did that strategy come at a cost to the goal of diversifying their ranks? At the same time that abolitionist organizations saw the case of Karla Faye Tucker as providing them with an opportunity for their voices to be heard, some of the movement’s leaders cautioned that excessive attention

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upon Tucker’s case would lead some arguments against the death penalty to be advanced at the expense of others. While the Tucker case enabled the pro–death penalty argument of vengeance to be countered with a message of redemption, it failed to call attention to the racial disparities found with the death penalty. The day after Tucker was executed, the ACLU countered claims made by the president of Justice for All, a victims’ rights group in Houston, that the ACLU campaign to save Tucker’s life was driven by sexism. The A.C.L.U. opposes the execution of Karla Faye Tucker, not because she is a woman, not because she is a born-again Christian, but because the death penalty is wrong. The fact that a white woman has now drawn a ticket in this deadly lottery does not make the system any less racist or unfair.35

The ACLU was not alone in the need it felt to emphasize the racial aspects of the death penalty in the face of all the attention that Karla Faye was generating for their cause. Ajamu Baraka currently serves as executive director of the U.S. Human Rights Network, a U.S.-based network of over 250 human rights and social justice organizations. At the time that Karla Faye Tucker had become a media sensation, Mr. Baraka was a regional director of Amnesty International. In the wake of Tucker’s execution, Baraka conceded that the attention brought to the case could help the movement. At the same time, he noted that Tucker’s gender should not be examined apart from its association with her race and religion. Baraka warned that excessive attention to Tucker’s case which failed to explain these associations may not prove to be particularly helpful to those who remain on death row. “Her death will not be in vain for the abolitionist movement,” said Baraka, regional director of Amnesty International. Still, he and other leaders of that movement said they were troubled that the execution of a white woman had drawn so much notice while many black men go to their deaths professing as strong a devotion to their savior as she did.36

Similarly, The Economist asked: “Would a black man who had pickaxed a white couple to death but had seen the light in prison and become a devout and erudite Muslim have found such support? Probably not. It was her sex and her prettiness, as much as her religious conversion, that made Ms. Tucker a poster girl of the anti-capital-punishment groups.”37 Despite all that Karla Faye offered the movement, therefore, her case was not able to serve as an example of the racial bias that is all too often found with the administration of the death penalty. The movement might have elected to address this limitation by pointing out that the disproportionate media attention given to the Tucker case was itself laden with racial bias, in addition to gender bias. At the same time that Karla Faye’s transformation was accentuated by

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the movement whenever arguments were made for the value of redemption, activists could have also noted that the undue media coverage of her case perpetuated the racial bias that is found with the death penalty. The activists’ voices largely remained silent in this regard. The movement did not seem to capitalize upon the racial messages that were implicitly communicated by the public’s fascination with her case. Just one short month after Karla Faye was executed, another lost opportunity passed by most of those within the anti–death penalty movement when another female death row inmate approached execution in the state of Florida. Judias Buenoano had been convicted in 1985 for poisoning her husband back in 1971. His body had been exhumed twelve years after his death and was found to contain arsenic. Buenoano had been nicknamed by one prosecutor working on her case as the “Black Widow” after she was accused and subsequently convicted in 1984 of two separate charges. Her two convictions included killing her nineteen-year-old son and attempting to kill her then-boyfriend. In contrast to the media fanfare that had surrounded Karla Faye’s execution, Buenoano’s execution was carried out with a minimal amount of coverage. The first woman to be electrocuted in Florida since before the Civil War and the third woman to be executed in the United States since 1976, one might certainly expect fifty-four-year-old Buenoano to draw a great deal of media attention. Like Tucker, Buenoano had professed a strong religious belief in Jesus. Shortly before she was executed, she shared during a television interview that she was ready to die. “Seeing the face of Jesus, that’s what I think about. I’m ready to go home,” she said as she broke into tears.38 Unlike Tucker, Buenoano maintained her innocence throughout her time behind bars, all the way through to her execution on March 30, 1998. Perhaps this is one reason for her relative lack of media attention and public sympathy in comparison to that received by Karla Faye, who had shown remorse and publicly repented for her crime. Buenoano did not offer the same potential for redemption that Tucker had offered with her repentance and pleas for forgiveness. Another possible explanation for the differential media attention given to the executions of Buenoano and Tucker centers on the ethnicity of the two women. Buenoano’s name is Spanish for “Goodyear,” which suggests that Buenoano is Latina. Her name is misleading, however, for Judias was born in 1943 in Texas to a white farm worker with the surname Welty. When Judias was barely two years old, her mother died of tuberculosis. In later years, Judi would describe her mother as a full-blooded member of the nonexistent Mesquite Apache tribe. At the young age of eighteen, Judias Welty married an air force officer by the name of James Goodyear. Three children and eight years of marriage later, James Goodyear died mysteriously in 1971, only three months after returning home from Vietnam. In

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1978, as an apparent tribute to her late husband and her mythical Apache mother, Judias changed her name and that of her children to Buenoano.39 Buenoano certainly did not capture anywhere near the same amount of attention that Tucker had attracted. Since the Buenoano execution followed so closely on the heels of the execution of Karla Faye Tucker, perhaps the media thought that news of a woman being executed was no longer particularly remarkable. The religious community also failed to offer the same level of public support to Buenoano that it had given to Tucker. Despite their shared gender and religious beliefs, Buenoano differed from Tucker in ways that may have lessened public interest. Buenoano’s cousin from Houston, Jeanne Houston, was interviewed by the Jacksonville Sun just days after her cousin was executed by the state of Florida. Eaton contemplated the reasons that she suspects that her cousin did not receive the same level of support as had Karla Faye Tucker just one month earlier: “She may not have been as photogenic, as young or as pretty as Karla, but she was just as good a Christian.”40 In the days leading to her execution, Buenoano’s comments to the press indicated that she too was aware of the differential treatment that she had received in comparison to Karla Faye Tucker. “Karla was a young female, very attractive and she had become a Christian in prison,” Ms. Buenoano said. “We all prayed that she would be granted a stay of execution and clemency because we felt that she was a different person and she deserved a chance. Possibly, I am a different person. But I was a Christian when I came here. I was a devout Catholic. I’ve not changed in that.”41

The lessened media attention and public support given to Buenoano may have contributed to the anti–death penalty movement’s struggle to mobilize individuals to join the movement. If a campaign had been organized around the case of this particular death row inmate, it might have aided the movement in its efforts to build a diverse constituency. Even though Buenoano’s name is a misleading representation of her ethnicity, the mere mention of her name on fliers that associate her case with the flaws of the death penalty may have been enough to catch the eye of prospective activists of color. Latinos in particular may have been drawn to examine the death penalty if Buenoano’s case were brought to their attention. It would not be accurate, however, to suggest that Buenoano was completely ignored by the media. Most often in the state of Florida, where she sat on death row, there was at least some media coverage of the case and eventual execution of Judias Buenoano. Following on the heels of the national exposure given to Karla Faye Tucker, however, the minimal attention given to Judias Buenoano may have had a more devastating effect on the recruitment of minorities than ignoring the Buenoano case altogether. Latinos who stumbled upon the occasional article focused on Buenoano may have been

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turned off by the limited attention given to her case, given all the fanfare around Karla Faye just one month prior. The overwhelmingly white face of the movement, combined with what may have very well appeared to be a disproportionate emphasis on the cases of white death row inmates, may have left Latinos and other racial minorities feeling as though the movement was not for them.

WANDA JEAN ALLEN AND FRANCIS NEWTON Several years after Tucker and Buenoano were executed, the first female of color to be executed in the United States since 1954 lost her fight for life. Wanda Jean Allen is the African American woman who was executed by the state of Oklahoma on January 11, 2001. The movement seemed intent on not letting Allen go to the death chamber without a fight. NCADP was among a collection of organizations that mobilized support for Allen, bringing national and even international attention to her case. Her case was unusual in many ways, beyond the fact that she was only the sixth female to be executed since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. She was African American, a lesbian, and it was determined by her defense attorneys that she was borderline mentally retarded with an IQ of 69. Allen was convicted of killing her African American lover, Gloria Leathers, in 1988. The coalition of organizations that formed to try and save her life included the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, American Friends Service Committee, ACLU, Clergy Coalition to End Executions, International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, National Center for Lesbian Rights, National Youth Advocacy Coalition, National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, and the University of Oklahoma Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered, and Friends.42 Over 1,000 people were reported present at several protests organized in the days leading up to her execution. Over two dozen protestors, including Rev. Jesse Jackson, were arrested in an act of civil disobedience on the prison grounds in the moments leading to Wanda Jean’s execution.43 A little over a year after her execution, an HBO Undercover documentary aired about her story, called “The Execution of Wanda Jean.” Like Karla Faye Tucker, Wanda Jean Allen admitted her guilt for the murder for which she was convicted. Like Tucker, she had also asked for forgiveness for her crime and professed her conversion to Christianity as a born-again believer. This is where the similarities between Tucker and Allen stop, however, as the differences between them in terms of their race and, perhaps even more importantly, their sexual orientation made it much more challenging for Allen to forge the same level of public sympathy as had Tucker. Less than a year before her execution, as it became apparent

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that she was losing her legal battle, Allen reached out to a local black radio talk show host, Theotis Payne, and asked for his support. He was intrigued by her story and indicated that he wanted to help her, yet was concerned about how she would be received by the black community due to her identification as a lesbian. Payne later recalled his conversation with her: “I said, ‘Wanda, there is an issue we have to clear up before I start bringing these black people in here to support you,’” Payne recalls. “I said, ‘What’s the deal about you being a lesbian?’ She said, ‘I used to be a lesbian. I had interest in women. But I promise you, I’ve been converted as a Christian. And in my Christian faith that is a sin. I’m born again. That’s the old me, not the new me.’ And I said, ‘That’s critical, Wanda, because when I go to start talking to these black preachers, they have real issues with homosexuality.’”44

In an in-depth examination of thirty-five case studies of women on death row, it was determined by Kathryn Farr that a “heterosexualized portrayal of female evil” has an effect on the sentencing of women to death row.45 The difference between Karla Faye Tucker and Judias Buenoano is noted by Farr, as she notes that despite their similar “born again” status, “the execution of Buenoano came and went with nary a word of sympathy and in fact very little media coverage of any sort.”46 She attributes this difference to the media’s highly feminized depiction of Tucker as “pretty, young, and demure,” while pictures of Buenoano portrayed a “grim and masculine visage with pursed lips and short, slicked-back hair.”47 Farr also describes the case of Wanda Jean Allen in her study, as she refers to the overrepresentation of women of color among lesbians and heterosexual women who are “linked through portrayals of the perpetrators as embodiments of defeminized and dehumanized female evil for whom chivalry must be forfeited and the most severe punishment delivered.”48 The only other African American woman who has been executed since the 1976 reinstatement of the death penalty occurred in 2005 with the Texas execution of Francis Newton. She was convicted of murdering her husband and two children eighteen years before her eventual execution and maintained her innocence throughout the entire time. She was described by her attorneys as having a strong faith in God.49 As her execution drew near, NCADP posted an appeal on its website, asking its members to contact the governor and ask for a stay. The local NAACP chapter protested Newton’s execution on legal and moral grounds. Nelson Linder, head of the Austin NAACP chapter, stated, “Given the fact that the evidence was not clear, and she did not have an effective council makes you question due process. Race always plays a factor in any crime in America. It is very troubling.”50 It has been estimated that thirty to fifty protesters from the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement, the National Black United Front, and the New Black Panther Party gathered outside of the prison to protest Newton’s execution.

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Another seventy-five people protested her execution outside the governor’s mansion in Austin. At the time of her execution, it was noted that “the crowd paled in comparison to the hundreds who gathered in 1998 to protest the execution of Karla Faye Tucker.”51 Francis Newton did not manage to amass the same level of support around the nation and world that Wanda Jean Allen had received just a few years earlier. Yet both of these women had become the first black woman to be executed in each of their states since the 1976 reinstatement of the death penalty. Like Buenoano, Newton had maintained her innocence all the way up to her execution. Perhaps the lack of remorse these two women demonstrated to the public explains why they received the least amount of media attention, in comparison to that given to Tucker and Allen. Like Tucker, Allen had admitted guilt and had shown remorse, asking for redemption. At the same time, Tucker had received an immensely greater level of support than any of these other women, including Allen. There are obviously many factors that go into the public’s response to each of these female death row inmates, as well as the challenges that they each posed for the anti–death penalty movement that attempted to build support for them. The variables of gender, religion, attractiveness, sexual orientation, and the question of guilt or innocence all played a part in the complex set of factors that interacted to create the public response they each received. The factor of race cannot be discounted, however, as it certainly is not only seen to have played a key role in the public reaction to these cases, but also can be argued to have played a crucial role in the mobilization of racial minorities in the movement. Despite the fascinating gender and racial politics that accompany the cases of these four women, the activists in my study failed to mention them when I explored their views regarding the strategy of highlighting the cases of individual death row inmates within their anti–death penalty organizing. Of the cases they mentioned, there was one case more than any other that evoked strong reactions among them. In the next section, I turn to an examination of the activists’ reaction to this particular death row inmate who has become a household name both inside and outside of the movement, particularly in the Mid-Atlantic region where I conducted most of my interviews.

THE MUMIA DIVIDE An international movement has grown since 1982, when Mumia Abu Jamal was sentenced to death row in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was convicted for the December 9, 1981, murder of a police officer named Daniel Faulkner, though Abu Jamal’s supporters claim that he is an innocent po-

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litical prisoner. A strong case can be made that never before has a death row inmate in the United States been able to amass the worldwide support that Mumia Abu Jamal has been able to garner over the years since his incarceration. The tremendous growth of the Mumia movement can be attributed to a large degree in the ability of its constituents to wed the case of Mumia Abu Jamal to the message of the mainstream anti–death penalty movement. The Mumia movement is often credited for the efforts that have been made over the last ten years or so to unite the two types of organizations within the anti–death penalty movement delineated above by Mark Taylor. Activists are recognizing the need to increase their numbers in order to build support for a moratorium on executions, thus they have become more eager to work with those organizations that have maintained a focus on advocacy of death row inmates. An example of this increased willingness of the traditional abolition and moratorium organizations to join efforts with those focused on advocacy is seen with the above description of the two recent NCADP initiatives focused on grassroots and advocacy organizing. Taylor has noted that in the last ten years there “sprang up a vigorous synergy between the particular case of Abu-Jamal and the general abolitionist movement on behalf of many.”52 Despite the ability of many within the movement to connect the case of Mumia Abu Jamal to the messages of the anti–death penalty movement, many of the activists I interviewed attest to tension between some of the organizations within the movement over the best way, if at all, to integrate the two. A significant number of activists shared with me that they believe that the anti–death penalty movement, particularly those mainstream organizations focused on abolition or moratorium, is not making the most out of all that is presented by Mumia’s case in order to advance their cause. The words of Michelle, an African American woman in her forties, serve as an example of this common sentiment. Michelle has been an activist for nearly two decades and is one of the most prominent national leaders of the anti–death penalty movement. She lives and works in Philadelphia, therefore, she has been a witness to the local movement activity that has occurred on behalf of Mumia over the years since he has been imprisoned. Michelle proclaims, I think it’s hard to ignore Mumia’s importance to the movement and I think the movement has not been creative or smart about how to work on his case without it dominating the movement. . . . He’s gotten national attention and it would be a great way of helping the international community and the death penalty as a whole. It’s unfortunate that people don’t view it as an opportunity.

Arguments are presented by several activists as to why they think that many individuals and organizations within the movement don’t readily

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work with those who advocate for Mumia. These arguments are often reminiscent of the conflict presented above between those who hold silent vigils and those who participate in civil disobedience. Of the two types of strategies, advocates for Mumia are much more likely to engage in civil disobedience than anything beginning with the word “silent.” Mark Taylor attributes much of the success won nationally and internationally by those in the Mumia movement to their “embrace of dramatic action—ranging from regular use of the peoples’ various creative arts to the dramatics of bodily confrontation in civil disobedience.”53 Stan is a thirty-year-old white man from one of the chapters of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, which is an organization known for both its reliance on the strategy of civil disobedience and its tendency to highlight Mumia’s case when discussing the death penalty. Stan gives his view with the following remarks as to why he thinks that the more mainstream segments of the movement are reluctant to focus on Mumia with their efforts. With Mumia’s case, there is a reluctance among the mainstream abolitionist groups to associate themselves because I think some people don’t want to touch the political implications, the associations with radical politics. . . . People would rather talk about cases that have no stigma around them. Let’s be principled here, we cannot just take the easiest cases because that is not how we are going to build our movement. If the state is drawing a line in the sand around Mumia, then we have to say okay and step to that task.

Other activists frequently agreed with Stan’s impression that the reluctance of many in the movement to join efforts with Mumia supporters was driven to some extent by a desire to avoid radical politics. Such a desire could arise from either a strategic move to avoid any form of organizing that might alienate potential constituents or simply from the discomfort that some activists personally feel at the thought of being associated with those viewed as radical. The explanation that was given most often by activists on both sides of this issue, however, is that the dispute over how to approach Mumia’s case boils down to a difference of opinion within the movement over how to best utilize specific cases, if at all, in order to advance a position against the death penalty. Advocates for Mumia state strongly that his case can only help the movement because it is so compelling that it brings attention to all that is wrong with the death penalty. Why not focus on his specific case, they ask, when doing so brings the horrors of the death penalty to light for so many people who might not otherwise become involved in the movement? On the other hand, a significant number of activists feel just as strongly that the attention given to Mumia is so excessive that it distracts from the more central issue of the death penalty. So much attention is directed at Mumia’s case, these

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activists argue, that his supporters lose sight of the larger issue of the death penalty and the fact that there are over 3,200 others on death row across the country. Renee is an African American activist in her thirties and she lives in Philadelphia. She recalls a time when her organization was hosting a conference and a group of young activists from Refuse ’n Resist!, an organization that engages in civil disobedience to expose the injustices of Mumia’s case, wanted to set up a table there containing literature primarily focused on Mumia. Renee was amazed by the level of hostility that these Refuse ‘n Resist! activists faced from other activists at the conference. People kept coming up and saying “I don’t want any more Mumia literature. I have enough Mumia literature. What about the other 3000 people on death row? Don’t you give a shit about them?” Mumia’s case is compelling and there are people on death row with cases nowhere near as compelling as Mumia’s. . . . There is a counterargument; there are systemic issues that each case represents, but we can only bring to the forefront the most compelling that will bring people in.

The comments of many activists I interviewed suggest that the reaction these young Mumia supporters received in Philadelphia is not isolated, rather reflects widespread sentiment of many activists in the movement. Joan is a white woman in her forties who hinted that part of the tension between her organization and the CEDP chapter located within the same Maryland area arises from the attention that her fellow activists from CEDP give to the case of Mumia. Her comments that follow reflect a common perspective I found among activists in virtually every state I traveled. I think the Mumia thing is a big problem. I think that they are emblematic of a lot of stuff that’s wrong in the death penalty movement. I think it’s a big problem when we start to focus on individual cases. I do understand as a scholar that you have to focus on individual cases because you can’t focus on generalities, however, when you get as focused as people are on Mumia, it’s a cultish personality then and it’s a problem and it’s never going to stop being a problem.

I heard this reference to a “cult” several times as activists shared the problems that they find with the Mumia movement. The movement organized on behalf of a man who many view as very charismatic has grown so large and has become so vocal that many people have dubbed it as having characteristics of a cult. Although Kenneth acknowledged that his organization in Virginia does focus on cases of death row inmates who are about to be executed in order to reveal what is wrong with the death penalty, he shares

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in the following quote his annoyance with those who he believes carry their focus on Mumia to a fanatical extreme. I don’t have time for Mumia. I’m not on the Mumia bandwagon. I don’t know if he is innocent or guilty. It doesn’t matter. I don’t think we should kill the guy, but still that Mumia thing, it’s all over the country. And there are plenty of people in Virginia, especially students, who have gotten on the Mumia bandwagon. I had a woman bugging me quite a bit. I don’t need to deal with Mumia. I’ve got a bunch of other guys way ahead of line in front of Mumia. There’s a whole cult thing going on. . . . It’s a cult thing and I don’t go into it at all. We don’t make any of these guys into cults in Virginia. . . . The Mumia group seems like it has just become such a cult thing out there. It is part of the price of success. What has been successful about Mumia is that they have gotten his case out there. People know who Mumia is. They have done an excellent job of getting that information out. I do have my reservations though how it just comes across cultish.

Even some of Mumia’s most ardent supporters conceded that the movement on his behalf has grown to a level that can be construed as having detrimental effects. Colleen and Yvonne are strong advocates for Mumia from two different anti–death penalty organizations in New York City. While they did not use the term “cult” to describe their concerns, they nonetheless seemed to understand why people who are not engaged in the efforts to free Mumia have perceptions of them that are similar to those of Kenneth written above. At twenty-six-years-old, Colleen is the youngest activist I interviewed. This white woman has engaged in acts of civil disobedience on behalf of Mumia, as well as to state her objection to the death penalty in general. She states that Mumia supporters have become increasingly more adept at broadening their rhetoric to include statements against the death penalty as an institution. At the same time, she confesses, “The Mumia movement does have a tendency to use him as an icon. They kind of deify him in a way, which does alienate some people.” Yvonne strongly believes that the case of Mumia is important for the anti–death penalty movement to emphasize because it helps to put a human face on the issue of the death penalty. At the same time, this African American woman agrees that Mumia has become somewhat of a celebrity. In the remarks below, she speaks of the dangers of the popularity that he has won over the years since his conviction. I think for some people with Mumia, that he is not a human being now. He has become some sort of celebrity and not thinking of him as a real person. It is like this point a friend of mine wrote: “As I’m hanging off of this cliff by my fingernails, would you just stop applauding how wonderful I am for five minutes and reach a hand out and help me up over the edge?” He felt like they

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were so busy saying “Oh, he is so articulate! Oh, he is so deep!” that he is liable to be falling off of the edge of the cliff and they would look down and go “oops.” So that is the other part of it when you turn people into objects and some of that is inevitable in a culture like ours that loves doing that to people and loves to watch them fall. We do it. We are trained that way.

Both Colleen and Yvonne provide more revealing reasons for the reluctance of the mainstream anti–death penalty movement to capitalize on the success of the Mumia movement. Regardless of whether Mumia’s advocates actually do deify him or have lost sight of his mortality, they argue that this cannot excuse the failure of activists in the movement against the death penalty to unite with the Mumia movement more fully. They assert that this failure on the part of the mainstream movement has more to do with who Mumia is than anything. Colleen suggests that many people in the movement do not want to touch Mumia’s case because they disagree with his politics, which they view as too radical. She states, “I think a lot of the hostility has to do with Mumia himself. I think it’s a bias against Mumia. . . . Part of it is a bias against Mumia because he is a radical and whatever else . . .” Yvonne agrees that many people in the movement are very uncomfortable with Mumia because of the political positions that he takes and challenges society with through his published writings. Mumia Abu Jamal rarely takes advantage of his large audience to write about his case, rather he is extremely critical of the injustices carried out by those in the power structure who systematically abuse the power given to them. He does not exempt the general public from his critical view of all that is wrong with our society, however, as revealed by the following words he has authored. People say they don’t care about politics; they’re not involved or don’t want to get involved, but they are. Their involvement just masquerades as indifference or inattention. It is the silent acquiescence of the millions that supports the system. When you don’t oppose a system, your silence becomes approval.54

Though Mumia’s words are typically very hard-hitting and invite controversy that is hard for many within society to hear, Yvonne says that the tendency of many in the anti–death penalty movement to dismiss him with their organizing efforts is more complex than simply their discomfort with his words. In the following quote, she describes why she believes that Mumia’s case does not fit with the “mind-set” of those in the traditional anti–death penalty movement. The mainstream anti–death penalty movement does have a lot of people who hate working on Mumia’s case because he is not their favorite case. It is the

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mentally retarded, illiterate, grateful as hell. It is like people who do immigration work and when immigrants fail to be grateful, they become very upset. You feel that you are going to save these poor, helpless people. It is very different from saying that these people are being oppressed and I have to go into that to be a part of working with them. It is two different mind-sets.

Yvonne’s words suggest that the reason many activists have not embraced Mumia’s case may have to do with a kind of paternalism that exists within the movement. She believes that it is not uncommon to find activists who are driven in a paternalistic manner to help those who appear needy and it is certainly difficult for anyone to appear needier than one who is facing execution. While Mumia is among those on death row in need of support, he is so fiercely independent and boldly challenging of the system that imprisons him that he does not engender a paternal urge among many. Having attended numerous rallies and demonstrations sponsored by organizers of the Mumia movement over many years, I have frequently heard his advocates cry out emphatically, “If they can do this to Mumia, then they can do this to any one of us!” What I have witnessed among those involved in the movement to free Mumia, therefore, is more of an identification with Mumia than a paternalistic view of him as some poor, helpless “other” in need of their aid. The comments of several other activists, who are also strong Mumia supporters, indicate that Yvonne is not alone in questioning the motives of her fellow activists. Patterns can be detected in the selection of death row inmates who are utilized as cases that individual activists and organizations choose to emphasize. Activists note that it is the innocent, noncontroversial, and/or those viewed as very vulnerable in some manner (i.e., mentally retarded, juveniles, women) who tend to get the most attention. Mumia’s case ultimately bears the imprint of struggles around issues of race. Due to the inevitable intersection of race with other axes of oppression, factors such as class, age, and religion must also be given at least preliminary attention for their impact on the organizing and mobilizing strategies of the movement.55 Many activists note that patterns also exist in those whom their peers in mainstream anti–death penalty organizations tend to target in terms of soliciting movement participation. As the activists spoke of such patterns that they have observed within the movement, factors such as race, class, age, and religion were frequently mentioned. In the next section, I turn to an examination of how activists often view such factors impacting upon the organizational dynamics of the anti–death penalty movement. In order to do so, it is helpful to return to an examination of resource mobilization theory as well as the criticism that this perspective has generated.

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MOBILIZING PARTICIPANTS: STRIVING TO BE INCLUSIVE According to resource mobilization theorists, a new kind of social movement emerged during the 1960s, the professionalized social movement. They maintain that many social movement organizations moved from depending upon beneficiaries to conscience constituents for resources and support.56 This group of social actors is driven to participate in social movements out of a sense of moral obligation, rather than because they stand to gain from their actions personally. Perhaps no other group of activists serves as a better example of conscience constituents as do those who are involved in the anti–death penalty movement. An examination of those active within the movement reveals conscience constituents who are very different demographically from those who are on death row across the nation. Haines has noted that the ranks of the anti–death penalty movement “have been filled mostly by middle-class people with professional backgrounds and liberal politics.”57 The contrast that exists between the activists and the direct beneficiaries of the movement against the death penalty is glaring, for the vast majority of those on death row are from poor communities and approximately half are racial minorities. The fact that anti–death penalty activists are mobilized in spite of having such visible differences from death row inmates is salient and raises questions about how race and class impact upon the ways in which they carry out their organization and mobilization efforts. The tensions generally found with the case of Mumia Abu Jamal, as described above, often manifest in the words of the activists in terms that center on the race and class of those in the movement. To a lesser extent, the factors of age and religion also emerge in their discussions of the impact of Mumia’s case on the movement. Therefore, it is readily apparent that the rifts that arise as a result of differences of opinion on how to approach Mumia’s case mask underlying tensions that center on various forms of oppression. Resource mobilization theorists have argued that organizational choices within a given social movement are influenced by the pre-existing political opportunity structure within which the movement developed. They assert that “the social movement organizations created during a particular phase of mobilization ‘manufacture’ resources for succeeding phases, influencing, or at least attempting to influence, their character.”58 From this perspective, it is not surprising to find dissention along the lines of race and class between various anti–death penalty groups since the dominant organizations within the contemporary movement originated from the ranks of lawyers and other, largely white, professionals who have tended to target their opponents with conventional forms of protest. When those taking a resource mobilization approach speak of social movement organizations, they pay particular attention to what they have

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termed “professional social movement organizations.” This type of social movement organization is perceived as able to effectively mobilize resources and is defined as one that has (1) a leadership that devotes full time to the movement, with a large proportion of resources originating outside the aggrieved group that the movement claims to represent; (2) a very small or non-existent membership base or a paper membership; (3) attempts to impart the image of “speaking for a constituency,” and (4) attempts to influence policy toward that same constituency.59

From his extensive examination of the contemporary anti–death penalty movement, Herbert Haines maintains that it has all of the characteristics of a professional social movement set forth by resource mobilization theorists, except for paid staff at the state level.60 To the extent that organizations within the anti–death penalty movement strive to meet the expectations held by resource mobilization theorists for social movement organizations, they face a great deal of criticism. The criticism of the resource mobilization approach noted most often by far has been directed toward its claim that marginalized groups must rely on external support because they lack the organizational and political resources needed to initiate and sustain a successful movement. When political protest has occurred among such marginalized groups, critics of this perspective argue that “resource mobilization analysts have reduced lower-stratum protest politics to irrational and apolitical eruptions.”61 Oberschall’s political-conflict model has been deemed a variant of resource mobilization theory. He has nevertheless noted that while the collective action of these “lower-stratum groups” is often loosely structured and may not hold the influence of formal organizations, their participation is crucial to the success of social movements. In reference to the decline of the Civil Rights Movement, he maintains, “The single most important failure of the middle-class black and the civil rights organizations was their failure to mobilize and to organize the lower-class community.”62 Haines attributes the “grassroots deficit” that he found in the anti–death penalty movement to its tendency to contain primarily white, middle-class professionals.63 A significant number of these conscience constituents in the movement provide the “paper membership” resource mobilization theorists see as so crucial to the success of a professional social movement. Several activists I interviewed indicated that they view these constituents as invaluable to the movement for their “checkbook activism.” Among the criticism directed toward resource mobilization theory is the view that professional social movements, such as that organized by anti–death penalty activists, all too often promote “symbols of reform without the substance,” which “cannot compensate for the power of an indigenous movement.”64

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The comments of many activists I interviewed reveal similar criticisms of activists and organizations within the anti–death penalty movement. As described above, it is frequently argued that the movement lacks a strong commitment to grassroots organizing. In their explanations of this chasm, as well as their accounts of the Mumia controversy or the conflict they have found over strategies endorsed, references are regularly made to the race and class of movement participants. In the following quote, Stan’s words reflect a feeling shared by many of his peers that the Mumia controversy reflects underlying tensions about race and class. In addition, the remarks of this thirty-year-old white man reveal another tension that lies in the movement: one that is based on religion or morality. He argues that some people in the movement do not want to touch Mumia’s case because doing so would mean breaking out beyond those familiar circles and bringing in new people, especially people of color. I think it means taking up the fact that the death penalty is racist, looking at it squarely and looking at taking up cases like Mumia’s case as representative of that issue. The reluctance sometimes stems from the traditional abolitionist groups who are built around moral concerns and have a religious focus so the connection to the Civil Rights movement and the more social justice issues around it sometimes. . . . It’s like a middle-class approach that is measured by who the activists tend to be themselves, meaning there is a disconnect from issues of police brutality and racism, of the realities of people and sort of a hesitancy to throw themselves into the work that seems a little less familiar, that involves building coalitions with people who are sometimes politically diverse and different. If I could spur people in any direction, it would be spurring them to understand that what is at stake with cases like Mumia is the idea that we can build a multi-racial movement.

Stan is not alone with his desire to build a multiracial movement. When I asked activists to share whom they feel that the movement needs to target for participation, the majority (N=34) made some statement indicating that they feel a need to attract more persons of color. Both white and black activists alike express this concern, since of those who made such statements, twelve are white and thirteen are African American. In addition, all of the Latino/a activists who spoke with me shared that they believe the movement needs to target many more persons of color. It is noteworthy that of the whites who assert that racial minorities need to be targeted, Stan is the only one who proceeded at this point in the interview to indict activists and organizations within the movement for the limited racial diversity currently found in the movement. Those African Americans and Latinos who vocalized a need for the movement to make a more concerted effort to target racial minorities were much more likely to go on and offer explanations for the lack of racial diversity

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within the movement. Over half of them fault the movement for its racial composition, pointing to the dominant race and class of its participants as major contributing factors. Like Stan, they assert that the approach of many white, middle-class activists in the movement has not been particularly welcoming of other populations. For instance, thirty-four-year-old Renee states, This is a very white, middle-class, professionalized group. We need to work with more African Americans, more Latinos, more Asian Americans. We really need to diversify the movement and I also think we need to change our tactics. As a result of having a group that is predominantly white, and predominantly adults, the model of activism still hinges on the 1960s model of activism, that is, we are very passive about our activism. . . . And I think there’s also a certain amount of elitism within the leadership of the different national organizations who would much prefer to be on Larry King than to be in the inner city at 8 o’clock at night trying to work with people who have a host of other issues that we need to be concerned about.

Several other African American activists also accused the movement of being elitist with their organizing and mobilizing efforts. In response to my question asking who the movement needs to target for participation, fortyfive-year-old Malcolm replies, I don’t think we should target any special groups. I think we should just stop being elitist and deal with the issue. It will certainly eliminate the tendency for us to target some of our buddies to join up with us. You know, white liberals looking for white liberals and the black liberals who are “wannabe white liberals.”

Martin is a thirty-four-year-old professor in New York City. His response to the question I posed regarding targeting participants expands on Malcolm’s comments with an explanation of how elitism, in conjunction with racism, may affect the organizational dynamics of the movement. There is a kind of elitist perspective of who has the education, who can secure grants, who can do the work, who can file lawsuits, meanwhile you’re working in a narrow frame of reference. Maybe in large measure the movement isn’t as successful as it should be because the movement should be trying to tap into the resources and know how and energy of what should be its natural constituencies. And I think a lot of it has to do with racism we are not conscious of. . . . I think that you have a lot of people who have a paternalistic attitude saying that we have to help them as opposed to trying to develop leadership around these issues in these communities.

When racism was identified as a factor that activists believe influences the racial makeup of the movement, this racism is believed to be largely uncon-

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scious. The remarks made by forty-two-year-old Robert below are typical of those activists who pinpoint racism as a major contributing factor in the movement’s failure to draw significant numbers of racial minorities. Racism is a part of it. It’s unconscious, very unconscious. I don’t always call that racism, but it is kind of an unconscious racial alienation that we have to address as well. It is more of an unconscious prejudice in many ways. When I say prejudice, I mean classic ignorance. Every once in a while there is a racist element to it. The movement requires resources. Are the resources being directed in a way that African American communities and other communities have what they need to be able to make these powerful arguments? No, and the money needs to be there. Too often, because these communities aren’t seen as important, the racist element comes in by deciding not to direct the resources to those communities.

From the research he conducted about the anti–death penalty movement, Herbert Haines speculates that discussion within the movement over how well organizations have been able to enlist the support of racial minorities “has focused too much on bringing minorities into existing movement organizations or enlisting black organizations in existing strategies.”65 It is crucial for mainstream anti–death penalty organizations to step out of their comfort zone to organize in communities of color. A significant number of activists state that they do not believe that a majority of their peers, especially white, middle-class professionals, are willing to organize outside of the areas where they feel most comfortable. While they were not necessarily as bold with their remarks as were their peers who dubbed it “racism” or “elitism,” many activists nonetheless made statements that seem to support Haines’s suspicion that many whites in the movement are only interested in mobilizing racial minorities under their own terms. The words of Leonard, a fifty-one-year-old African American from Philadelphia, exemplify this sentiment. I think there’s tension between the various communities, for example, there is a resistance to coming into poor areas by people in the movement. They have to go out of their comfort zone. The young activists, especially the middle class white and black activists, don’t go out of their comfort zone to organize.

Chano shares a similar concern about the movement’s reluctance to do outreach within communities of color. He describes the problem as an innocent neglect on the part of the movement of black and Latino communities due to a naïve expectation that the issue of the death penalty alone is enough to draw racial minorities into the movement. Organizations in the movement thought that if we hire a person of color, they automatically come there, but it’s not that way. A lot of organizations of color,

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their primary issues are not necessarily the death penalty. We expect because an issue is good, that it affects the community, then the community is going to come to us. We have to go to them. What we have to do is constant outreach to groups. Sometimes they are not going to come to your meetings. You have to scholarship them in.

With Chano’s last remark he is referring to bringing racial minorities who are struggling economically to the annual conferences hosted by NCADP. He explains, “I think that for Latinos and Latinas and blacks, they are involved in so many committees in their home towns that sometimes they don’t have the money or availability. It’s expensive! Like maybe we could get a hotel that’s not so comfortable, but cheaper. You’ve got to lower the registration fee, especially in these economic times, and maybe stay at Motel 6.” It is indeed the case that NCADP has a scholarship fund that members can donate to in order to assist those who cannot afford to attend otherwise. Chano is aware of this fund, but he would like to see it receive more support so that many more people are able to attend the conferences. By the time that the costs of the registration fee, hotel, and travel expenses are tallied, the total bill for a weekend conference is likely to range anywhere from $500 to $1000, depending upon how far the individual must travel. One way to minimize these costs, Chano suggests, is to simply lower the fees and the standard for accommodations. Chano believes that those who are leading the various national and state level organizations would be able to pull more racial minorities into the movement if they made it more of a conscious priority to do so. All too often, he contends, it is an afterthought to build diverse ranks for particular events or campaigns. What they want at the last minute is to bring in blacks or Latinos, instead of putting on their agenda that this month, we are going to get so many Latino churches, so many black churches, so many Asians, so that people can really begin to understand that there is a connectedness. And you know, Latinos have been even slower to come on in because the movements have made less of an impression on them.

When I spoke with the group of Puerto Rican activists whom I met and interviewed at the most recent NCADP conference, held January 2009 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, they echoed many of the same concerns that Chano had expressed. For most of them, this was the second NCADP conference that they had attended. Angelica and Marisol agreed that the Harrisburg conference was much improved from the previous year’s conference in San Jose, California. Both of these young Puerto Rican women shared that they were “shocked to find so many white people” at the San Jose conference and they were also disappointed that there were very few young

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people there close to their ages. Angelica recalled leaning over to Marisol and whispering, “Why aren’t there more minorities here?” Angelica was dismayed by the virtual absence of other Latino/as and people of color there, as she stated, “I was expecting a lot more minorities.” Detecting a void in the conference program of workshops and plenary sessions on topics focused on the importance of building a diverse movement, Angelia approached the executive director of NCADP. Recalling her request that day, “I asked her if I could do something at the next conference regarding the Hispanic community. Can we talk about how to gather them? What is it that we are doing to not include them?” She was pleased with the response that she received, as the director was “very happy” to include her in the next year’s program. All of the Puerto Rican activists who traveled to Harrisburg the following year shared with me that they greatly appreciated the inclusion of workshops and sessions in the conference program focused on the Latino community. The part of the program that was devoted to Angelica’s request from the previous year was scheduled as a plenary session for all conference attendees. With the attention of all their fellow activists, the members of PRCADP spoke about the importance of organizing the Latino community, and they offered a variety of recommendations that would enable them to do so. In addition, several of them led a workshop titled “Death Penalty in the Caribbean,” which addressed ways to increase activism in Caribbean countries. One evening during the weekend of events, the film titled “Juan Melendez— 6446” premiered for everyone to learn the story of an exoneree who had spent 6,446 days on death row as an innocent man before he was released. Juan Melendez had been exonerated from Florida’s death row in 2002 after spending nearly eighteen years there. The film had just been released, yet his story was a familiar one to most of the activists in attendance at the conference. Since his release from death row, Juan has thrown himself into anti–death penalty activism. He has worked tirelessly with NCADP as he has traveled the world to tell his story. Having recognized Juan’s many talents, extreme dedication, and his ability to serve as an excellent resource both as an exoneree and Latino, NCADP added him to their board. Over the seven years that have passed since his release from death row, Juan has been a regular attendee at NCADP conferences, and most of the activists who attend these conferences have come to know Juan’s story well. The new film about his story was received very well, as there did not appear to be a dry eye in the room when the film’s final credits ran across the screen. Even though there were no more than ten Latinos in attendance at the Harrisburg NCADP conference, the Puerto Rican activists returned home heartened by the attention given in the conference program to the importance of recruiting the Latinos into the movement. A couple of them shared

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with me that they only wish that the idea to involve them in the conference had come from the movement leadership. They indicated that they could be more hopeful that the movement will indeed follow the recommendations they offered to build the movement’s ranks with Latinos and elevate their priority to diversify the movement if the conference organizers had reached out to them. When I asked if he thinks that the movement has made it a priority to reach out to Latinos, Jorge answered emphatically, Of course not! Because the movement is run by looking for the next execution, for the next opportunity in a state to abolish the death penalty and if we hadn’t suggested the presentation, it wouldn’t have happened. They have not reached out at all. There need to be strategies to reach out and of course, language is an issue. Having the voices of Latinos, exonerees, of Latino families who have loved ones on death row, of Latino murder victim families, it will make people more interested, because they will not see a white face, they will see one of ours.

Jorge’s words became reminiscent of those Chano had shared with me, as he continued, “You have to establish personal contact with the community, with the leaders, not expecting for people to be involved in your struggle automatically.” In a separate interview, Angelica raised similar concerns. Regarding the presentation that she had requested at the previous conference to bring to the 2009 conference program, Angelica stated, “I don’t think that if we hadn’t brought it up . . .” Her voice trailed off, yet when she came back to the topic, she added with a disappointed tone, “They didn’t think about us, we had to go to them.” At the same time, she was quick to add that she and her fellow activists in Puerto Rico remain hopeful that the movement may now dedicate more of its time and resources toward pulling Latinos into the movement. With his critique of the Mumia movement, one extremely dedicated activist inadvertently provides support for the claim that many whites in the movement are not willing to alter their forms of organizing in order to mobilize more racial minorities. Kenneth is a forty-five-year-old white man who is well known in the movement for his constant dedication to the cause. As he spoke about those Mumia supporters he has encountered in his state of Virginia, he indicated that he is extremely annoyed by them and doubts their sincerity to participate in the movement against the death penalty. Mumia’s case, I don’t think helps the movement. Even though the Mumia folks are saying that it does, that they are working for the movement. I don’t know, all these people in Virginia, I don’t see them subscribing to our newsletter or working for alternatives to the death penalty. They are focused on Mumia. They are not interested in a statewide movement. They don’t come to rallies. They don’t come to conferences.

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Kenneth continues on to say that he believes that if Mumia were released today, his supporters would go home, rather than direct their activism to the struggle against the death penalty. With the above words, he assumes that because Mumia supporters do not participate in the events sponsored by his organization, they are more interested in Mumia than fighting the death penalty. It does not seem to occur to him that these Mumia supporters may simply be looking for strategies other than those offered by Kenneth’s organization through which to express their outrage about the death penalty. One young white female who identifies as a Mumia supporter senses that activists from mainstream organizations in her local area of New York City hold opinions similar to those projected by Kenneth. She states, “I feel like there is something of a division in the movement between the professionals and the rest of us. I think there are a lot of things the movement does that sort of alienate a more diverse crowd from coming around.” Eric, an African American D.C. activist in his fifties, seems to agree that the movement may be alienating potential participants. He says that the “veterans” of the movement “have a way to reach young white Quakers, but they don’t have a way to reach young black hip-hoppers.” He attributes the ability of the Mumia movement to become significantly diverse, in terms of race, class, and age, to the direct action strategies that he finds as generally more appealing to the young and to racial minorities. Eric is not alone with his identification of the need to draw more young people into the movement. When I asked the activists to tell me who they feel that the movement needs to target for participation, the response of “youth” was second only to that of “racial minorities/people of color” in terms of groups that the activists identified. Nearly half of the activists (N=23) stressed a need for the movement to mobilize young people. Slightly more blacks (eleven) than whites (seven) shared this concern. In addition, five of the nine Latinos spoke about the importance of bringing young people into the movement. Many activists believe that more young people would bring new energy and vitality to the movement. Others are simply concerned that if the movement does not succeed in attracting younger generations, it will not be able to replicate itself and, thus, will eventually lose ground in the struggle against the death penalty. Chano’s comments about all that young people can bring to the movement are typical. I think where we have to invest in our movement is in the college campuses and the high schools. Every major movement in this world has had as one of its founding legs, the student movement: peace, environmental, women’s. . . . That’s why if you go there, you are more likely to build support, plus these people are more active. They’ll do stuff that you would never imagine or think

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of doing, more creative than older folks. You know, us older folks only know how to dance one way, but younger folks are willing to try a whole bunch of different dances and explore more quickly. Those of us who have gotten comfortable in life, including a lot of our abolition movement people, we’re afraid to do something that will embarrass us. I think the crux of our future is in the youth movement, young leadership, and we should work for our conferences to get the scholarships to get more people of color and young people there. You have to push it.

Diana agrees that it is absolutely crucial to the success of the movement to pull young people into its ranks. She argues that outreach should be done to pull in young people who are even younger than those in college and high school. When Diana had an opportunity to observe exoneree Juan Melendez share his story with middle school students, she was extremely encouraged by the reception that he received. I think we are ignoring the high schools. This is the future! This is the future of the country! These are the folks we need to be talking to! First of all, they are high schoolers today and they are voters tomorrow, but then they go home and talk to the parents. They can influence their parents. We need to change the whole psyche of the people and we aren’t going to do that unless we are working with the youth. Because even if we succeed in abolishing the death penalty there are always going to be efforts to reinstate, always. We have to have the young kids realize that this thing is wrong. We should be getting people out to the high schools pervasively and we’re not, we’re not even close. I think we should start as young as the middle schools. It’s unbelievable how the middle schoolers can process this issue, it is just unbelievable. Before Juan Melendez came to speak to a middle school, I was a little worried that they might be too young to process this issue. But then I told myself that they are learning about the Civil Rights Movement, lynchings, Anne Frank, and the atrocities in the Second World War. So that kind of gave me a little bit of solace that this isn’t going to be too much for them to hear. And then after Juan spoke, it was so affirming because the questions coming from these middle schoolers were on par with questions coming from law students, I’m not kidding! So it is not too young to start with middle schoolers.

NOTES 1. Doug McAdam, “The Decline of the Civil Rights Movement,” in Social Movements of the Sixties and Seventies, ed. Jo Freeman (New York: Longman, 1983), 337–38. 2. Doug McAdam, John McCarthy, and Mayer Zald, eds., Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). 3. Several of these state and local organizations are chapters of national organizations, such as Amnesty International and the ACLU. See appendix C for a complete

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list of all national, state, and local organizations that my interview subjects represent. 4. John D. McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald, Social Movements in an Organizational Society (Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1987). 5. Robert M. Bohm, Louise J. Clark, and Adrian F. Aveni, “The Influence of Knowledge of Reasons for Death Penalty Opinions: An Experimental Test,” Justice Quarterly 7 (1990): 175–86. 6. John D. McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald, The Trend of Social Movements in America: Professionalization and Resource Mobilization (Morristown, N.J.: General Learning Press, 1973). 7. DPIC, 2009. 8. McCarthy and Zald, Trend of Social Movements. 9. Mark Lewis Taylor, The Executed God: The Way of the Cross in Lockdown America (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001). 10. Taylor, Executed God, 149. 11. Delaware has executed fourteen people since 1992. The state that has the highest number of executions per capita is Oklahoma, followed by Texas, and Delaware is ranked third. 12. Before it abolished the death penalty in 2009, New Mexico had executed only one person since it reinstated the death penalty in 1979. The execution took place in 2001. 13. Herbert Haines, Against Capital Punishment: The Anti–Death Penalty Movement in America, 1972–1994 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996). 14. Haines, Against Capital Punishment, 131. 15. Haines, Against Capital Punishment. 16. Haines, Against Capital Punishment, 133. 17. Justice for the Death Row 10. CEDP Pamphlet, 2001, 28. This source is a pamphlet that was put out by the Campaign to End the Death Penalty in 2001. www.nodeathpenalty.org. 18. Justice for the Death Row 10. CEDP Pamphlet, 2001, 9. 19. NCADP 2000 Annual Report. This source is a report that was passed out to members, at a conference, I believe. www.ncadp.org. 20. Katherine T. McCaffrey, “Social Struggle against the U.S. Navy in Vieques, Puerto Rico,” Latin American Perspectives 33, no. 1 (2006): 83–101. 21. 408 U.S. 238 (1972). 22. 428 U.S. 153 (1976). 23. 122 S. Ct. 2242 (2002); 112 S.W.3d 397 (2005); 126 S.Ct. 1727 (2006); 122 S. Ct. 2428 (2002). 24. DPIC, 2009. 25. DPIC, 2009. 26. The NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund’s “Death Row USA,” January 1, 2008. 27. DPIC, 2009. 28. As of June 2, 2009, Texas had already executed 16 people in 2009, for a total number of 439 executions since 1976. This total amount is over four times as many executions as the state of Virginia, the state with the next highest number (103) of executions during that same time period.

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29. Teresa Malcolm, “Tucker’s Death Affected Robertson Views,” National Catholic Reporter, April 23, 1999. 30. Malcolm, “Tucker’s Death.” 31. Malcolm, “Tucker’s Death.” 32. Ellen Goodman, “A Face on Death Row,” Washington Post, February 7, 1998. 33. While there are many such examples, a recent book titled A Saint on Death Row by Thomas Cahill examines the life and eventual execution of an African American man named Dominique Green. Green was executed by the state of Texas in 2004 and has been described by many, including Desmond Tutu and Sister Helen Prejean, as an extraordinary man, a “beautiful soul.” 34. Gustav Niebuhr, “Execution in Texas: Religious Debate; Tucker Case May Split Evangelical Christians,” The New York Times, February 4, 1998. 35. Sam Howe Verhovek, “Dead Women Waiting: Who’s Who on Death Row,” New York Times, February 8, 1998. 36. Verhovek, “Dead Women Waiting.” 37. The Economist, “Man, Woman, Death and God: The Death Sentence,” February 7, 1998. 38. Amnesty International—Death Penalty USA Pages (Kuno Sandholzer). http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/US/buenoano450.htm (accessed November 5, 2009). 39. Chris Anderson and Sharon McGehee, Bodies of Evidence: The Shocking True Story of America’s Most Chilling Serial Murderess . . . from Crime-Scene to Courtroom to Electric Chair (Secaucus, N.J.: St. Martin’s Paperbacks, 1991). 40. Kathleen Sweeney, “No Victims’ Kin See ‘Black Widow’ Die; Buenoano Had No Last Words,” Jacksonville Sun, March 31, 1998. 41. Orlando Sentinel, “Black Widow Says She’s Innocent, but Tired and Ready to Die,” March 18, 1998. 42. Canadian Coalition against the Death Penalty, “Groups Unite to Oppose Execution of African-American Woman in Oklahoma,” www.ccadp.org/wanda jeanallen. 43. Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, “Wanda Jean Allen,” http://www.ocadp.org/deathrow/prisoners_pages/allen.html (accessed September 3, 2009). 44. Adam Buckley Cohen, “Who Was Wanda Jean?” The Advocate, March 13, 2001. 45. Kathryn Ann Farr, “Defeminizing and Dehumanizing Female Murderers: Depictions of Lesbians on Death Row,” in The Criminal Justice System and Women: Offenders, Prisoners, Victims, and Workers, 3rd ed., ed. Barbara Raffel Price and Natalie J. Sokoloff (New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2004). 46. Farr, “Defeminizing and Dehumanizing Female Murderers.” 47. Farr, “Defeminizing and Dehumanizing Female Murderers.” 48. Farr, “Defeminizing and Dehumanizing Female Murderers.” 49. Stephen W. Smith, “Francis Newton Executed in Texas,” CBSNews.com, September 14, 2005. 50. Marjon Rostami, “State Will Execute First Black Woman,” The Daily Texan Online, September 14, 2005. 51. Smith, “Francis Newton.”

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52. Taylor, Executed God, 149. 53. Taylor, Executed God, 153. 54. Mumia Abu-Jamal and John Edgar Wideman, Live From Death Row (Boston: Addison–Wesley Publishing, 1995). 55. It is important to note that by midyear 2009, NCADP is one of many organizations that is helping to bring international attention to another black man on death row who is accused of killing a white police officer. Troy Davis is fighting for his life from Georgia’s death row, and an international movement is building to support this death row inmate who his supporters strongly believe is innocent of murder. NCADP has his photo and story on their website (www.ncadp.org). Support for Troy Davis in the anti–death penalty movement does not appear to generate much controversy at all. Given the similar racial dynamics of the Davis case and Abu Jamal’s case, the controversy that continues to surround the attention brought to Mumia Abu Jamal in anti–death penalty campaigns appears to be related more to Mumia’s radical politics than anything. 56. McCarthy and Zald, Social Movements. 57. Haines, Against Capital Punishment, 103. 58. Donatella Della Porta and Mario Diani, Social Movements: An Introduction (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishing, 1999). 59. John D. McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald, Trend of Social Movements, 375. 60. Haines, Against Capital Punishment, 156. 61. Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward, “Collective Protest: A Critique of Resource Mobilization Theory,” International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 4, no. 4 (1991). 62. Anthony Oberschall, Social Conflict and Social Movements (Engelwood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1973), 213. 63. Haines, Against Capital Punishment. 64. J. Craig Jenkins and Craig M. Eckert, “Channeling Black Insurgency: Elite Patronage and Professional Social Movement Organization in the Development of the Black Movement,” American Sociological Review 51 (1986): 812–29. 65. Haines, Against Capital Punishment, 159.

5 Framing Opposition to the Death Penalty

In the previous two chapters, the attention that I bring to the effects of the political opportunity structure and the organizational dynamics on the anti–death penalty movement provides an examination of its structural dimensions. I have argued that these two dimensions are interrelated as well, for the impact of the political atmosphere upon the movement’s organizational dynamics is significant. In this chapter, I add another dimension of social movement activity to my analysis of the anti–death penalty movement: the cultural dimension. While the effects of the structural dimensions of social movement activity should not be underestimated, it is also important to explore the cultural dimension of such activity. The cultural aspects of a social movement include factors such as the ideas, ideologies, or identities fostered by those within the movement in an effort to bring meaning to the activities carried out by its participants. Emphasis on the cultural factors of the anti–death penalty movement can assist in our understanding of the microlevel processes of social movement activity, particularly the role that such factors play in mobilizing constituents for participation in the movement. Once again, the factor of race is emphasized in my analysis of the cultural factors impacting upon the anti–death penalty movement so that cultural differences in how individuals are mobilized along the lines of race may be weighed. The interactive relationship between political opportunities and organizational dynamics is also further elucidated in this chapter with a consideration of the cultural aspects of the movement. Doug McAdam describes this relationship with his assertion that “mediating between opportunity and action are people and the subjective meanings they attach to their situations.”1 McAdam was among earlier scholars of social movements 195

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(i.e., Charles Tilly and Theda Skocpol2) who established the notion that social movements often form in response to the political opportunities that emerge and invite challenges to the power structure. This perspective, along with that of resource mobilization theorists, placed the political, organizational, and structural aspects of social movements in the center of social movement analyses. McAdam later joined in the efforts of “new social movement” theorists to respond to the omission of cultural aspects from these earlier analyses of social movements.3 Theorists following the perspective of “new social movement theory” argue that cultural resources are crucial to movement activity since social movements carry social meaning, regardless of their political impacts. The shifts that occur in political opportunities cannot be evaluated apart from these cultural resources, they maintain, because it is “the subjective processes of social construction and collective attribution that render them meaningful.”4 Drawing from Erving Goffman’s term “framing,” David Snow and Robert Benford offer one theory that strives to explore the cultural ground upon which such meaning is attached to social movement activity.5 Snow and Benford suggest that the success of a given social movement depends largely on its ability to frame the concerns of its constituents in a manner that aligns with the “life world” of potential participants.6 The political opportunities of a given time period introduce an additional challenge for the anti–death penalty movement, therefore, in that they influence how individuals will experience their “life world” and view the concerns of the movement. As a result of the conservative political structure over the last couple of decades, for instance, many activists have found it futile to focus on the racial politics of the death penalty. In an effort to examine how such variables influence the manner in which they choose to frame the death penalty, I asked the activists a series of questions focused on the way in which they frame their opposition. My research findings support those of Haines, which indicate that a majority of anti–death penalty activists frame the issue as a moral and/or religious one and define their cause narrowly.7 In an earlier chapter, I have noted that the most common concern driving those whom I interviewed to their activism in the movement has to do with a view of the death penalty as immoral. I have also described how the moral outrage of the activists takes various forms of expression, (i.e., through their religious, spiritual, or humanitarian beliefs). Differences were also noted in how the black, white, and Latino activists frame their moral outrage toward the death penalty. Next I delve deeper into the activists’ efforts to frame their moral outrage against the death penalty in a manner that will resonate with potential constituents and attract them to the movement. The factor that activists identify as the primary catalyst for their own personal decision to join the movement is not necessarily reflected in the argument that they choose most often to emphasize in their framing strategies. My examination of

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the way the activists frame their position against the death penalty in their organizing nonetheless reveals that the theme of morality again emerges as a dominant one. The array of framing strategies, and the contests that often emerge between them, are significantly influenced by the race of the activists. Just as I have demonstrated in earlier chapters the notable impact of race upon the structural dimensions of the anti–death penalty movement (i.e., the political opportunity structure and organizational structure), my analysis of the cultural dimension of this movement also finds that the race of activists weighs heavily in the framing struggles that arise. While numerous disputes exist within the movement regarding the framing strategies activists utilize to advance their message, I have selected several prominent areas of contention that are clearly associated with the race of the activists.

FRAMING MORAL OUTRAGE When the activists I interviewed were asked if they believe that the death penalty is immoral, the overwhelming majority of them responded with little hesitation that they do indeed find it immoral for the state to execute individuals. As stated by one activist quite simply, “I don’t think it’s correct to kill. It’s not moral to kill. Under no circumstances.” Nearly all of the activists shared similar sentiment with me, though some took more time than others did to explain why they find the death penalty to be immoral. Much as they had done with the first set of interview questions focused on why they personally participate in the movement, several activists went on to elaborate upon the moral questions surrounding the death penalty. Such questions typically include a focus on the moral concerns raised by religious and humanitarian arguments, yet the ways in which activists express moral outrage are varied and complex. The comments of Chris, a thirty-eight-year-old African American and a national leader of the movement, reflect the complexity of the insight shared by his peers about the immorality of the death penalty. Not only is it dehumanizing, but everything else that wraps around it is immoral. It’s immoral to have another human being strapped down for the purpose of killing them. It is immoral to put the warden in such a conflict. The one thing I’ve learned from doing this work is when I came to it I had such a clear sense of who was good and who was evil. All that got blurred very quickly. You can’t hate a guard who cries over an execution. You can’t hate a warden who is shaking during an execution.

Though they are an obvious minority, 12.5 percent of the activists shared that they do not necessarily find the death penalty to be immoral at all. The five men who compose this group of activists (three white and two

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black) do not agree with their peers who question the morality of the death penalty. While they gave various reasons for their perspective, the common thread between the responses of this small group of men is a reluctance to make moral judgments about much of anything. These activists are quick to note that morality is a subjective concept and, therefore, they maintain that the death penalty must be argued from other perspectives. For instance, when I asked forty-five-year-old Malcolm if he finds the death penalty to be immoral, he responded, It might be. Morality is a concept that is fashioned by individuals according to their own experience and ideals. It is different for different people with different outlooks and culture. Actually for me, if I look at that and really get deep into that, that seems presumptuous to say. It might be, you know. But I don’t see it that way. To me, it is a political issue. That is where it’s at. And I might get to the point where I make a moral argument, a real moral argument that everybody is buying into, but I think that would be because of a lot of political struggle.

Kenneth is another forty-five-year-old man who chooses not to focus on the morality of the death penalty. In his comments below, he expresses frustration with his fellow activists in Virginia who frame the issue as a moral or religious one because he worries that such an approach alienates people who do not identify as religious. What is moral for one person is not moral for another. Some very, very moral people are for the death penalty. I know some very, very moral people, very, very good people who are for the death penalty. . . . It is not a question of morality. That is a big issue with me. We had something with this local group in Charlottesville and they put out a press release about doing a vigil and this press release had all this reference to faith, prayer, and I was like, no, no, no, you can’t do that. If you want to do that in your name, you can do that, but you can’t do that in VADP’s name [Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty]. You are excluding a lot of people when you bring your faith into this.

While Malcolm and Kenneth are in the minority among the activists I interviewed with their perspectives on questions about the morality of the death penalty, several others who do believe that the death penalty is immoral concede that moral arguments are not effective in winning support for their cause. Bonnie’s words below represent one reason why several activists who are morally opposed to the death penalty choose other ways to frame the death penalty as they attempt to recruit new activists. I think the fact that I think it is immoral doesn’t give me any more righteousness than someone on the other extreme who thinks it is immoral not to give the death penalty. If you only take the moral stance and you don’t look at

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all of the other issues that are involved in it, you are not going to persuade a lot of people. If people push the moral position too much, they sound self-righteous.

Despite the reluctance of several activists to use moral or religious arguments to win support, a significant number of their peers continue to frame their opposition to the death penalty in such terms. Many of those I interviewed indicated that they are aware of claims that moral arguments do not effectively engender sympathy for their cause, yet they are nonetheless compelled to frame their position against the death penalty in moral or religious terms. Michelle is one such activist who feels so passionately that the death penalty is wrong, that she is not willing to back down from her desire to speak about the immorality that she finds with the death penalty. At the same time that this African American woman in her early forties uses moral and religious arguments against the death penalty, she has strategically selected the religious community for the target of her message. Rather than change the argument she feels most comfortable making against the death penalty, she has instead selected the audience who is arguably most open to her message. Michelle hopes that by mobilizing the religious community, moral arguments against the death penalty will become more persuasive for the general public. We have chosen to specifically target the religious community, not because we think that this is the sole community, but we realize that other people are targeting other groups and we recognize this group as a powerful one. Even if we weren’t working with the religious community, one of the things that bothers me is the over-intellectualizing of the issue. There are all the great arguments, but basically it’s wrong to kill. And that’s a moral argument and people have tried to shy away from that because they said the moral argument is not playing in the polls, that it doesn’t mean anything to the public. It’s ironic to me that as an overwhelming majority of people that consider themselves to be religious that we are defending this argument and I realize that it doesn’t play in the public, but I think it’s all the more reason that the religious community has to set a different tone. If it’s not playing as a moral issue, then why isn’t it? I never abandon the moral argument because that’s what makes me passionate. Even if there are a zillion statistics that prove your case, unless you can come off passionately, whatever drives you has got to show.

Joan can appreciate Michelle’s adamant refusal to hold back from expressing her moral concerns about the death penalty. This white woman in her mid-forties shares the moral outrage voiced so emphatically by Michelle, and she too is unwilling to frame her position against the death penalty in any other terms. Joan’s words below illustrate her uncompromising position in how she chooses to voice her opposition against the death penalty.

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I have to say, personally, it’s becoming harder and harder for me to make all the arguments that are in our brochure: cost, race, doesn’t deter crime, it targets the poor, it’s irreversible, makes everybody a victim, it’s a political solution. I feel disingenuous. What I feel is that killing people is wrong. I was at a round table discussion with lawyers and they asked me a long question and I said we believe that killing people is wrong. And then I just stopped talking. I didn’t feel there was any more to say after that.

Initially, it may seem that those activists who, like Michelle and Joan, frame their outrage about the death penalty in moral terms could be very effective in eliciting sympathy from their opponents. In an earlier chapter, I have noted that activists in the movement against the death penalty tend to fall on the liberal end of the political spectrum and death penalty proponents are just as likely to be identified as conservative. Yet of the two groups, it is conservatives, particularly those frequently referred to as “social conservatives,” who are most often accused of utilizing moral arguments to affect politics. While liberals have certainly been known to frame their political positions in moral terms, as seen with the moral message of the Civil Rights Movement, the rhetoric of social conservatives is more often recognized as being laden with a moral agenda. It has been determined that even when their policies have not reflected public opinion, many conservative politicians have used moral arguments to defend their political actions.8 From their interviews with Congressional Republicans, researchers found that these conservatives regularly put their moral positions above the will of the people. It was revealed that conservatives defend their actions because they are determined to “do what’s best” according to their personal values. As one Republican respondent explained: “On policy, beliefs are more important than public opinion.” Another explained that he “just does what he feels he needs to do. Public opinion is not at all useful in day-to-day policymaking.”9

When framed in a manner that appeals to moral concerns, therefore, arguments against the death penalty might initially seem to stand a good chance of being heard by those conservatives who support the death penalty. If social conservatives could be convinced that the death penalty is immoral, polls indicating that a majority of the public support the death penalty need not even necessarily interfere with their willingness to introduce legislation that would make it easier for the death penalty to be abolished. Despite the tendency of conservatives to emphasize morality with their rhetoric, anti–death penalty activists, including those activists who are compelled to frame the death penalty as a moral issue, often admit that their moral arguments are not well received by these conservatives. In

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order to understand why the activists generally find that moral arguments against the death penalty do not have the resonance one might expect to find among those who support this form of punishment, it is important to distinguish between the notion of morality generally advanced by conservatives and that embraced by many liberals. George Lakoff takes on this endeavor as he explores alternative moral systems and the way in which they lead to various political expressions. In his book entitled Moral Politics, Lakoff describes the moral systems on which conservatism and liberalism are based. He contends that political policies have everything to do with moral visions, which are promoted by liberals as well as conservatives.10 While Lakoff recognizes that there exist more than two forms of morality and politics, he has developed two models for conservative and liberal worldviews that illustrate significant differences in their notions of morality. He uses the analogy of the family systems model to illustrate the differences in how conservatives and liberals conceptualize morality. Lakoff concedes that there is variation in perspectives within each group, yet he describes the worldview of conservatives as generally following the strict father model and argues that liberals typically adhere to the nurturant parent model. With the following quote, Lakoff describes the difference between these two opposing models of the family. Strict Father morality assigns highest priorities to such things as moral strength (the self-control and self-discipline to stand up to external and internal evils), respect for and obedience to authority, the setting and following of strict guidelines and behavioral norms, and so on. . . . Nurturant Parent morality has a different set of priorities. Moral nurturance requires empathy for others and the helping of those who need help. . . . What we have here are two different forms of family-based morality. What links them to politics is a common understanding of the nation as a family, with the government as parent. Thus, it is natural for liberals to see it as the function of the government to help people in need and hence to support social programs, while it is equally natural for conservatives to see the function of the government as requiring citizens to be self-disciplined and self-reliant and, therefore, to help themselves.11

Lakoff proceeds to apply these contrary notions of morality to various social issues. In a chapter dedicated to his analysis of morality and crime, Lakoff explains why he finds that arguments against the death penalty are not received well by conservatives. He submits that such arguments are not solely about the death penalty, rather they are “emblematic of a larger issue. They are about how the state should be conceptualized and how it should function in general.”12 The nurturant parent notion of morality requires that parents give unconditional love to their children. The concept of nurturance itself “implies a reverence for life,” therefore, if the government is perceived as a nurturant parent, then “it too should have such an

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overwhelming reverence for life itself.”13 The strict father family model of morality, on the other hand, is based on reward and punishment. From this perspective, “the strict father metes out punishment for the wrongdoings of children. The Nation as Family metaphor makes the government into the Big Daddy who is meting out punishment.”14 Cases of child abuse have indeed been reported in which parents have killed their children in the name of disciplining them. When viewed along these lines, it can be argued that by enacting the death penalty “the state (is) functioning like a murderously abusive parent” for whom “the morality of reward and punishment rules supreme.”15 Lakoff’s categorization of liberals and conservatives in terms of a family systems model sheds some light into why moral arguments against the death penalty are largely ineffective with a conservative audience. He aptly illustrates how the emphasis on morality found among conservatives does not at all predispose them to be open to such arguments. Because the manner in which conservatives conceptualize morality so strongly contrasts with the liberal conception of morality, a case can be made that this difference in conceptualizations of morality only allows conservatives to dismiss moral arguments against the death penalty that much more quickly. Most of the activists I interviewed indicate that they are aware of the difficulties they face in using a moral argument. Unless a strong passion for a moral position compels them, as with the examples of Michelle and Joan above, many activists either abandon moral arguments altogether or couch them with other arguments that they feel provide a better chance of resonating with potential constituents. Perhaps more than any other argument against the death penalty, activists indicate that they find it helpful to connect their moral position to a religious argument against the death penalty. A majority of the activists I interviewed (69.5 percent) indicate that their position against the death penalty is guided, at least in part, by their religious beliefs. In addition, over half of these activists indicated that their religion serves as the driving force behind their decision to become active in the movement. In the course of making moral arguments with those whom they are striving to recruit into their ranks, many activists draw upon their religious beliefs. Betty, a white woman in her forties, challenges the religious commitment of death penalty proponents when she simply states, “Wait a minute! You are a Christian. Didn’t you ever think that anybody’s mind has the power to redeem?” This argument is one of the most popular religious arguments advanced by activists in the anti–death penalty movement: that if we believe people can change and are able to find redemption, executing murderers does not allow them the time that a life sentence may afford them to seek and find that redemption. Another religious argument that is utilized by some of the

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activists I interviewed is the argument that we need to treat those on death row in a manner that is consistent with God’s teachings about forgiveness. This argument is exemplified well by Maggie, a white woman in her thirties from New York. She says that as she strives to mobilize others against the death penalty she likes to throw out the popular phrase used by Christian evangelicals, “What would Jesus do?” She recalls one particular time when this approach worked for her: “I went through all of the arguments with one guy and when I asked him ‘What would Jesus do?’ he said, ‘Okay, you’ve got me.’” Religious arguments against the death penalty, such as those articulated so clearly by Betty and Maggie, have met with some measure of success in past efforts to recruit religious conservatives. Perhaps the most prominent example of this success can be seen with the ability of the movement to reach some leaders of the religious right with their message, including Christian Coalition leader Pat Robertson. As I have examined in the previous chapter, in the 1990s the movement was able to galvanize the support of several leaders from the religious right, including Robertson, in the fight to save the life of self-proclaimed born-again Christian Karla Faye Tucker. Similarly, other evangelical Christians who had previously supported the death penalty suddenly espoused arguments about the need to forgive and offer redemption to death row inmates as they fought to save Tucker’s life. This is remarkable because of all religious groups, it is arguably such Bible Belt Christian evangelicals who are least likely to oppose the death penalty. When I spoke with activists who frame their position against the death penalty in a religious manner, they often noted the importance of targeting these religious right conservatives with their message. The religious right, activists aptly note, has been co-opted by the political right, thus they contain power to sway the position of political conservatives on the death penalty. Many scholars have noted the cooperation between the religious right and right-wing politicians as together they push for “nothing less than a major assault in those policies, programs, and attitudes viewed as threatening ‘traditional family values’ in America.”16 Religious conservatives have successfully “used their influence to push the center of political gravity to the right.”17 As a result of the frequent alliance between the religious right and the political right, moral arguments against the death penalty could prove to be more effective when shared religious beliefs are wedded to notions of the immorality of the death penalty. While religious proponents of the death penalty might easily dismiss the “nurturant parent” notion of morality championed by anti–death penalty activists, they may have a harder time doing so when confronted with a moral argument that is coupled with religious beliefs that they embrace. Social movement theorists have previously recognized the significance of the “politico-religious linkage” that

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political conservatives have managed to forge with the New Christian Right in their efforts to build a constituency that would support the policies of Republicans.18 Whether activists argue that the death penalty interferes with our ability as a society to offer redemption or forgiveness to murderers, or because it entitles us to “play God” with the lives of others, religious arguments appear to be a prevalent framing strategy utilized by those within the movement who are morally driven. Later in this chapter, I consider the role that race plays in these differences in how the immorality of the death penalty is framed. First, I turn in the next section to an examination of the impact of race upon how broadly or narrowly the issue of the death penalty gets framed by activists and the contention that these contrasting framing strategies generate within the movement.

RACE AND STRATEGIC CHOICES: BROAD VERSUS NARROW FRAMES When I asked the interviewees how they choose to frame their position against the death penalty, a general tendency emerged among the black and Latino activists to identify an array of framing strategies. The white activists I interviewed, on the other hand, were much more likely to reveal more narrowly focused frames that they use in their arguments against the death penalty. One of the questions I asked of the activists is whether they feel that the movement would be more effective if it narrowed or broadened its focus. Of all the questions that I asked them regarding their framing strategies, it was this question that yielded the largest racial divide. While a majority of the white activists (65 percent) feel that it is best to maintain a narrow focus exclusively on the death penalty, most of the black activists (75 percent) feel that in order to build a stronger, more effective movement, the message must be broadened to include concerns about other issues of social justice. A majority of the Latinos (seven of the nine interviewed) also noted that the message of the movement would be best received if it were linked to issues that resonate with people more closely. Marisol emphasized this point when she said quite simply, “They do not feel compelled; they do not feel the calling because it is not related to them.” The words of Renee and Franklin below reflect the opinions of those activists who fall on either side of the debate regarding whether it is best to frame the issue of the death penalty in a narrow or broad manner. I met with both of these activists in their offices, where they practice law in the nearby cities of Philadelphia and New York as capital defense lawyers. Renee is an African American woman in her early thirties, and Franklin is a white man in his early fifties. Renee identifies a number of social justice

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issues that she believes are related to the issue of the death penalty. In the following quote, she shares that she is discouraged by what she finds as an overall neglect on the part of the movement to broaden the message of the movement and form coalitions with those who are sympathetic to these other social justice issues. I think the abolitionist movement would do a better job if it broadened its focus. I think this issue encapsulates a whole bunch of other social justice issues: poverty, discrimination, mental illness, economic disadvantage, gender-related issues, violence. For us as a movement not to work with people who specifically address those other issues makes us very shortsighted.

Franklin indicates that he has an appreciation for how various social justice issues, such as those identified by Renee, are related to the concerns that often drive opposition to the death penalty. He cautions against connecting other issues to the death penalty, however, for he argues that doing so could be fatal to the movement’s efforts toward coalition building. It should keep its focus on the death penalty. The reason why the focus has to be on the death penalty is that although some of the participants in the movement will themselves be in other social issue movements, we’re not going to be able to find agreement on these other issues among everybody who would be against the death penalty. We should not be taking the view that, well in order to be against the death penalty, you have to agree with me on this other issue or even that you have to agree with me as to why you are against the death penalty. You just have to be against it. To do anything else has the result of excluding people who could otherwise be supporting of us and, where we are at least perceived as being a small minority that is to the left of Michael Dukakis, you have to be able to get as much support as you can.

Renee and Franklin are not alone with their concerns about how best to build coalitions with other social justice activists. While they share the same eagerness to enlist the aid of anyone who might be sympathetic toward their cause, they represent two conflicting schools of thought that I found among the activists regarding how best to do so. Like Renee, many activists believe that broadening the message of the movement to incorporate outrage about other related social issues would allow the movement to bring in vast numbers of people who might not otherwise see connections between the death penalty and the issue(s) that most concern them. Still others voice hesitation similar to that expressed by Franklin with broadening the movement’s message, stating that doing so can only serve to rob it of any legitimacy it may otherwise gain among social conservatives, as well as promote divisiveness within the movement. The following comments reflect the sentiment of activists who subscribe to the belief that broadening the movement’s message is the way to build

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coalitions and strengthen the power of the movement to reach eventual abolition of the death penalty. You don’t prevail on such a controversial issue, particularly when the majority of the population are against you, by thinking that you just stick to that one issue. In our context, where the death penalty crops up is intertwined with problems of racism, classism, bigotry, disparate treatment of different groups, all this kind of madness. It is really elitist to separate one from the other. I think we, from a strategic perspective, have to be thinking and be able to articulate the death penalty in terms of the larger criminal justice debate. If we cannot do that, we will not grow in communities. We cannot go into a black community and not be able to talk about the death penalty in a larger criminal justice framework. Nationally, as much as we are able, we should find ways to embrace larger either collective action or coalitions that may involve other social justice issues if there is something big that is happening. You have to see the connectedness when you address the death penalty. If you just talk about the death penalty, then there are some people who you’ll get to support it, but there are others who will say, “Why? The death penalty doesn’t affect me. It only affects those people who commit crimes and I’m not criminal.” Unless you can look at it in context, which means that you have to talk about some of these other issues, then you can’t do it. So I think we have to see it as part of the big picture because if we don’t, a lot of people will be turned off to address the issue because they will see it as somebody else’s problem.

The camp of activists who believe that the movement would do better to maintain a narrow focus on the death penalty voices a very different perspective from the view expressed by those above. The following quotes reinforce the side of the debate within the movement that advocates for framing the death penalty in a narrow manner. If I had to say what the whole movement should do, I think that we are better off focusing on the death penalty because I simply think we have a chance to convince people who are not necessarily going to be convinced about the broader agenda that a lot of us share. The demand has to stand as a single issue. I think you actually get the widest cross-section of people when you simplify it to one issue. We’re here to put a moratorium on the death penalty, to abolish the death penalty. It’s less that coming together we have to agree on. You can build an amazingly diverse movement around a single issue because people can come at it from a variety of moral views and perspectives and a whole slate of other issues. We really need to focus on the death penalty as the issue and you can certainly draw people in who have other issues but certainly not have these issues as part of your position.

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Several other activists who share in the belief that it is crucial to maintain a focus on the single issue of the death penalty do not arrive at this position out of a concern for the best way to work with other social activists. While these anti–death penalty activists do not necessarily consider activity directed at building a grassroots movement to be detrimental, such a strategy is viewed as an ineffective way to direct their energy. Bonnie is a white woman in her fifties who takes such a position. Bonnie identifies as a pacifist and is well known by social activists inside and outside of the movement for her extensive work in her state with those who are organized against war, racism, classism, and other social justice concerns. While she has an appreciation for the links that are often made between the death penalty and other issues and she would certainly like to see many more people join the anti–death penalty movement, Bonnie feels that it is more important to maintain a narrow focus on the death penalty. She trusts that eventually, as people explore the issue of the death penalty in more depth, they will “come to understand how the criminal justice system operates and they will become more open to other issues of reform.” In the meantime, Bonnie argues, “the goal to have a mass movement in and of itself from my point of view is not a good use of resources.” Walter also takes the position that the death penalty needs to be framed in a narrow manner because he is concerned about how an anti–death penalty message broadened to incorporate multiple issues might be received by the power structure. This white man in his fifties has been an activist in an array of social movements over several decades, and he identifies a long list of social issues that he feels are related to the death penalty. Like Bonnie, he is not convinced that framing the death penalty as one of a conglomerate of social ills is the best approach to win the support of powerful conservatives. In response to my question asking whether the movement’s message should be broadened or narrowed, Walter responded, I think it should be narrowed. There are injustices, civil rights are important, violence, all of these issues. I think you need to be well-grounded in some of these things, but I think in the approach to a legislator or a conservative group that supports the death penalty, I think it should be the death penalty, period. If you go to the legislature and say we want to get rid of the death penalty and we want to clear the prisons and we want justice for the poor, they will say, “Wait a minute! I can’t do all of that! Even if I did agree with you!” So nothing gets done and you don’t get heard. We’re not trying to build a movement of supporters. We’re trying to talk to people who are not part of the movement.

The debate found within the anti–death penalty movement over whether its participants should broaden or narrow its message as they struggle to be heard is not a new one. From his study of the difficulty that social movements have in achieving their goals, William Gamson makes a distinction

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between those movements that pursue “single goals” and those that set out to achieve “multiple goals.”19 While he notes that a social movement taking on multiple goals may be able to attract more people, he adds that doing so invites the possibility of creating internal factions of activists who disagree on how or the order in which these multiple goals should be addressed. Gamson ultimately finds the social movements focused on a single issue to be more successful than those that adopt multiple goals.20 Several activists who lean toward framing the death penalty in a broad manner nonetheless are keenly aware of the dangers described by Gamson in doing so. Unlike the majority of their peers who fall solidly on one side of the debate or the other, when I asked them whether they believe that the issue should be framed in a broad or narrow manner, this small minority struggles somewhere in the middle. These activists see the value in broadening their message, yet they advocate for doing so in a very cautious manner, so as not to dilute the movement’s message against the death penalty. Says one activist, “I think that the anti–death penalty movement, almost by definition, needs to continue to be a single-issue campaign; however, I think in order to build support for the death penalty, we have to frame it in ways that make sense to people.” Regardless of whether the activists believe that the death penalty should be framed as a single issue or as one of multiple issues, what they have in common is their recognition that there are many, many other social, political, and economic issues that are somehow related to the death penalty. What the activists on either side of this issue generally do not have in common is their race. While nearly all of the activists freely acknowledge that the death penalty is related to an array of other issues, a significant racial divide is found in their response to the question of whether the framing strategies of the movement should focus on the interrelatedness of their cause with these other issues. The activists who advocate for a broadened view of the death penalty are overwhelmingly black, yet most of those who argue for a more narrow view are white. The relationship I find between race and such framing strategies can yield various interpretations. One explanation for the difference generally found between the black and white activists regarding how broadly or narrowly to frame the issue of the death penalty is that this framing dispute is an intuitive, predictable extension of the contention found within the movement around who should serve as the movement’s target audience. In the previous chapter focused on organizational dynamics, a tension was uncovered within the movement that centers on whether efforts to organize are best directed at the power structure or toward the grassroots level of society. While the activists who advocate for channeling their energies toward those resting within the power structure tend to be white, those activists who maintain that the movement would be

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more effective if it targeted a grassroots audience come more often from the group of black activists. The tendency I found among the activists who strive to reach those in the power structure to also frame their message in a narrow manner is clearly illustrated with Walter’s words in the above quote. If legislators and conservatives are indeed those whom the movement wishes to target with its message, as suggested by Walter, it is logical to assume that chances of that message falling on deaf ears would certainly seem to increase if demands to end the death penalty are accompanied by arguments against additional social issues that conservatives tend not to embrace. On the other hand, if the target audience is the larger population, it becomes more logical to broaden the message against the death penalty in as many different directions as possible in order to reach the widest cross-section of people. The bystander public might be urged to join the ranks of anti–death penalty activists if they can be convinced that the death penalty is related to the issues that are most likely to mobilize them. While the relationships that are found between the target audiences and the framing strategies of the movement can be easily explained, the question remains as to why race emerges in such relationships as a significant variable at all. Another interpretation of the data is required to sufficiently account for the relationship found between the activists’ race and their tendency to frame the death penalty in a broad or narrow manner. An examination of the list of other social and political issues that the activists identify as relevant to the issue of the death penalty provides the basis for one theory of the impact of race on framing strategies in the movement. The list includes over thirty different issues that white, black, and Latino activists alike view as related to the death penalty, including concerns about racism, economic disparities, mental illness, alcohol and drug abuse, poor education, and health care problems. The abundance of research gathered on all of these issues recognizes their impact on society, yet such research also generally supports the argument that these societal ills affect communities of color much more heavily than they do their white counterparts. Given this argument about the differential impact of social problems upon the populations of whites and racial minorities, a case can be made that the black and Latino activists have more of a vested interest than do the white activists in linking the death penalty to these other issues. While they may not be personally touched by the range of social problems that they identify as related to the death penalty, the race of the black and Latino activists places them in a social location that increases the likelihood that they will become intimately acquainted with the victims of such problems. To the extent that a particular social problem is stereotypically linked to the black and Latino communities (i.e., welfare, drug abuse), activists

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from these communities may also feel a need to address these other social problems with their activism in an effort to dispel such stereotypes that do indeed affect them in a personal way. This disproportionate vulnerability of blacks and Latinos, therefore, contributes to their tendency to utilize broader frames in their anti–death penalty messages. The white activists, on the other hand, may be viewed as less likely to see the relationships between the death penalty and other social or political issues because they are less likely than racial minorities to have a vested interest in these other issues. Angelica is a Latina in her early thirties who has been involved in the movement for approximately seven years. She argues strongly for broadening the message of the movement as one way to attract racial minorities. Angelica views the tendency of the whites in the movement to frame the death penalty in a narrow manner as a predictable by-product of white privilege. Angelica’s comments support the notion that whites tend not to link their message of death penalty opposition to other issues because, unlike racial minorities, they are generally unscathed by the social problems that are related to the death penalty. The reason that whites do it that way is because they are the majority! They don’t have to do it any other way! They don’t have any other problems! That’s why they are like, “So let’s talk about the death penalty and that’s it.” That’s the mentality of the majority. Because of white privilege, they don’t have to think about other issues. When you are a minority, you have some other issues. So you have to make this a multi-message kind of thing!

Certainly, critics of this view may retort that neither do whites generally have a personal connection with the issue of the death penalty, yet somehow they are able to reach a point where they take on this issue as an activist. It can be countered, therefore, that if whites embrace the concerns of a movement against the death penalty, it should not be much of a stretch for them to link these concerns to other issues that they also view as detrimental to society. To advance this argument, however, it is insufficient to simply note that the white activists have somehow managed to become active against the death penalty. Their motives for becoming involved in the movement must also be taken into consideration. I found that some of their black and Latino peers within the movement question the motives of white activists who join the fight against the death penalty. As stated by one black activist who questions the impetus for the primarily white, mainstream anti–death penalty organizations, “there isn’t sufficient drive. They don’t have the passion to do it. They just see it as an exercise in theory.” The above interpretations of the relationship found between race and framing strategies strive to explain why the black and Latino activists tend to frame the death penalty in a broad manner and the white activists typically define the issue more narrowly. Efforts to explain this relationship must

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not be considered complete, however, without first giving careful attention to the issue of morality and how the meaning that the activists attach to their moral outrage against the death penalty is shaped by their racial and ethnic backgrounds. Exploration of the conceptual terrain in which the idea of “morality” lies reveals a great deal of complexity and ambiguity about a term that is often assumed to mean similar things to all.

RACE AND THEOLOGY: INDIVIDUAL MORALITY VERSUS COLLECTIVE MORALITY An example of the incongruities found in the way people view morality is demonstrated above with my attention to the conflicting views of what morality entails for liberals versus conservatives. In addition to one’s political viewpoints, religion is another factor that shapes the meaning of morality for individuals and for racial groups in society. A closer look at the differences in framing strategies between the activists raises questions about an argument often made in the wealth of literature focused on the subject of race and theology. Scholars who have analyzed the religious teachings of different racial groups argue that distinct forms of morality provide the underpinnings for the theological differences that emerge. Although I have noted that some of the activists are not driven to oppose the death penalty for moral or religious reasons, this small group of activists holds the minority viewpoint. A majority of those I interviewed (79.5 percent) submits that they are morally opposed to the death penalty. Controlling for race, I found that a majority of the black (90 percent) and white (60 percent) activists, as well as a majority (seven of nine) of the Latino activists, add that their position against the death penalty has been driven to some degree by their religious and/or spiritual beliefs.21 My finding that such a large percentage of activists identify their religious and/or spiritual beliefs as an impetus for their activism warrants more attention to the notions of morality that provide a foundation for these beliefs. I have noted in previous chapters that studies of theology reveal racial differences in the way in which morality is typically conceptualized. White Protestantism is viewed as embracing a kind of “theological individualism,” which is defined as “the primacy of the individual’s private relationship to God as over against any institutional or creedal obligations.”22 The morality advanced by black theologians is one proposing that individual salvation can only be accomplished within the context of social liberation, thus taking more of a collective tone.23 The collective morality of black theology emerged, at least in part, as a response to the failure of white theology to adequately address racial injustice. White theology had promoted racist ideology as far back as the

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beginning of slavery, when southern churches argued that slavery was “a positive good ordained by God.”24 Although white theologians began to speak out against racial injustice during the Civil Rights Movement, it was evident to many that church leaders had accepted the “second class” status assigned to blacks, for “their attacks upon problems of the Negro in the South took the form of an enlightened paternalism.”25 As a result of this history, whenever whites, particularly those whites claiming to do “God’s work,” become involved in social movements organized against some form of racial injustice, it is not unusual for their motives to come under scrutiny by their black counterparts. From his interviews with prominent black activists in the anti–death penalty movement, Haines uncovered a common perception of the whites in the movement as often paternalistic in their approach as they neglect to relate the death penalty to other more relevant issues affecting the black community.26 From my interviews with anti–death penalty activists, I detected sentiment similar to that found by Haines. A significant number of black and Latino activists, and even a few whites, disclosed feelings that many whites in the movement take a paternalistic approach in their efforts to work with others to achieve abolition of the death penalty. Those activists who acknowledge such paternalism generally view it as unconscious behavior on the part of those within the movement who project this approach. Leslie is one of several black activists who describe encounters with white activists who have projected a paternalistic attitude toward people of color during organizational events. A national leader in her early thirties, Leslie is disheartened by the reluctance that she has found all too often among white activists to work at building coalitions with people of color. In the following quote, Leslie attempts to explain why she believes that more efforts have not been made by white activists to pull racial minorities into the anti–death penalty movement. I don’t think it’s a racist thing. I just don’t think they think out of the box when they are sitting around a table with all white faces. It doesn’t resonate with them that maybe we should have called the local Latino or African American group. It just doesn’t occur to them. They just continue to work until the issue comes to the forefront and I sometimes don’t think that they are equipped to pull people in. And I don’t even really know if people care that there’s not a lot of people of color. When whites get involved, they get this paternalistic attitude that we are going to fix your problem. Or the other thing is that they pigeonhole you. You are the only black person in the group so when we need a black person, they say let’s send Leslie over to the Baptist church. It’s more of a tokenism.

Sheila is one of a handful of white activists who are very aware of the perceptions of their black peers who, like Leslie, detect a paternalistic atti-

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tude among whites at anti–death penalty functions. She attributes her keen sense of when racial minorities “just don’t want to associate with white people” to the experiences she has encountered as a result of being interracially married to an African American man for approximately forty years. Sheila firmly believes that more people of color would become involved in the movement if they felt more welcomed and encouraged to fill positions of leadership. Referring to those racial minorities who do not sustain their activism in the movement, therefore, Sheila states, “They don’t want to go to meetings that white people are conducting where they may be made to feel inferior. They just see it as we’re trying to dominate them.” When activists recount stories of the paternalism that they have witnessed white-dominated organizations directing toward racial minorities in their midst, they do not always make a clear connection between such paternalism and the religiosity or morality of those whites whom they charge with such behavior. Mark’s comments provide an exception to this general rule. This white man in his mid-thirties was a minister before he became a full-time, paid anti–death penalty activist in Pennsylvania. In part because his religious and moral beliefs played a large part in his decision to become involved in the movement, Mark becomes frustrated with the religious white activists he encounters who do not embrace the need to build coalitions with racial minorities. His words below reveal this frustration as he describes why he believes that the religious and/or moral position of many whites, in addition to their very “whiteness,” prevents them from giving the attention that he feels is necessary to the issue of race as it relates to the death penalty. The movement does not give enough attention to the issue of race as it relates to the death penalty and there is a reason for that. I think that racism is so fully entrenched in the history of this country in every aspect of our socialization. It’s too personal, too close to home for people. To say that the death penalty is a function of racism in this country and that I, as somebody who is identified as being “white,” benefit from racism, then do I not on some level benefit from the existence of the death penalty? People don’t want to talk about things like that. People don’t want to say things like I am trying to quit being white. How many people want to say treason to “whiteness” is loyalty to humanity? Not many people want to say that. How many people want to say to be authentically Christian you have to renounce your membership in the white race? People don’t want to be personally implicated, but they are because it’s done in our names and with our tax dollars. But to say it’s beneficial to us individually because of the connection to the social construct of whiteness, then you really get into a whole lot of other issues. You want to be morally right. Well, the death penalty is morally wrong. Well, then whiteness is morally wrong. The game that we are all inextricably a part of in this country is a game of racism. Every card is a race card.

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The institutional racism within our country that Mark alludes to with his comments is argued by him and others as not only interfering with the ability of white activists to see the importance of framing the death penalty as a racist issue, but has the subsequent effect of alienating people of color who might otherwise be attracted to the movement. When I asked the activists to share the arguments that they find are most effective in mobilizing participants and how they might tailor their arguments as their audience changes, differences in the activists’ responses along the lines of race emerged. Many of the black and Latino activists responded that they find the argument that the death penalty is racist to be an effective one, particularly when they are trying to appeal to racial minorities. White activists, on the other hand, are much less likely to find the racism argument to be an effective one when they are trying to recruit movement participants. While 50 percent of blacks say that they find the racism argument to be the most effective argument against the death penalty, only 10 percent of white activists responded accordingly. Although just two of the nine Latino activists consider the racism argument to be most effective, they all identified it as an essential argument, as they listed other frames that they find to be equally effective, including religious, economic, and innocence arguments against the death penalty. I suspect that the racism argument would have emerged as the dominant frame identified by the Latinos if they lived in the states. Given that six of the Latinos in my sample reside and organize in Puerto Rico, where the homogeneity of the residents’ common culture shields them from the racial categories they find on the mainland, racism is not a theme that resonates as easily among those on the island. Miguel acknowledged as much when he distinguished between the tendency of Puerto Ricans on the island to be most receptive to religious and moral frames and the inclination of Latinos who live in the states to respond more often to racial frames. Miguel submits that the racial frames are most effective in the states because “every Latino here in the United States has suffered discrimination and when you talk about discrimination, they understand what you are talking about.” Two of the Latinas believe that their fellow activists emphasize racial frames against the death penalty often enough in their organizing, yet they do not sense that these arguments reach racial minorities. Diana says of her fellow activists in the movement, “I think they are putting enough emphasis on race. I don’t think that they are speaking to African American and Latino audiences enough, but I think that it is still an issue that we always talk about.” Angelica concurs with this view, as she states “I think we give it a fair share. I think the message is clear. The problem with the abolitionist movement is that we end up talking to ourselves too much.” Many other activists of color are likely to agree with the view of these two women that while the movement has a fairly good handle on the best way

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to frame the issue of race, it is simply not managing to get the message out to racial minorities. While I found the white activists to be less likely than the black and Latino activists to frame the death penalty as racist when they are trying to recruit participants, my data also indicate that this does not necessarily mean that the white activists do not appreciate the argument as a valid one. It could be that those whites who do not use the racism argument choose not to do so for strategic reasons. A decision such as this reveals the interaction between the structural and cultural dimensions of social movement activity. In other words, the constraints posed by the conservative power structure have limited the effectiveness of arguments against the death penalty that focus on the racial disparities involved. Some of the whites who opt not to use the racism argument, in fact, indicated that they do so because they feel that doing so would be futile given the present political environment. Given the “politically correct” atmosphere of our society today, there is the additional concern that emphasis on the racism found with the death penalty may actually invite more executions as those in positions of power strive to show that they can execute whites with as much vehemence as racial minorities. A fairly recent national survey indicates that the white activists in my study have good reason to believe that people who support the death penalty, at least those among the white population, are not easily swayed by racial arguments that aim to change their position. When Peffley and Hurwitz examined “the power of two arguments against capital punishment—one racial, one not—to reshape the policy,” they found significant differences between the responses of the blacks and whites surveyed.27 The survey respondents participated in an experiment, whereby they were asked their position on the death penalty. The researchers next read statements to them to determine if they were able to persuade those who had voiced support for the death penalty to change their position to one of opposition. After the statements were read to the survey respondents, their attitude toward the death penalty was retested. One of the arguments read to the respondents was racial in nature, in that it informed them of the racial bias found with the death penalty.28 The other statement focused on the risk of executing innocent people.29 When presented with either of the two arguments against the death penalty, the white respondents in the study were not persuaded to change their position toward the death penalty. Interestingly, those who were presented with the racial argument became even more supportive of the death penalty upon learning that the death penalty discriminates against blacks.30 This “backlash effect” was explained largely by another set of questions that was posed to the survey respondents, in which they were asked to provide their beliefs about the causes of the black crime rate. The researchers found

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that many of the white respondents in the survey attributed the criminal behavior of blacks to dispositional factors (i.e., internal factors such as laziness, poor morals) rather than structural factors (i.e., external factors such as poverty, racism, poor schooling). When whites attributed black criminal behavior to dispositional factors, they became even more entrenched in their support for the death penalty when informed of the racial bias associated with it. The researchers explain that “when people are presented with arguments that run counter to their convictions, they are often rejected so strongly that attitude change runs in the direction opposite to the argument.”31 These findings of the national survey lend qualified support to those whites in my study who argue that it is not strategically wise to frame the message of the movement in racial terms, yet that does not also mean that the black and Latino activists who argue for the use of racial frames are necessarily incorrect. The activists of color in my study are also vindicated by Peffley and Hurwitz’s survey findings. When these researchers surveyed black respondents, they found them to be much more receptive to both of the arguments against the death penalty.32 Just as was the case with the whites who were surveyed, it appears that blacks are also inclined to support arguments against the death penalty that resonate with their convictions. When asked about their views of the black crime rate, the black respondents pointed overwhelmingly to structural factors to explain criminal behavior among blacks. It didn’t matter whether the argument was framed with a focus on the risk of executing innocent people or if it offered a racial bias frame, therefore, as blacks were already predisposed to believe that the criminal justice system is unfair.33 What are the lessons of Peffley and Hurwitz’s 2007 survey for the anti– death penalty movement? Are activists able to conclude that racial frames are likely to serve as effective arguments as they seek to mobilize potential constituents into the movement? Since activists on both sides of this debate are able to find qualified support from this survey for their position toward using racially based frames against the death penalty, there may not initially appear to be an obvious answer to these questions. Yet if the concern remains finding ways to attract racial minorities into the movement, the answer is clear. The findings of the 2007 survey allow us to conclude that frames focused on the racial disparities that exist with the death penalty serve as effective recruitment tools to draw in more racial minorities. The researchers conclude, “We do believe that many blacks are willing to reconsider their support for punitive crime policies when presented an argument that is consistent with their belief that the criminal justice system is racially, and generally, unfair.”34 Since the life experiences of Latinos, particularly in terms of their involvement with the criminal justice system, are more similar to those of blacks than whites, we can presume that racially based

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frames against the death penalty will be received similarly for Latinos and blacks. Even if those activists who prefer not to advance racial frames in their recruitment efforts can be convinced of the effectiveness of such frames in attracting more blacks and Latinos to the movement, would they then be willing to use such frames, knowing that by doing so they stand to alienate many other whites and perhaps even solidify their pro–death penalty sentiment? This becomes the central question for activists who aim to apply the lessons of the 2007 survey. Indeed the findings of this survey suggest that a zero-sum game of sorts is played when decisions are made on either side of the debate centered on whether or not the movement should wage a campaign that bases its principal message of opposition on the racial disparities found with the death penalty. While such a campaign is likely to attract more racial minorities, it is likely at the same time to repel and even solidify opposition among many whites. This is a cost that many activists may not be willing to pay if their target audience is the white-dominated power structure. If activists wish to engage in the struggle to abolish the death penalty primarily in the legislative arena, where few racial minorities and many conservatives are found, they may not be willing to risk losing potential support from legislators and politicians by using racial frames that may rebuff them. On the other hand, if activists are more interested in building a grassroots movement, swelling their ranks with a diversity of groups to dramatically alter public opinion against the death penalty, then racial frames appear to be powerful means toward that end. As activists negotiate whether, when, and how best to utilize racial frames against the death penalty, we are able to see an example of the interaction that typically occurs between the cultural dimension of social movement activity and the structural dimensions of the political opportunity structure and organizational dynamics. For instance, when anti–death penalty organizations make the strategic decision to target the power structure with their message, the political opportunities and constraints operating at the time largely dictate how their message is going to be received. Framing decisions, such as whether to use the racial frames that expose the racism within the system and how best to do so, are most effective when made by activists after taking into consideration their target audience, the strategies they wish to employ, and certainly the political atmosphere that will receive and further shape their message. Failure to take all of the dimensions of social movement activity into account when framing particular arguments can backfire, as seen with the results of the 2007 survey presented above. Peffley and Hurwitz caution in their concluding remarks, “The lesson for elites who use frames as persuasive tools is that frames can have a variety of unintended consequences and can be less efficacious than is often suggested.”35

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Some activists clearly avoid using the racism argument in their efforts to mobilize participants for strategic reasons, yet my data indicate that others are not convinced of the effectiveness of this argument simply because they don’t fully appreciate how strongly race is related to the issue of the death penalty. One theory for the tendency of many activists to downplay race is that they simply lack awareness of the statistics revealing racial disparities in capital sentencing, yet this is very unlikely since the activists I interviewed were all extremely knowledgeable about such facts. My data suggest instead that when activists downplay the racism argument in their discussions of the death penalty, they may do so on an unconscious level because of the discomfort that many whites, including those who are otherwise viewed as progressive, feel when discussing issues of race and racism. Mark illustrates this finding with his above words when he argues that white activists avoid discussing the racism associated with the death penalty because they are uncomfortable with discourse that leaves them feeling “personally implicated” by virtue of the benefits they receive from white privilege. Whether white activists avoid using the racism argument for strategic reasons or because they feel doing so might implicate them in some manner, neither of these reasons for downplaying the racism found with the death penalty necessarily prevents them from acknowledging racism as one of many issues that are related to the death penalty. When the activists were asked to list all of the issues that they believe are related to the death penalty, a long list of social, economic, and political issues were identified. More blacks (85 percent) and Latinos (100 percent) than whites (65 percent), however, list “racism” as an issue that is related to the death penalty. For those who may be tempted to view this finding as arising from a tendency among many whites to reduce racial issues to questions of class, it should also be noted that even fewer whites (55 percent) than blacks (80 percent) and Latinos (100 percent) also identify the factors of class, economics, and/or poverty as related to the death penalty. The failure of the white activists to emphasize the racism and classism of the death penalty as often as do the black activists could be explained, at least to some degree, by the contrasting notions of morality associated with the theological perspectives of their religious communities. The individualist morality commonly associated with white theology is not likely to bring the same level of concern about race and class injustice that has been observed as a part of the collective morality of black theology. Michael Emerson and Christian Smith form a similar impression of white theology from their research of evangelical religion, which includes a national survey of over 2,500 Americans.36 In their survey, Emerson and Smith found that 80 percent of white evangelicals said racism is “very important” for Christians to address, yet the results of their interviews were quite different. When interviewees were asked

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to prioritize issues of concern for Christians, only 4 percent of white Protestants identified racism as an issue. Of the African American Protestants they interviewed, on the other hand, a third named racism and one-quarter said that they view it as “the single most important issue for Christians to address.”37 When white evangelicals identified racism as a problem, it was “interpreted as individual-level prejudice or discrimination and nothing else.”38 In the quote below, the necessity for white evangelicals to interpret racism at the individual level is explained in terms reminiscent of those used in the above quote by Mark, the white former minister. To do so otherwise would challenge the very basis of their world, both their faith and the American way of life. They accept and support individualism, relationalism, and anti-structuralism. Suggesting social causes of the race problem challenges the cultural elements with which they construct their lives. This is the radical limitation of the white evangelical tool kit.39

In order to further examine the degree to which concern for the poor and racial minorities does or does not emerge as a theme among those who express moral outrage against the death penalty, particularly those who identify as religious, I examined a pamphlet distributed by an organization within the movement called the Religious Organizing Against the Death Penalty Project. The Religious Organizing Against the Death Penalty Project (ROADP) is striving to build a coalition of faith-based activists to promote activism against the death penalty within official religious bodies. In their efforts to foster support for abolition of the death penalty, the Project has published a pamphlet that contains statements of opposition to the death penalty submitted by over thirty different national religious bodies. As I read over the statements that each of these religious bodies have submitted against the death penalty, I found that nearly half (N⫽15) contain reference to the disproportionate number of poor and racial minorities found on death row across the nation. The statements found in this pamphlet distributed by the project suggest that, at least on a formal level, a significant number of anti–death penalty activists who identify as religious base their opposition on factors that include the race and class disparities associated with the death penalty. In an article found on ROADP’s website, however, the coordinator of this organization, Pat Clark, asserts that while the statements of death penalty opposition submitted by religious bodies are powerful, they do not necessarily reflect the sentiment of their congregations. Clark laments, “Many mainline denominations have made very powerful statements of condemnation, but are not engaged in communicating the message to their constituency.”40 A closer look at the list of the religious bodies that have submitted statements of anti–death penalty opposition finds religious organizations

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that tend to have overwhelmingly white congregations. This raises questions around the extent to which religious beliefs provide the basis for the evidence of collective morality that I found among the black activists who express their moral outrage with the death penalty through such terms as racism and classism. If religious bodies dominated with blacks are indeed not submitting statements of opposition to the death penalty, the question becomes whether they are being adequately invited to do so by ROADP and others in the movement or if religious organizations dominated by blacks are quite simply not willing to take a stand against the death penalty. While Clark of ROADP is horrified by those on the religious right who find nothing wrong with the death penalty, she is “even more horrified by all the denominations which say it is immoral but are afraid of lifting their voices and challenging it in a much more unified way.”41 Taylor examines the role of the church in adversarial politics and reaches conclusions that corroborate Clark’s impressions of the general unwillingness to take on the issue of the death penalty. He acknowledges that leaders of churches have “routinely issued judgments, critiques, and denunciations of a wide array of cultural practices and political policies,” yet Taylor adds “the adversarial stances of most churches have been accommodated to fit within the purview of standing political powers.”42 Particularly when confronted with the injustices carried out by “lockdown America,” including those brought by the death penalty, Taylor argues that U.S. churches have largely failed to respond to such injustices with any organized movement activity. The church functions in such a manner, continues Taylor, that it actually “serves existing orders more than it resists them.”43 Several of the black activists I interviewed indict many black clergy in their communities for the timidity that Taylor and Clark of ROADP find among religious leaders who fail to take on the issue of the death penalty with their congregations. Some of the activists believe that the death penalty is not being challenged in black religious communities because the black clergy frequently are supporters of the death penalty. Dorothy and Alice are among those who hold this view. As these two African American friends from a small rural town in Delaware sat down together with me, they shared their frustration with the black clergy in their community who defend our nation’s use of the death penalty. While these women credit their strong religious faith for their activism in the movement, they stress that they arrived at their position against the death penalty through their own independent study of the Bible, rather than as a result of religious instruction from their ministers. Dorothy explains, “A lot of black churches believe in the death penalty.” Alice recalls a recent occasion when she spoke at a predominantly black church about the death penalty and was not received warmly at all.

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I spoke at a church recently and people were offended and came up to me after church. They said that I should do something for the victims, but I said that I don’t do that side of it. I am supporting the ones who are being killed because they are being neglected. These preachers go back to their interpretation of the Bible. They say that this is the way that God wanted it, but it’s not true.

Several other African American activists argue that, while some pro–death penalty clergy in their communities can certainly be found, many others would be open to hearing the messages of the movement if stronger efforts were made by activists to bring them into their ranks. Tony is one such activist who feels that the movement is not targeting black churches nearly as much as they could. Himself a minister of an African Methodist Episcopal congregation, Tony faults black political leaders who take “the old slave master role” as much as activists in the anti–death penalty movement for what he feels is a serious neglect of black churches. Robert is another African American activist who shares Tony’s view that greater efforts must be made by the movement to target black churches with their messages. This NAACP leader suspects that many, many black clergy are opposed to the death penalty, yet lack the framing strategies that activists in the movement can offer them so that they might feel more comfortable trying to “sell” arguments against the death penalty to their congregations. I’ll bet you that the leaders of most of our death penalty specific national organizations have never sat down with the president of the National Congress of Black Churches. There are a number of black clergy members who are very animatedly opposed to the death penalty. They are trying to find better ways to sell it as well. But if you don’t know what they need to make the argument, if we’re not utilizing our experts around the issue of the death penalty to pull together kind of the talking points and make the kind of arguments that we need to make, we’re really missing out on the demographics.

Eric is yet another African American man who shared similar sentiment with me, basing his perception that the movement could do a better job of targeting black churches on his own past experience with the Religious Organizing Against the Death Penalty Project (ROADP). Eric shared that he met with a great deal of hostility from those involved with ROADP when he approached them with an idea that he felt would allow them to reach the leaders and members of black churches. Though Eric does not personally identify with a religion, he recognizes the value of targeting black clergy in the effort to mobilize more people of color against the death penalty. He presented his idea of creating a “National Weekend of Faith in Action” to ROADP, which he hoped would spark mass organizing in the churches. This idea was inspired by Eric’s conception of the role of churches. “I think

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that the church in those groups is not being developed as a center for political organizing. Every church should be a place for you to educate, heal the community, and organize a change.” Eric is not convinced that ROADP shares his vision of the role of churches as a “center for political organizing,” for he met with antagonism from “the Quakers” of this organization. He claims that ROADP asked the organization where he worked as a professional activist to fire him “because it was their turf.” Given the collective morality connected to black theology, Eric’s vision of the black church serving as a center for political organizing in communities certainly seems attainable. Whether ROADP actually rejected his vision of the church’s role or not, the reaction Eric purports to have received from this organization attests to internal conflict that can only exacerbate the difficulties the movement encounters in mobilizing black clergy. A recent review of the materials distributed by NCADP uncovered information about the National Weekend of Faith in Action (NWFA). It would appear that Eric was successful in his efforts to organize this event. The introduction of a booklet distributed by Amnesty International USA entitled “Organizing for the National Weekend of Faith in Action and Beyond: A Guide for Participants,” provides a brief history of this annual conference. It is not clear if the NWFA was the product of Eric’s vision, as no one individual was given recognition for conceiving this event. The booklet’s description of the NWFA highlights several goals for this annual October retreat for faith communities and human rights groups. Among these goals is their aim to “engage a broad spectrum of faith communities and groups throughout the country, with a focus on faith communities of color, in an examination of the death penalty from a faith-based or values-based perspective, to be initiated on this weekend and continued throughout the year.”44 In its tenth year, the NWFA boasted that it has “engaged thousands of participants who reflect the rich diversity of faith traditions and spiritual practices that are observed in the United States . . . (and) through their active participation in the NWFA, people of faith have helped to broaden the scope of the death penalty debate in this country.”45 The NWFA may indeed have helped the anti–death penalty movement to appear more inviting to black clergy, yet at the time of my interviews, there was a sentiment expressed among some white activists that seems to confirm the impressions of Tony, Robert, and Eric that black clergy and their congregations are not being targeted by the movement much at all. Several whites mentioned that they do not get much support from leaders from the black clergy. When asked why they suspect that this segment of the population is not joining them in their efforts, these whites tended to respond by shrugging their shoulders and suggesting that they are equally puzzled by the reluctance of them to reach out to us and become involved in the movement.

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The comments of Jerry, a white Quaker in his seventies, reveal this sense of bewilderment among those whites who can’t understand why the black churches are not taking a more active role in the movement. As he leaned back in his chair and gazed off into space, Jerry mused, “It is interesting to note that most of the black churches seem not to send us many of their constituents, I guess because they have other priorities.” What is missing here is a structural view of the reluctance of religious blacks to engage in collective action against the death penalty. This reluctance gets cast as an individual-level choice, much like the individualist arguments that the research of Emerson and Smith, as referenced above, found among evangelicals who attempt to explain racism. Many activists, both black and white alike, return to the explanation offered above by Dorothy and Alice for the relatively low level of participation of black clergy and their congregations, stating that this problem is due to the support for the death penalty found within the black community. Continuing on with my examination of the role that contrasting notions of morality play in the mobilization of anti–death penalty activists along the lines of race, it is important to examine another framing tension that is found in the movement. A significant number of activists identified a tension within the movement that centers on attitudes toward abortion. This tension often is made manifest in struggles over framing strategies. While those activists who identify as pro-life frequently wish to frame their opposition to the death penalty in terms of the sanctity of human life, those activists who indicate that they are pro-choice are more likely to frame their death penalty opposition as a civil rights issue. While I did not specifically ask the activists to share their views on the issue of abortion, this issue frequently arose as they identified tensions that lie within the movement.

COALITION POLITICS: PRO-LIFE VERSUS PRO-CHOICE MORAL FRAMES Arguments for or against abortion certainly are not among the first that activists pull out of their knapsack of framing tools used to advance their message. Indeed, when I asked the activists to identify the argument that they have found to be most effective in gaining support for their cause, not a single activist provided arguments that link the issue of abortion to a position against the death penalty. The issue of abortion nonetheless often emerged in the interview process as one that brings tension to the movement between those who are pro-life and those who are pro-choice. While it may be agreed upon by activists on both sides of this issue that links between abortion and the death penalty do not provide the most effective tools to build their constituency, there are those within the movement who

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remain compelled to incorporate this issue into their framing strategies. To the extent that such links are made between the issues of abortion and the death penalty, contention arises within the movement. Typically, it is those activists who strongly identify as pro-life who feel led to voice their views on abortion as they argue against the death penalty. Haines attests to the existence of groups within the movement that advance a “consistent life ethic,” which is often referred to as “the seamless garment.”46 The remarks of Kevin, an African American in his fifties, reveal the tension that is often created by this segment of activists within the movement. While Kevin is strongly driven to participate in the anti–death penalty movement by his religious beliefs and hints that he is pro-life, he acknowledges the tension that pro-life sentiment adds to the movement when vocalized by activists. The main tension that I would see would be between the pro-choice people and the anti-abortion people. There are some people against the death penalty, but are pro-choice. There are some very vocal anti–death penalty people who are also anti-abortion people. And I think that they are uncomfortable with each other. There are tensions there because anti-abortion people can be very outspoken and try to link the causes, like people with the Seamless Garment who say, “Ain’t no noose, no death penalty, no abortion.” And they say, “Hey, why can’t you buy into those other two things?”

In the above quote, Kevin refers to an organization that was once known as “Seamless Garment.” The new name of this organization is Consistent Life. It is a network of organizations and individuals who unite around the “consistent ethic of reverence of life.”47 This organization has as its mission: We are committed to the protection of life, which is threatened in today’s world by war, abortion, poverty, racism, capital punishment, and euthanasia. We believe that these issues are linked under a “consistent ethic of life.” We challenge those working on all or some of these issues to maintain a cooperative spirit of peace, reconciliation, and respect in protecting the unprotected.48

Consistent Life calls those working on issues such as the death penalty, which is viewed as necessary action in order to “protect the unprotected,” to work alongside those who oppose abortion with a “cooperative spirit of peace, reconciliation, and respect,” yet this is not easy for those anti–death penalty activists who are solidly pro-choice with their position on abortion. While the tension that Kevin describes within the movement over abortion attitudes is not recognized by most activists as a huge one, an understanding of this tension can help to expose the complexities found when examining notions of morality that lay the foundation for the activists’

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mobilization and the framing strategies utilized. From her analysis of both pro-life and pro-choice activists, Kristin Luker found contrasting notions of morality informing the collective action of individuals on both sides of the debate over abortion. She uses the term “situation ethics” to describe the moral reasoning of pro-choice activists, who “seriously doubt whether a single moral code can serve everyone.”49 Luker adds that pro-choice activists have what she views as a “New Testament approach to morality,” which leads them to ask “what is the loving thing to do.”50 Their emphasis on doing the “loving” thing led Luker to conclude that pro-choice activists follow moral logic that “relies upon a subjectively reasoned application of moral principles rather than upon an externally existing moral code.”51 Pro-life activists, on the other hand, tended to locate their morality in the external standards of “traditional, ancient codes such as the Ten Commandments and the ‘Judeo-Christian’ law.”52 The most basic of such divine law guiding their position against abortion is the Commandment that says “Thou shalt not kill.” Although the anti–death penalty activists I interviewed gave no indication that they are also activists in either the right-to-life or pro-choice movements, the moral arguments that Luker found with activists on both sides of the abortion debate can easily be detected in the framing strategies of the anti–death penalty movement as well. Just as I found activists who radiate the “New Testament approach to morality” that Luker found with pro-choice activists, there are those who reduce their moral opposition to the death penalty to the same reverence for divine law that pro-life activists shared with Luker. Since I did not specifically ask the activists their views on abortion, it is difficult to determine if these different notions of morality guiding their opposition to the death penalty necessarily correlate with their views on abortion in such a manner that would support Luker’s findings. In her 1998 book entitled Divided Passions, Kimberly Cook seeks to find such correlations with her in-depth examination of the ways in which public opinion toward the issues of abortion and the death penalty are related. Driven primarily by questions around the “seemingly inconsistent views” of those who oppose abortion, yet support the death penalty, Cook interviewed individuals to determine relationships between their views on abortion and the death penalty.53 While the people Cook interviewed are not necessarily activists in the movements organized around either of these issues, her findings warrant further attention, as they may point to sources for the tension that arises within the anti–death penalty movement over the issue of abortion. Cook developed a typology of four different groups of people according to their positions on both abortion and the death penalty. The two groups that provide me with the most insight into the tension created by

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anti–death penalty framing strategies that incorporate abortion attitudes are (1) the pro-choice, anti–death penalty group and (2) the pro-life, anti–death penalty group. Distinct themes are found among each of these groups that reveal how they are able to reconcile their positions on both of these issues. A primary theme that Cook found in the attitudes of those individuals who are pro-choice and anti–death penalty is a deep sense of mistrust in “the system.” This group of people expressed a belief that the government should not be involved in making such decisions, particularly because they view our legal system as so flawed that it cannot effectively control the death penalty or abortion. Another prominent theme Cook found with this group is a concern for the underprivileged in society, including concerns about the civil rights of women and racial minorities.54 Turning to the themes that emerge from Cook’s interviews with people who are both pro-life and anti–death penalty, the primary one that emerges is “the belief in the preservation of human life from the moment of conception until natural death.”55 Those who fall into this group are firmly opposed to anyone “playing God” with the lives of anyone else, regardless of whether the lives being questioned are those of the unborn or those of convicted murderers. Nearly all of the remarks that Cook received from this group made some reference to God and his teachings. Based upon the information that they shared with Cook, it would seem that their opposition to both abortion and the death penalty is driven more by their religious beliefs than anything else.56 This summary of Cook’s findings of the notions of morality that inform public opinion toward the issues of abortion and the death penalty reveal that the reasons for individuals’ opposition to the death penalty are dependent to some extent upon their views on abortion. Attitudes toward abortion, in other words, provide one factor of many that lead to specific moral arguments advanced against the death penalty. Assuming that the activists in the anti–death penalty movement would exhibit themes similar to those of Cook’s typology if their attitudes toward abortion are also considered, it is important to note that the themes of the two groups described above are not inherently contradictory, thus do not necessarily have to bring contention. For instance, it seems entirely possible that one could be driven to her anti–death penalty activism because she mistrusts the government, yet she may just as easily be very religious and oppose anyone “playing God.” The tension found in the movement between pro-lifers and pro-choicers, therefore, does not necessarily seem to be driven by the moral logic surrounding positions for or against abortion, rather more so by one group or the other fearing the obstacle that framing strategies utilizing pro-life or pro-choice rhetoric poses to their cause. Those activists who strive to build a grassroots movement worry that wrapping their message with pro-life

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packaging will alienate potential constituents. At the same time, pro-life activists may fear that frames against the death penalty embracing pro-choice rhetoric will make it more difficult for them to gain legitimacy among conservative policymakers for their cause. Many pro-life anti–death penalty activists, and even some who are pro-choice, see a value in connecting their position against the death penalty with pro-life arguments. Utilizing this framing strategy, some prominent anti–death penalty activists have argued, can provide a huge advantage if it is able to “tap some of the strength of the right-to-life movement.”57 How does the framing tension that arises in the movement between those activists who fall on either side of the abortion debate contribute to our understanding of the racial divisions that emerge from contests over framing strategies? Unfortunately, any attempt to answer this question based on my current data can only serve as speculation since I did not systematically ask each of my interviewees about their views on abortion. Most of the activists who raised this issue simply described the tension, rather than take a position on either side of the dispute. Of those activists who volunteered their views on the framing tension that incorporates a stance on abortion, no significant racial divide emerged with the types of responses given. Despite the limited information that I have regarding the views of some activists about the tension brought by abortion attitudes, the findings of Luker and those of Cook provide interesting insight that contributes to my analysis of the impact of race on framing strategies used by the movement. Before Cook detailed her typology of people in terms of their attitudes toward the death penalty and abortion, she identified demographic trends she found from her review of the literature focused on such attitudes. She reports that opinion surveys consistently reveal a general tendency among African Americans to oppose abortion more often than white Americans, yet she adds that her own past research attributes this finding to the greater likelihood of African Americans to identify with fundamentalist religions.58 Given this demographic research on abortion attitudes gathered by Cook, the nearly equal numbers of religious blacks and whites in my study suggests that both groups are likely to oppose abortion at similar levels. Religious affiliation is certainly not a determinant of abortion attitudes, yet research has found a strong relationship between religious affiliation and abortion attitudes.59 While the similar level of religiosity of my interviewees leads me to predict that little variation is likely to be found in their abortion attitudes along the lines of race, it does not necessarily allow me to predict whether such attitudes are also likely to influence the framing strategies of the activists. The findings of Luker and Cook, however, allow me to predict that a racial divide may well exist with the framing dispute that many activists find with the issue of abortion.

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The religiosity of some black activists in my study revealed the dominant theme Cook found in her group of pro-life, anti–death penalty individuals. Recall that the governing theme of this group emphasizes the sanctity of all human life and religious arguments provide the basis for this belief. Additionally, when Luker interviewed pro-life activists, she found that they demonstrated a type of moral reasoning based on the religious mandates of traditional, divine law. Kevin, the same black anti–death penalty activist who described the tension between pro-life and pro-choice activists in the initial quote of this chapter, expresses this moral reasoning well. The Ten Commandments is that Thou Shalt Not Kill. I think that life is sacred and to me, the Christian religion is one that says that Christ on the cross reconciled us to God and reconciled us to each other and you can’t reconcile somebody that you have killed.

Statements such as Kevin’s can be found among the responses of black and white activists alike when I asked them to describe how their position against the death penalty is related to their religious beliefs. These remarks fit nicely with the moral themes that Cook and Luker found among prolifers. At the same time, however, many of the black activists (50 percent) made religious statements to me that uphold the moral themes of the prochoicers interviewed by these researchers. The “New Testament approach to morality” Luker found among pro-choice activists was readily apparent in the statements such as that which Leslie shared with me: “I look at the New Testament view and I look at Jesus and I really think that he taught more about forgiveness.” The religiosity expressed by the black activists does not seem to prohibit them from also expressing the moral themes that Cook found among her pro-choice, anti–death penalty interviewees. Black activists frequently shared with me their mistrust in “the system” and, as I have maintained earlier in this chapter, they were also much more likely than their white counterparts to express a collective morality view of the death penalty that embraces a concern for the racially and economically oppressed. The white activists I interviewed were much less likely than the black activists to express the moral themes that both Cook and Luker found in their interviews with pro-choice individuals. In addition, the whites have also been described earlier in this chapter as more likely than the blacks to embrace individualist conceptions of morality and are also more inclined to use narrow frames when voicing their opposition toward the death penalty. These findings lead me to speculate that the broader moral visions I generally found among the black activists are likely to prevent them from using framing strategies that incorporate a pro-life position, even when they personally oppose abortion. Others might view such a pro-life position as

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providing an effective framing strategy if the target audience is the conservative politicians who lie within our power structure. My finding stated above that it is whites, not blacks, who generally target this group further suggests blacks are unlikely to cloak their anti–death penalty message with a pro-life position. Endorsing such a framing strategy would undermine the tenacious efforts of the black activists I interviewed to broaden their message in an effort to reach communities at a grassroots level. In the absence of data on all of the activists’ views on abortion, I have compared their notions of morality expressed through various arguments, particularly those wedded to their religious beliefs, to the moral themes that Cook and Luker found among individuals on either side of the abortion debate. The tentative conclusions that I have drawn from these comparisons suggest that the tension activists describe within the movement between pro-life and pro-choice individuals may indeed be linked to their contrasting notions of morality, which often break down along racial lines. While it may be tempting to then view neat racial divisions between the groups of anti–death penalty activists in terms of whether they choose to advance pro-life framing strategies, the complexities found with conceptions of morality, race, and class dictate otherwise. Before closing this chapter, I will next provide an example of one such complexity that arises with the link that I have made between race and framing strategies that incorporates a stance on abortion. Thus far, I have essentially argued that the moral reasoning Luker and Cook found among those individuals who identify as pro-choice encourages broad framing strategies. In other words, when activists in the anti–death penalty movement embrace such moral logic, regardless of their own personal stance on abortion, they are likely to reject a pro-life framing strategy in their efforts to fight the death penalty. It is crucial to reemphasize here that black anti–death penalty activists may identify as pro-life, yet they still tend to embrace the moral reasoning previous research has found with the prochoice position. At the same time, it is equally important to note that when whites embrace a pro-choice position, the morality that has been found to accompany this position does not necessary guarantee that they will adopt framing strategies consistent with those of their black counterparts. While the significance of race is omnipresent in the lives of both whites and blacks, race operates in such a differential manner for these two groups that similar moral logic gets filtered through these different racial experiences, leading to behavior that has the potential to be very different as a result. This point is made abundantly clear in the words of Harold, a white Unitarian Universalist who is in his seventies. I asked him why he believes that the movement is not more racially diverse. In the remarks that follow, Harold traces the history of Roe v. Wade to the Unitarian Church and hints that a pro-choice position among whites has not always led to behavior

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that one might expect from the moral reasoning that Cook and Luker have found among those taking this position. The Unitarian Church in Dallas, that’s where Roe v. Wade started, in a church that happened to be white, a bunch of people in their thirties went out and found Roe. But never could those ladies be motivated to have the same kind of energy around making sure that the poor got the federal support from Medicaid for their abortions. Roe v. Wade was strictly about white, middle-class people.

From Harold’s perspective, the white women who were driven to fight restrictions on abortion were either unwilling or unable to relate their personal battle against perceived sexism to other forms of oppression, such as race and class, which are also inextricably linked to the issue of abortion. With her detailed analysis of black feminist thought, Patricia Hill Collins argues that while white feminists have been able to identify their victimization, the benefits that they receive by virtue of their white privilege have interfered with their willingness to acknowledge the added dimension of racism to gender oppression.60 Harold goes on to apply this neglect of race that he witnessed firsthand as a resident of Dallas in the seventies, when Roe v. Wade occurred, to the anti–death penalty movement. He accuses white liberals of alienating blacks from the movement: “A lot of white people have never been able to put themselves enough in the shoes of a black person and we alienate them. Liberals are our only enemy.” With the above comments, Harold offers insight into the tensions that often arise within social movements, including those claiming to embrace progressive, left-wing ideologies, around the factors of race and class. His comments indeed seem to reinforce my view that white and black activists within the anti–death penalty movement are operating from distinct notions of morality. In this chapter, I have outlined several different areas of contention identified by the activists with their attention to the struggles over framing strategies that are advanced by the movement. The most prominent framing contests recognized by the activists have a noteworthy racial component firmly affixed. While the black and white activists share a strong commitment to fighting what they all agree is a blight on our society, my data attest to the frequent divisions that emerge between them over the best ways in which to express their opposition. Numerous factors influence the different framing strategies that activists defend as being the most effective tools to facilitate mobilization and overall movement success, including such factors as the activists’ age, gender, class, political orientation, and religious affiliation. Though I have placed the factor of race at the center of my current analysis, each of these other factors also shapes the framing strategies that emerge within the movement.

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It should come as no surprise that the diversity such demographic factors and life experiences bring to the movement is going to have an effect on the messages projected by its participants, as well as invite contention. Since morality is such a subjective concept and moral codes are shaped by many factors, the diversity of moral orientations that I found among the activists is also not astonishing. The activists whom I interviewed did not find the vast array of framing strategies that arise from individuals and organizations within the movement itself as necessarily problematic. In fact, several activists find the diverse frames used to spread their message to be a valuable method for eliciting support from many levels of societies. Divisions in the activists’ viewpoints can be located, however, with those frames that are largely contradictory (i.e., broad versus narrow frames) and spark heated debate. In addition, when such contention over framing strategies manifests along racial lines, many activists are disturbed not only by the movement’s inability to attract significant numbers of racial minorities but also by the effect of this problem upon the ultimate success of the movement. The cultural dimension is crucial to any analysis of the other two dimensions of social movement activity. The framing strategies and the contention that they produce within the movement help to illustrate the importance of the cultural dimension to the anti–death penalty movement. The political opportunity structure often proves to be paramount to the success of social movements, for it contains the power to provide movements with access to external resources. This dimension is less important to the contemporary anti–death penalty movement now, however, than it was at the time of its emergence. McAdam has noted that the role of political opportunities is less important to the maintenance of a particular social movement than it is to its emergence, when the political space is required to spark insurgents to engage in collective action and begin a social movement.61 Once the political environment has opened the space needed to initiate social movement activity, the other two dimensions of organizational dynamics and framing strategies become more significant to the ability of a social movement to sustain itself. McAdam adds that the political opportunity structure is even less critical to the emergence of a “spin-off” movement than an “initiator” movement. The anti–death penalty movement is an example of one such spin-off movement, as it was able to benefit from the gains of the Civil Rights Movement, which serves an example of an initiator, or “early-riser,” movement. Spin-off movements, McAdam asserts, “owe less to expanding political opportunities than to complex diffusion processes by which the ideational, tactical, and organizational lessons of the early risers are made available to subsequent challengers.”62 Certainly the potential of the political opportunity structure to increase access or pose constraints upon the anti–death penalty movement continues to be a real

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concern for activists in the movement, yet when they occur, such circumstances simply provide possibilities, rather than guarantees, for collective action. The ability of activists to seize upon opportunities or resist constraints seems to have more to do with their ability to mobilize internal resources and frame the issue of the death penalty in a manner that will resonate with the public due to, or in spite of, their experiences within the current political atmosphere. Additionally, I assert that framing strategies are crucial to the organizational dynamics of the anti–death penalty movement because activists indicate that the frames they choose to emphasize play a huge role in the strategies and tactics that their organizations employ in their mobilization efforts. For instance, I have found that the movement’s framing strategies largely determine its organizational dynamics when activists advance broad or narrow frames against the death penalty. Those activists who see the death penalty as related to multiple other issues tend to target their message in a broad manner to a wider, grassroots audience. At the same time, those who embrace narrow frames of the death penalty generally tend to be focused on appealing to the power elite.

NOTES 1. Doug McAdam, “Culture and Social Movements,” in New Social Movements: From Ideology to Identity, ed. Enrique Larana, Hank Johnston, and Joseph R. Gusfield (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994), 39. 2. Charles Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution (Reading, Mass.: Addison Wesley, 1978); Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolution (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979). 3. Manuel Castells, The Urban Question (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1977); Alain Touraine, “An Introduction to the Study of Social Movements,” Social Research 52, no. 4 (1985); Alberto Melucci, “The Symbolic Challenge of Contemporary Movements,” Social Research 52, no. 4 (1985); Jurgen Habermas, Legitimation Crisis (Boston: Beacon Press, 1975). 4. McAdam, “Culture and Social Movements,” 39. 5. Erving Goffman, Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience (New York: Harper and Row, 1974). 6. David Snow and Robert Benford, “Ideology, Frame Resonance, and Participant Mobilization,” International Social Movement Research 1 (1988): 197–217. 7. Herbert Haines, Against Capital Punishment: The Anti–Death Penalty Movement in America, 1972–1994 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996). 8. Lawrence R. Jacobs and Robert Y. Shapiro, “The Politicization of Public Opinion: The Fight for the Pulpit,” in The Social Divide, ed. Margaret Weir (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1998), 103. 9. Jacobs and Shapiro, “Politicization of Public Opinion,” 103.

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10. George Lakoff, Moral Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). 11. Lakoff, Moral Politics, 35. 12. Lakoff, Moral Politics, 209. 13. Lakoff, Moral Politics, 208. 14. Lakoff, Moral Politics, 209. 15. Lakoff, Moral Politics, 209. 16. David H. Bennett, The Party of Fear: The American Far Right from Nativism to the Militia Movement (New York: Vintage Press, 1995), 412–13. 17. Bonnie Berry, Social Rage: Emotion and Cultural Conflict (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1999). 18. Anthony Oberschall, Social Movements: Ideologies, Interests, and Identities (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1993). 19. William A. Gamson, The Strategy of Social Protest (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1990). 20. Gamson, Strategy of Social Protest, 44–46. 21. The statistics reported here point to a much higher percentage of both blacks and whites who base their moral opposition to the death penalty on their religious and/or spiritual beliefs than was reported in chapter 2. This is because the earlier chapter examines the unprompted responses of the activists when asked to describe what motivated them to join the movement. The higher percentages of activists in the present chapter, however, are based on the number of activists who responded later in my interview to the direct question of whether their activism is driven to some degree by their religious and/or spiritual beliefs. 22. Joseph C. Hough Jr., Black Power and White Protestants: A Christian Response to the New Negro Pluralism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968). 23. Patrick Bascio, The Failure of White Theology: A Black Theological Perspective (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 1994); James H. Cone, For My People: Black Theology and the Black Church (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1984). 24. Hough, Black Power. 25. Hough, Black Power. 26. Haines, Against Capital Punishment. 27. Mark Peffley and Jon Hurwitz, “Persuasion and Resistance: Race and the Death Penalty in America,” American Journal of Political Science 51, no. 4 (October 2007): 996–1012. 28. The respondents were asked if they support the death penalty after being informed that “most of the people who are executed are African Americans” (Peffley and Hurwitz, “Persuasion and Resistance”). 29. The respondents were presented with the argument that “the death penalty is unfair because too many innocent people are being executed” (Peffley and Hurwitz, “Persuasion and Resistance”). 30. “Whereas 36% of whites strongly favor the death penalty in the baseline condition, 52% strongly favor it when presented with the argument that the policy is racially unfair” (Peffley and Hurwitz, “Persuasion and Resistance”). 31. Peffley and Hurwitz, “Persuasion and Resistance.” 32. Peffley and Hurwitz, “Persuasion and Resistance.” 33. Peffley and Hurwitz, “Persuasion and Resistance.” 34. Peffley and Hurwitz, “Persuasion and Resistance,” 1006.

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35. Peffley and Hurwitz, “Persuasion and Resistance,” 1007. 36. Michael O. Emerson and Christian Smith, Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). 37. Emerson and Smith, Divided by Faith, 87. 38. Emerson and Smith, Divided by Faith, 88. 39. Emerson and Smith, Divided by Faith, 89. 40. Marianne Arbogast, “Resisting the Politics of Fear,” The Witness, 1997. 41. Arbogast, “Resisting the Politics of Fear.” 42. Mark Lewis Taylor, The Executed God: The Way of the Cross in Lockdown America (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 135. 43. Taylor, Executed God, 135. 44. Organizing for the National Weekend of Faith in Action and Beyond: A Guide for Participants, Supplement to the 2007 Faith in Action Resources CD; Amnesty International USA (www.amnestyusa.org/faithinaction/NWFA_Organizing_Guide.pdf). 45. On Amnesty International’s website, the following message can be found: “Although Amnesty International USA has ended its formal coordination of the National Weekend of Faith in Action (NWFA), we continue to support faith community organizing against the death penalty, and continue to develop and make available resources that are useful for that purpose.” Reference is made to a tenth year in 2007, but it appears that this may have been the last year of this event, at least sponsored by Amnesty (www.amnesty.org). 46. Haines, Against Capital Punishment, 144. 47. Consistent Life: Voices for Peace and Life, www.consistent-life.org. 48. Consistent Life: Voices for Peace and Life, www.consistent-life.org. 49. Kristin Luker, Abortion & the Politics of Motherhood (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 183. 50. Luker, Abortion, 184. 51. Luker, Abortion, 185. 52. Luker, Abortion, 174. 53. Kimberly Cook, Divided Passions: Public Opinions on Abortion and the Death Penalty (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1998). 54. Cook, Divided Passions, 90–91. 55. Cook, Divided Passions, 142. 56. Cook, Divided Passions, 142. 57. Haines, Against the Death Penalty, 145. 58. Cook, Divided Passions, 54. 59. Donald Granberg, “Conformity to Religious Norms Regarding Abortion,” The Sociological Quarterly 32, no. 2 (1991): 267–75. 60. Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment (New York: Routledge, 1990). 61. McAdam, Political Process. 62. McAdam, Political Process, 33.

6 Future Directions

SUMMARY OF MAJOR OBSERVATIONS: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF RACE The primary purpose of this study was to gain insight into how the variable of race operates within the anti–death penalty movement to maintain such low numbers of African American and Latinos within its ranks. Questions driving my research focused on ways in which the external and internal factors that affect the mobilizing structures of the movement are shaped by race. Certainly other variables, such as gender, age, class, and religion contribute to the dynamics and course of the movement. These other variables have been at least noted for their influence, particularly when their significance provides insight into the racial differences found in the responses of the activists, yet race remains central to my analysis of the anti–death penalty movement. The importance that I have placed on race arises from my observation of the huge racial disparity found between death row inmates and those who advocate on their behalf in the struggle to abolish the death penalty in the United States. In addition, the attention that I bring to race allows us to entertain the value that race-based arguments against the death penalty have to offer the movement as its participants persevere with their mission to achieve abolition. My findings provide several conclusions regarding the influence of race on the anti–death penalty movement. First and foremost, my findings provide support for the argument advanced by many structuralists that race continues to be a central, enduring variable operating at many levels in U.S. society. So pervasive and persistent is the influence of race across society that its effects can even be located within a social movement organized to 235

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fight the death penalty, one which is arguably left-leaning and presumed by many outsiders to be immune from the insidious ways in which race continues to carry significance in the larger society. Secondly, my findings reveal that when racial differences arise within the various dimensions of social movement activity, they exacerbate the challenges the anti–death penalty movement faces as it struggles to become more racially diverse. Finally, the use of racial frames against the death penalty by activists brings both advantages and disadvantages to the movement toward the aims of recruiting minorities and choosing a target audience. In a society where the colorblind perspective currently prevails, individuals do not readily share their racial attitudes. In order to encourage the activists I interviewed to speak in an open, frank manner about the obstacles that their movement faces as it tries to mobilize racial minorities, I needed a theoretical framework that would equip me with the tools that would allow me to evaluate the factors at work yielding so few racial minorities. The political process model provided me with just such a framework from which to view the difficulties that the anti–death penalty movement faces as it strives to become more racially inclusive. The framework of the political process model reveals a combination of political, organizational, and cultural factors that interact in such a manner as to reinforce the low numbers of racial minorities found in the movement. The view that race continues to weigh heavily among the aggregate of factors that contribute to the way in which society is organized is certainly not much of a revelation to the black and Latino activists I interviewed. Neither is the link often made between racism and the death penalty an unfamiliar one to this group of activists. A majority of the black activists and many of the Latinos indicated that they were mobilized to participate in the movement largely by a consciousness of the racism associated with the death penalty. While they are fully aware of the difficulty that the movement faces with its efforts to advance a race-based message against the death penalty within the current political opportunity structure, they are not willing to retreat from passionately felt arguments focusing on the issue of racism. The tendency of the black and Latino activists to frame their message broadly in hopes of building a grassroots movement is further testament to the uncompromising position this group typically takes toward maintaining a focus on race. For them, the broader frames that include attention to race are both ideologically and strategically driven. They are ideological because the connections between race and the death penalty are seen as clear-cut and undeniable, thus nearly impossible to separate. A broad frame of the death penalty that includes attention to the racism associated with this form of punishment is also viewed as strategic by many who remain convinced that broadening the message stands a better chance of mobilizing masses of racial and class minorities. The black and Latino activists who

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push for a grassroots approach argue that this approach is the best way to challenge a racist power structure that must be confronted with masses of people before it would seriously consider abolishing the death penalty. While a focus on race is easily located in the responses of the black and Latino activists, regardless of whether examining the political, organizational, or cultural factors that mobilize this group, the same cannot be said of the white activists. Only a very small minority of white activists indicate that they were mobilized to join the movement by a view of the death penalty as racist. Whites were also much more likely than their black and Latino peers to avoid race-based arguments as they frame the issue, generally defending this position by pointing to the hostility of the current political opportunity structure toward such arguments. The frames and strategies advanced by white-dominated SMOs were presented as heavily influenced by the power structure as well. For instance, whites tended to report that they keep their message against the death penalty narrow in hopes of increasing the chances that they will be heard by those in positions of power, whom these whites typically view as the primary target audience of the movement. This brief sum of the differences in emphasis that the white activists and those of color placed on race as they discussed how they were mobilized, as well as the ways in which they have attempted to mobilize others to take up their cause, is reflective of very different realities for the groups that these activists represent in the United States. Apparently, race is such a strong determinant of the quality of life for blacks and Latinos, that it pervades all levels of their activity in the anti–death penalty movement. Of course, the glaring racial disparities found with the death penalty do not make their connection of race to the issue a far stretch. The white activists, on the other hand, do not report the same level of concern for the racial aspects of the death penalty. The diminished level of concern among whites in contrast to that I observed by their black and Latino peers can be found at all levels of movement activity that I evaluated, including the political, organizational, and cultural levels. It is crucial to note at this point that my observation that whites are less likely than blacks and Latinos to identify race as a factor shaping the success of their movement does not necessarily mean that race is any less of a factor in shaping either the movement or the lives of whites overall in today’s society. While the reality of race carries very different meaning in the lives of whites than in those of racial minorities, its ability to shape the experiences of each group is no less relevant for one than the other. Furthermore, in order for race to be omnipresent in the lives of whites (i.e., through the many manifestations of white privilege), they need not recognize that fact. Racism is not always, or even usually, identified as a serious problem by white Americans, yet it persists still. In fact, a case can

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be made that the refusal to recognize the severity of racism, as is prevalent with the colorblind perspective, only serves to exacerbate the problem and allows it to emerge in a more insidious form. Certainly the white activists are far from unaware of the ongoing significance of race in today’s society, for many of them defended the strategies of the movement, including the degree of emphasis placed on race, as logical reactions to the current political landscape. Rather than embrace a colorblind perspective that negates the reality of race, therefore, the white activists duly noted the white backlash to the gains of the Civil Rights Movement as an ongoing problem that interferes with the ability of many in our society to see that racism lives on. To the extent that they agreed that the movement has downplayed the racism of the death penalty, they defended this position as a necessary evil in order to advance their cause. So is the lesser attention given to race by white activists, in comparison to that given by blacks and Latinos, simply explained by a greater awareness and appreciation among whites for the limits of race-based appeals in today’s society? Not necessarily, according to their black and Latino counterparts in the movement. The activists of color have a very different story to tell regarding the significant neglect of their white peers to emphasize race with their mobilizing strategies. Behind the tendency of white activists to downplay the significance of race with the death penalty, many black and Latino activists argue, is an overall reluctance to tackle the problem of racism. This reluctance is viewed as driven at minimum by a discomfort with dialogue focused on race, if not also by a degree of paternalism among their white peers. When the racial minorities I interviewed went so far as to note that they have occasionally observed racism among their fellow activists, they identify this racism as largely unconscious, yet they argue that it is no less detrimental to the movement’s ability to attract racial minorities. A significant disjuncture is found between what the white activists say they want, in terms of a racially diverse movement, and their behavior, as their remarks indicate that they are generally not investing much energy into filling their ranks with racial minorities. Although a majority of the white activists stated that they view the racial composition of the movement as a problem, most of them neglect to look internally for the causes of this problem. White activists overwhelmingly point to factors beyond the control of the movement in their efforts to explain why racial minorities tend not to join ranks with them. The level of their race consciousness appears markedly higher than that of whites in the larger society who employ individualist, victim-blaming narratives, which might suggest, in this case, that blacks and Latinos are too lazy or demoralized to mobilize against the death penalty. Instead, as they focused on external factors competing for the attention of blacks and Latinos, the white activists generally displayed

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enough consciousness about race to allow them to implicate macro, social structural arrangements, both in the tendency of racial minorities to feel overwhelmed by many fronts of racism and in the likelihood that they are facing a nihilistic threat. Despite the tendency of the white activists to acknowledge the presence of systemic racism in the lives of racial minorities, however, the vast majority of them stopped short of applying the effects of such systemic racism to the inner workings of their own movement, as if their progressive stance against the death penalty protects them from the far-reaching effects of racism. An analysis of the white privileges produced by systemic racism further explains the greater presence of whites than racial minorities in the movement. The black and Latino activists were much more likely than their white peers to consider not only the disadvantages their communities face as they struggle to draw more minorities into the movement, but also the advantages that whites possess that make it easier for them to become involved. From this perspective, everyone cannot reap the opportunities brought by the power structure equally. By virtue of the privileges accorded to them on the basis of their race, whites have the “luxury” of time and energy to oppose the death penalty, when the burden of racism placed on the black and Latino communities by the power structure does not afford them with the same political opportunities. Although minorities have achieved a hardwon status since the Civil Rights Movement, a significant socioeconomic gap remains between people of color and whites, which is exacerbated by an ever-widening gap between the rich and poor in today’s economy. This economic reality confronting racial minorities makes it much more difficult for them to find the time and money that is generally available to their white peers in order to participate in the anti–death penalty movement. Given these circumstances created by systemic racism, it certainly seems logical that racial minorities would be less than willing to risk any gains they have made since the Civil Rights Movement to join a movement that has largely failed to frame their concerns in a manner that resonates with them. And let’s face it, an image of the most direct victims of the death penalty pales in comparison to that of black children being sprayed down by hoses in the south during the Civil Rights Movement, in terms of its ability to reach the sympathy of the wider society. Blacks and Latinos who have struggled to be perceived as the equals of whites in U.S. society may understandably be reluctant to embrace such an extremely unpopular cause. The disproportionate number of death row inmates who are black complicates this reluctance for blacks, who are likely to want to distance themselves from heinous murderers in a culture that too often associates “criminal” with “black.” Taking a qualitative approach, I have utilized the three dimensions of analysis provided by the political process model to explore the ways in

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which anti–death penalty activists are affected by race as they persevere in the fight to end the death penalty. My reliance on qualitative interviews to reach this analytical goal comes with pros and cons. The primary advantage gained by my use of qualitative methods is that it allowed me to gather data that is much richer and carries deeper meaning than data typically gathered by quantitative methods. On the other hand, the small and unrepresentative nature of my sample of activists brings a primary disadvantage, in that it makes any effort to generalize my findings to the larger population of anti–death penalty activists problematic. It cannot be emphasized enough that my findings should not be generalized to the larger population of anti–death penalty activists in the country, let alone those who live in the Mid-Atlantic region. Forty-nine activists are hardly able to speak for the remainder of activists involved in the anti–death penalty movement. At the same time, I note trends found in the responses given by the activists I interviewed, particularly along the lines of race. I did not look for statistical significance from my data, rather I was interested in determining the extent to which my data support theories focused on the relationship between race and social movement activity. My findings ultimately provide directions to take with future research in this area, a valuable end in itself.

SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH When I selected the method of qualitative interviews, I was well aware of the limitations of this method, as briefly summarized above. Despite the problems posed by this method, its strengths made it well suited for my research purposes, particularly because only a scarcity of literature exists on the topic of the present study. Outside of Herbert Haines’s 1996 study of the anti–death penalty movement, precious little research has been gathered about the ways in which race operates within this movement. Qualitative methods should be used in future research to continue to build on my understanding of the racial meaning attached to activism in the movement against the death penalty. Future researchers should also aim, however, to minimize the limitations presented by qualitative research, such as the difficulty it has yielding statistically significant findings. A multimethod approach, combining qualitative and quantitative methods, would provide one way to elaborate on the subjective meanings interviewees attach to their experiences. While I did not get a sense that my own (white) race interfered with the activists’ willingness to speak in an open, forthright manner, future qualitative researchers who also focus on the way that race operates within the movement may want to consider using a team of researchers of various ra-

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cial/ethnic backgrounds in their face-to-face interactions with the activists. Doing so may increase the likelihood that activists will elaborate in more depth on their thoughts regarding the more sensitive and controversial aspects of race as they see it operating within the movement and shaping its direction. If the activists I interviewed were at all influenced by my presence to respond in particular ways to my questions, I suspect that it was less likely due to my race and more likely due to the fact that I am also an activist within the anti–death penalty movement. Before I began gathering the data for my research, I already knew a handful of the activists that I interviewed, as I too reside in the Mid-Atlantic region of the country and have had contact with many of them at movement events. Rapport was already present with these activists, and it was quickly established with the remaining activists I interviewed once they learned that I share their position on the death penalty and their dedication to the movement. At the same time, the knowledge that I am one of their peers may have biased them to respond to my questions in a particular manner. Activists may be less predisposed to bias when interviewed by someone whom they do not know and would not expect to see at movement events in the future. As a result, future studies of the anti–death penalty movement may wish to use strangers to conduct the interviews with activists. Certainly future research focused on the relative absence of racial minorities in the anti–death penalty movement should not limit analysis to those who are already a part of the movement. Research should also target racial minorities who are not involved in the movement in order to explore the reasons for their inactivity. For instance, it would be useful to survey blacks and Latinos who are not involved in the anti–death penalty movement in order to explore the reasons why they are not involved and what it might take to mobilize them. The study by Peffley and Hurwitz that I have detailed in chapter 5 should be replicated and expanded to examine the effectiveness of various arguments to convert those racial minorities who support the death penalty to embrace a position of opposition.1 The focus of the Peffley-Hurwitz study should be expanded, however, to examine not only the arguments that move minorities from a position of support to opposition, but also the conditions that are likely to move them to actively oppose the death penalty by joining the movement. Blacks and Latinos could be asked to describe how they view the movement in terms of its racial composition and its message. They could be further asked whether or not they have ever felt welcomed to join an organization or if they have detected any degree of alienation or hostility from activists in the movement. If future surveys reveal a significant number of blacks and Latinos who support the death penalty, then reasons, such as a lack of knowledge or a concern about crime, can be verified for their role in such support. Particular attention should be given to any differences that emerge along the lines

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of class. Since the majority of those blacks I interviewed identify as middle class, greater attention given to the class factors interfering with the mobilization of the black community can assist in evaluating the extent to which the nihilistic threat is keeping poor blacks out of the movement. Asian Americans and Native Americans should be included in these efforts as well in order to determine what activists can do to make them a visible presence in the mainstream movement. Undoubtedly, there are individuals among these two racial groups who are opposed to the death penalty, as well as inclined toward activism. The coalition built by the International Family and Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal has managed to attract individuals from many racial and ethnic backgrounds, including both Native Americans and Asian Americans. I have seen a significant number of individuals from these two racial groups at events organized for Mumia. For instance, there is a visible segment of Mumia supporters of Asian descent, and it is not unusual to see them at demonstrations, particularly on the West Coast, marching behind a banner with their name “Asians for Mumia” boldly written across it. Future researchers are encouraged to examine the messages and strategies of the Mumia movement for its ability to attract an extremely racially diverse following. Future research focused on the internal dynamics of the anti–death penalty movement should also pay closer attention to the variable of class. A demographic comparison of activists in the movement to the individuals who sit on death row yields a division along the lines of class status that is at least as glaring as the racial differences observed between these two groups. Questions similar to those I asked about the mobilization of activists who are racially different from death row inmates, therefore, also arise with regard to the class distinctions found between these two populations. I suspect that future research focused more centrally on the variable of class might find that class privilege, as I have concluded is the case with white privilege, equips middle-class activists with more resources to organize against the death penalty. Researchers who take up this area of study might also consider exploring the extent to which classism is operating in some form to alienate the lower socioeconomic classes from joining the ranks of the movement. Another demographic variable that warrants further attention in studies of the anti–death penalty movement is that of age. The variable that stood out above all others in terms of those groups who prefer conventional versus disruptive strategies and tactics in the movement was that of age. A similar distinction in age was found between those who target the power structure vs. those who are more concerned with building a grassroots movement. The younger activists I interviewed tended to prefer disruptive methods of organizing as they work to build a grassroots movement, yet the older activists were much more prone toward utilizing more conventional forms of protest in hopes of appealing to the power structure.

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Another reason that age differences among those in the anti–death penalty movement require further attention is because age is the variable that stood out above all others when I examined the differences that arose between the white activists. In my research, several whites identified as more politically progressive than the majority of the whites I interviewed and they consistently agreed with the remarks made by the vast majority of blacks and Latinos regarding the way in which race operates within the movement. This small, more progressive group of whites was among the youngest I interviewed. Due to the small sample size of my research, however, additional research should sample a much larger number of activists to determine if age holds as a strong predictor of those whites who are willing to provide a critical look at the ways in which race shapes the movement. Future research might consider isolating the younger, more progressive white activists for examination in order to determine the factors that enable some whites to reach a point where they become more comfortable than most white activists with critical race dialogue focused on the concerns of their black and Latino peers. If a measure of “youth” is indeed confirmed to predispose whites to adopt more racially progressive politics, then further study could explore how young white activists differ from their older peers in the movement. Other factors that the young white activists I interviewed generally shared in common was a tendency not to identify as religious and a inclination toward adopting more radical political viewpoints, such as becoming card-carrying members of the International Socialist Organization. Future research that develops our understanding of the conditions that are likely to increase the willingness of whites to exert greater effort toward building a racially diverse movement would not only prove helpful to the movement against the death penalty, but it also would add to the literature focused on the topic of coalition politics. With the present study, I am asserting that the amount of attention that the activists give to the racial aspects of the death penalty is a key factor responsible for not only the lack of racial diversity in the movement, but, ultimately, for the failure of the movement to achieve abolition through grassroots organizing. Yet certainly there are other factors besides racial ones that contribute to the difficulty that the anti–death penalty movement has had achieving its goal of abolition. Since very little research has been conducted on this topic, there are many, many directions that future research can take toward the aim of uncovering and elaborating upon these factors and the ways in which they are affecting the success of the movement. Given the current trend found with many states pushing for moratorium or abolition legislation, the need for research is tremendous. As a result of the attention brought to the risk of executing innocent people, the vast majority of the research that is being funded right now is focused on determining the flaws that are found with the administration of the death penalty.

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Future research must also be concerned with analyzing the movement that is organized against the death penalty because as social movement scholars gain a greater understanding of the conditions that are likely to increase the movement’s potential for success, activists can make use of this information as they strive to make the most of the hope brought by the flurry of legislative activity.

POTENTIAL POLITICAL OPPORTUNITIES: THE OBAMA FACTOR “We could not be meeting at a more exciting time.” These were the words spoken by Diann Rust-Tierney, the executive director of NCADP, as she welcomed nearly three hundred activists representing thirty-two organizations from around the country to the 2009 Annual Conference, held in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The greeting that is given each year to the group of abolitionists who assemble for their annual conference is always upbeat, as the director offers encouraging words to motivate the ranks to persevere in their fight to abolish the death penalty. Something was different this time, however, as the exhilaration in the air was undeniable. The annual meeting in Harrisburg began less than a week after President Barack Obama was inaugurated as the forty-fourth president of the United States. Throughout his campaign, Obama had generated a great deal of hope that change was coming to the White House and would soon spread across the nation as he began his administration. In the same hopeful tone that President Obama had taken during his inaugural speech just days earlier, Ms. Tierney continued, “As we continue this race for justice and human rights, we are refreshed by the wave of optimism and energy that has swept across this country, even as we face the hills and valleys ahead.”2 As this book goes to press, Obama has been in office not quite a year. He has certainly not gone without criticism, yet it is still early enough in his administration that the hope that he brought with him to Washington, D.C., lingers, as the nation’s citizens watch and wait anxiously for the promised change to come. Hope has only continued to grow among anti–death penalty activists since Obama took office. The much anticipated success of abolition in New Mexico occurred just two months after the Obama administration took over, and there are many other states that are entertaining legislation which involves a study commission, moratorium, or abolition of the death penalty. With the many successes that we are seeing as a movement toward the eventual goal of abolition across the country, arguably the time is ripe to wage a major campaign based on the racial disparities associated with the death penalty. The recent successes of the movement and the hope generated by a new presidential administration may instill the

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confidence activists need to unapologetically “play the race card.” Doing so on a broad scale may be the key to finally attract large numbers of racial minorities, allowing the grassroots of the movement to swell to numbers never seen before. This book closes with a discussion of the possibilities that the Obama administration brings to the movement’s ability not only to talk about race, but also to be heard in a way that has not been possible for a long time. Once again, the conceptual toolkit offered by the political process model will prove to be invaluable toward this end. The dimension of the political opportunity structure has been absolutely crucial to my analysis of the anti–death penalty movement. It not only allows for an understanding of the political obstacles that have prevented the movement from reaching its goal of abolition, but it also sheds light into the systemic racism that transcends the macrolevel of society and filters down into the microlevel processes shaping the interaction between activists. The change in power from the Bush administration to that of Obama, as well as the Democratic takeover of Congress, is certain to bring many political opportunities, particularly for those who fall on the political left. The question remains, however, whether increased, open dialogue about race will be among these opportunities. The findings from my study support past research which suggests that increased attention to race is key to bringing racial minorities into the movement. Initially, it appears that the presence of Obama in the White House can only serve to increase the likelihood that race-based arguments against the death penalty will be legitimized. After all, it is a historic moment that we are witnessing, with the first African American serving as the president of the United States. How can we possibly not be talking about race at any and every opportunity? Ironically, having our first black president in office may be exactly what keeps us from finally receiving the validation that so many of us have sought with racial arguments against the death penalty. Indeed, many activists within the movement may be tempted to push the race card even further back in the deck. The possibility that the movement may be freer now than in the past to advance racial frames is entirely likely according to the premise of the minority empowerment thesis. According to this perspective, “minority representation strengthens representational links, fosters more positive attitudes toward government, and encourages political participation.”3 Research has found support for this thesis, indicating that when minority representatives are elected, their presence in political office empowers their minority constituents to engage more in the political process. When minorities see representatives in office who look like them and for whom they voted, “that encourages minorities to feel that participation has intrinsic value.”4 Blacks who live in large cities where blacks hold the mayor’s office have been found to participate in electoral politics more often than blacks who live in cities where there are no

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black-elected officials.5 These research findings seem to suggest that the record voter turnout for blacks and Latinos at the 2008 election, and of course the subsequent reward for their vote of President Obama, will empower these communities to remain more active in the political process. This can translate into an opportunity for the anti–death penalty movement as it seeks to involve racial minorities. The more involved they are in the political process already, the easier it will be to have them transfer their involvement into the struggle to end the death penalty. Just months after his election, President Obama found himself presented with an opportunity to nominate a U.S. Supreme Court Justice to replace retiring Justice David Souter. Obama’s choice of Sonia Sotomayor has provided another one for the history books: the first Latina to serve on the nation’s highest court. Justice Sonia Sotomayor received her law degree from Yale Law School and has served as a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. She has an extensive amount of judicial experience, more than the Supreme Court has seen in any justice who has been confirmed in the past seventy years.6 Sotomayor is highly qualified for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, yet she brings more than just a wealth of judicial experience to the bench. She adds a degree of diversity that has been all too often lacking throughout the history of the U.S. Supreme Court. Prior to Sotomayor joining the U.S. Supreme Court, “of the 110 justices who have served on the court, 106 have been white men. Only two have been women, and only two black.”7 Justice Sotomayor offers a unique perspective to the U.S. Supreme Court, given her background as a woman of Puerto Rican descent who was raised modestly by a single mother in the Bronx, New York. She acknowledged the value of her own perspective in a 2001 statement: “I would hope a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”8 This statement has stirred up a great deal of controversy, with some GOP conservatives going so far as to call her a “reverse racist” for her comment.9 The political left, on the other hand, is no less than exuberant by Obama’s choice, as there is little doubt that her confirmation by a Democratic-controlled Congress has only helped to further solidify Latinos as constituents for the Democratic Party. As the nation awaits the confirmation hearings for Sotomayor, members of Congress prepare for the hearings by reviewing her record while the media acquaints the larger society with Sonia Sotomayor, the person, as much as Judge Sotomayor, the federal judge. The anti–death penalty movement scrambles to examine her position on the death penalty, in hopes of finding that she is an ardent abolitionist. Little evidence is found, however, with regard to her position toward the death penalty. Justice Sotomayor has made very few public statements about the death penalty throughout

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her many years as a prosecutor and judge. Conservatives have uncovered and exposed an internal memo that she signed in 1981 when she was serving on the board of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF). The memo contained a recommendation for their organization to oppose efforts that were being made in New York State to restore the death penalty. The racial disparities found on our nation’s death rows were emphasized in the memo that Sotomayor signed, as well as the claim that the death penalty is “associated with evident racism in our society.”10 Justice Sotomayor’s signature on the 1981 memo of the PRLDEF11 offers hope to activists in the anti–death penalty movement that she may become an ally on the bench of the U.S. Supreme Court in the struggle to abolish the death penalty. The content of the 1981 PRLDEF memo further suggests that Sotomayor is open to hearing racial arguments against the death penalty. Seventeen years later, her willingness to consider such arguments becomes much more questionable. In 1998, the only death penalty case that she has handled as a federal judge took place when two black men, a drug kingpin and his bodyguard, faced the death penalty in New York City.12 Sotomayor had to consider the challenge that the defendants’ lawyers raised to the federal death penalty law before the two men could go to trial. The defense attorneys presented data that was already showing extreme racial disparities a decade after the federal death penalty had been reinstated in 1988. In the decade that had passed since the reinstatement of the federal death penalty, “the federal government had authorized 119 capital cases, with 79 percent involving minority defendants. Of the 16 men who had been sentenced to death, 13 were members of minorities.”13 After Justice Sotomayor was presented with these statistics, her reaction was reminiscent of the court’s 1987 decision in McCleskey v. Kemp.14 She agreed with the prosecutors’ argument that the racial disparity found with the administration of the federal death penalty over the previous decade did not in itself prove that discrimination had occurred with the case at hand. “The high percentage of minority defendants tells me nothing about the pool from which that number comes from.” Sotomayor continued, asking the defense for “some actual proof of discrimination besides statistical evidence, because it can be manipulated.”15 She eventually agreed that the numbers with the federal death penalty are disparate enough that “one look more should be done, at least an initial inquiry,” thus she ordered data of the federal statistics, saying “I’d like to see the numbers myself.”16 The two men ultimately escaped federal death sentences when they pleaded guilty and were given mandatory life sentences. What might the anti–death penalty movement glean from Sotomayor’s involvement with this 1998 federal death penalty case? The bad news is that Justice Sotomayor cannot be assumed to be an ally of the movement, as she made it clear at that time that she was willing to apply the federal death

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penalty law. The good news, however, is that she certainly appears to be troubled by the racial disparities that are associated with the death penalty, thus there is room for racial frames to be taken seriously by this newest member of the U.S. Supreme Court. Not only is the addition of Sotomayor to the Supreme Court likely to strengthen the confidence of activists who wish to advance racial arguments against the death penalty, but her mere presence may also ease the difficulty that the movement has had attracting racial minorities. According to the minority empowerment thesis described above, the presence of Sotomayor on the highest court, especially with an African American in the White House, will only further empower racial minorities to become politically active. The “politics of presence” that operate to determine the symbolic value of minority representation in the political arena is examined in a study of congresswomen and their female constituents. 17 This study examined the symbolic representation that women who are elected to Congress offer their female constituents. Female citizens are not expected to become politically active if Congress is controlled by men, as they may interpret such a government as neither open to them nor representative of their concerns. It is assumed that the presence of women in positions of political power, on the other hand, sends a message to women in society that their concerns will be heard and addressed. It is hypothesized that this message will empower women to become more engaged in the political process. The findings of this study find minimal evidence of symbolic value to be gained by the presence of women in Congress. While women in society tend to offer more favorable evaluations of Congress when women are among the elected representatives, their political attitudes and behaviors are not consistently affected by the symbolic representation of congresswomen.18 Studies of the politics of presence, such as this study of congresswomen and symbolic representation, do not necessarily provide support for the minority empowerment thesis. The ability of congresswomen to empower women is limited, as gender is found to have a minimal effect upon symbolic representation, yet the variable of race may operate differently. Sotomayor’s impact is likely to reach beyond that of congresswomen for a couple of reasons. First of all, her minority status cuts across two groups: women and Latinos. As both a female and a racial minority, Sotomayor has the potential to mobilize more individuals from a number of marginalized groups. Secondly, as a Supreme Court Justice, Sotomayor has more power to effect change on a broader scale than does a congresswoman. This is particularly true when considering the political power that is necessary to abolish the death penalty. The greater political power of Sotomayor than that of congresswomen may serve as such an inspiration for individuals within the groups that she represents that they become empowered to participate in the political process.

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The authority of the Supreme Court carries such weight and commands so much respect from U.S. citizens, in fact, that it has been found to shape individuals’ attitudes toward the death penalty, even when these attitudes are contrary to the effect that the court’s decisions may have upon their own lives. In an effort to explain black support for the death penalty, a team of researchers point to the legitimacy of the Supreme Court.19 They found that the “political capital” possessed by the Court is so great that it “functions as a reservoir of good will and commitment” as it seeks support for a given policy.20 As a result of the “remarkably stable and high levels of abstract mass approval” given to the Supreme Court, when a controversial policy like the death penalty goes before the Court, the legitimacy it has been given increases the “likelihood that a substantial proportion of the public will support or at least accept its position.”21 This study found that the blacks who are more likely to support the decisions of the Supreme Court in support of the death penalty are those blacks who possess low levels of race consciousness. Conversely, blacks who demonstrated the highest levels of race consciousness were able to reject the legitimacy typically given to the Court.22 There is a lesson that activists in the anti–death penalty movement can learn from this study of the legitimacy of the Supreme Court. The findings suggest that in order to increase death penalty opposition among racial minorities, in hopes of attracting more blacks and Latinos to the movement, it is crucial for activists to find a way to develop the level of race consciousness within these communities of color around the issue of the death penalty. Despite the legitimacy typically given to the Court, the study found that “race consciousness acts as something of a standing decision. Policies are evaluated in terms of group attachments, and the more firmly rooted the group attachment, the less affect other forces will have in the evaluation of these policies—even for a force as credible as the Supreme Court.”23 Activists in the anti–death penalty movement who wish to attract more racial minorities to their cause, therefore, must advance racial arguments against the death penalty when organizing within communities of color. As blacks and Latinos are made aware of the disproportionate impact of the death penalty upon their communities, their level of race consciousness and group solidarity is likely to increase. In order to avoid the impression that paternalistic overtures are being made by white activists to these potential recruits, many of the blacks and Latinos I interviewed suggest that whenever the racial composition of the local or state organization allows, any activist(s) of color in the organization be encouraged to take the lead in efforts directed at building race consciousness and race solidarity within communities of color. It is clear that studies of the minority empowerment thesis have exposed limitations that exist with this perspective. The increased visibility of racial

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minorities in positions of power far from guarantees that previously politically inactive people of color will suddenly feel so empowered that they rush to engage themselves in various political activities. Anti–death penalty activists would be naïve to expect that the presence of Obama in the White House, or Sotomayor on the Supreme Court, or any other racial minorities in powerful political positions would be enough to drive people of color to their movement. Indeed, the presence of racial minorities in powerful positions may very well have the opposite effect on minority political participation. Rather than empowering minorities to involve themselves in the political process, the visible presence of powerful racial minorities may actually hinder them from becoming involved. With their extensive examination of the concept of political opportunities, Meyer and Minkoff have noted that explanations for the successes and failures of social movements in terms of their emergence and outcomes often vary according to the manner in which the political opportunity structure is conceptualized.24 They conducted multivariate analyses of civil rights protest that occurred from 1955 to 1985 and found a great deal of variation in the formation and outcomes of social movement organizations, owing largely to various conceptions of the political opportunity structure utilized in the analyses of civil rights protest. While the details of their analyses and findings are quite extensive, they make several observations that deserve attention here as I weigh both the opportunities and constraints that the anti–death penalty movement currently faces with the dramatically changing political opportunity structure sparked by the 2008 election of President Barack Obama. Meyer and Minkoff found that after civil rights legislation was passed and blacks gained political power as a result, civil rights protests in the post-1965 period diminished.25 They found an even stronger negative relationship between federal funding for civil rights and protest, such that as funding increased, protest declined.26 These findings support the view that as legislative gains are achieved, protest declines, presumably because with these gains, black insurgents are provided more conventional avenues to follow as they seek redress for their claims. The changes brought by the political opportunity structure were not always found to contribute to a decline in protest activity, however, as protests were positively correlated with the black voter registration rate, a measurement of the political access of blacks.27 As the black voter registration rate increased, blacks were able to achieve greater political access. Enjoying greater political access, blacks may feel that their voices will be heard further through their protest activity. The finding generated by the Meyer/Minkoff study that offers the most hope to anti–death penalty activists who are considering the potential impact of Obama’s administration, however, is the finding that focuses on the impact of Democratic presidential administrations on black protest activity.

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Regardless of the manner in which the concept of the political opportunity structure is conceptualized, the researchers find that “Democratic presidential administrations consistently promote movement mobilization and outcomes . . . which implies that government support effectively alters the balance of power in favor of the movement and its chances for success.”28 While this finding may lead activists to expect our current Democratic presidential administration to foster success in the movement against the death penalty, or at least mobilize more blacks, additional variables must be noted for their potential to complicate our interpretation of this finding. The study conducted by Meyer and Minkoff examined civil rights protest that took place between 1955 and 1985. Despite all of the changes that occurred during this thirty-year spread within the political opportunity structure, a consistent pattern emerged with the relationship between Democratic presidential administrations and the outcomes of civil rights protest. There is something different about the Democratic presidential administration today, however, that couldn’t be measured during the thirty years of presidential administrations analyzed by Meyer and Minkoff. The effect of the variable “race of president” was not able to be measured, since this is our first Democratic presidential administration that has ever been headed by an African American president. I have already argued above how the minority empowerment thesis leads us to expect, more than ever, that such a presidential administration can only encourage protest among blacks. Research that contests the minority empowerment thesis must also be examined, however, as we consider all possible directions that the current political opportunity structure may lead us in the struggle to abolish the death penalty. Before considering other studies, one last finding of Meyer and Minkoff must be noted for the potential that it carries to disrupt the hope brought by their earlier finding that is focused on Democratic presidential administrations. These researchers found a negative relationship between the number of blacks elected to Congress and the black protest rate.29 The greater the number of blacks who are elected to Congress, the lower the rate of protest among blacks. While this finding may appear to contradict their earlier finding that Democratic presidential administrations promote black protest, it is important to keep in mind that all of the Democratic presidents during the time period analyzed in this study were white men. Even though blacks overwhelmingly identify as Democrats, that does not mean that they necessarily trust white Democratic presidents to always represent the interests of the black community. Blacks may simply perceive the Democratic candidate as the “lesser of two evils” when contrasted with the Republican candidate running in the same race. When the Democratic president takes office and the black protest rate increases, therefore, blacks may not be protesting because they feel empowered by Democratic presidents.

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Their protest may instead signify a need they feel to make the president and his administration aware of the issues confronting their community. If the latter explanation for black protest during Democratic administrations is correct, their finding that protest declines as the number of blacks in Congress increases no longer seems contradictory. The black community may feel increasingly more represented with growing numbers of blacks in Congress, thus less aggrieved and less inclined to protest as a result. If this is the case, race trumps political power, as black representatives in Congress are viewed as more likely to represent them than is the person who sits in the powerful seat of the presidency. Another study of protest among blacks yields similar results to those described above with the Meyer/Minkoff study. Jenkins, Jacobs, and Agnone also studied various aspects of black protest, including their relationship to the political opportunity structure. Their study covered such protest over a span of fifty years, from 1948 to 1997. This team of researchers corroborated the finding of Meyer and Minkoff when they looked into the relationship between congressional representation and protest. Jenkins et al. found that “African American congressional representation provides political access, thereby reducing protest.”30 These researchers also find that black protest declines when Democratic presidents are in office, yet they elaborate upon this finding with the explanation that the anti–civil rights stance of Republican presidents has been perceived as such a threat by blacks that they were provoked to frequent protests during their administrations. Jenkins et al. also found that black protest is more likely to be promoted with the presence of a “divided government,” as this type of government “creates interparty competition and thus a greater willingness by elites to tolerate or support moderate political challengers who seek political access.”31 As detailed thus far, the findings of this study appear to support the notion that the Obama administration and Democratically controlled Congress are not likely to encourage protest among African Americans. There is another hypothesis tested in this study that reveals a condition that promotes black protest. The researchers tested the relationship between the African American unemployment rate and African American protest, and they found that the unemployment of this group encourages them to protest. There is a linear positive relationship between the variables of unemployment and protest among blacks.32 With this finding, the study by Jenkins et al. finally appears to offer a condition whereby we can expect to see our current political opportunity structure generate protest among the black community. Due to the economic recession that we are experiencing, the unemployment rate has soared to heights not seen by our nation since 1983.33 The silver lining of this dark economic cloud for activists in the movement against the death penalty may well be that blacks and other minorities who are suffering economically are more easily mobilized to

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protest. Their desperate economic status may be most likely to move them to join the movement if activists are able to couch frames of death penalty opposition in economic terms. Closer inspection of the findings generated by Jenkins et al. reveals that the relationship between the unemployment rate and protest activity of blacks is only linear to a point. Once the unemployment rate reaches a particular level, protest activity diminishes. When the rate of unemployment reaches a threshold of 12.4 percent, the reduced resources available to the black community decreases the frequency of protests.34 The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the unemployment rate for May 2009 was 9.4 percent.35 While this rate is below the 12.4 percent threshold found in the Jenkins et al. study, we must separate the black unemployment rate from the national rate. In May 2009, the unemployment rate for whites was 8.6 percent, compared to 12.7 percent for Latinos and 14.9 percent for blacks (16.8 percent for black men).36 The unemployment rate for blacks has exceeded the threshold determined by the Jenkins et al. study at which point protest activity of this group declines. It appears that the extremely high unemployment rate among blacks and Latinos is not likely to serve as a very strong impetus for them to engage in protest after all. Turning to Latinos, it is much more difficult to determine if the “politics of presence” mentioned above regarding the addition of Justice Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court will empower more Latinos to engage in social movements or if her presence on the Court will have the opposite effect of channeling them to pursue more conventional means as they strive to have their needs met. There are so few Latinos in positions of political power that it is difficult to measure the ways in which the “politics of presence” tend to operate with Latinos. The political development of Latinos in social movements and political organizations has been a slow process. To the extent that organizations have arisen within the Latino community, they have been primarily regional and nationality specific.37 The political development of Latinos has been very different from the course taken by African Americans, as Latinos have endured “fragmentation, the relative absence of visible national leadership, and the low rate of Latino participation in mass membership organizations.”38 Due to their rapid growth across the nation, Latinos are being courted by white political organizations that wish to form coalitions with this increasingly significant proportion of the nation’s population. The socioeconomic struggles and racial discrimination confronting both Latinos and blacks alike certainly make these two groups appear to be natural allies. Unfortunately, strong, broad coalitions between blacks and Latinos are rare, since these groups are typically placed in conflict with one another.39 While the explanations for the weak alliances between blacks and Latinos are much too complex to detail here, the crucial point to be made is that these groups

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must find common ground and work toward building coalitions if they wish to gain the political clout that will allow them to address their common plight. The various groups that make up the category “Latino” would also do well to first work on unifying and embracing a Pan-Latino identity. When it comes to the issue of the death penalty, the statistics and concerns that I have reported throughout this book have pointed to similar political, economic, and cultural experiences of both groups that easily form the basis for a strong coalition that can develop as they join the movement toward abolition.

FUTURE FRAMING POSSIBILITIES The social movement dimension of framing processes helps to clarify how race operates within the anti–death penalty movement with its focus on the cultural factors that political process theorists eventually incorporated into their perspective. Religious and/or moral frames against the death penalty are shaped in part by the significance of race in the political environment. While race is significant to the lives of whites in addition to those of blacks and Latinos, the realities that it brings to each group yields experiences with very different consequences. These differences often manifest in the cultural meaning and practices that each racial group attaches to their activism in the anti–death penalty movement. The activists in my study identified a variety of frames they use when they organize against the death penalty. The morality frame emerges as the most dominant one utilized within the movement, though it is not uncommon for activists to have many different ways to frame their moral objections to the death penalty. Other frames include ones focused on issues of innocence, fairness, religious teachings, humanitarian concerns, personal experience, cost, class disparity, and of course, race and racism. I have given a great deal of attention to the racial arguments that activists can use to frame opposition to the death penalty. At the same time, I appreciate all of the frames that activists have at their disposal to choose from as they engage in passionate discourse about the death penalty. My emphasis on the importance of racial frames arises from my primary focus on the best way to build a racially diverse movement. Toward that end, the value of racial frames cannot be overestimated, as the activists of color overwhelmingly indicated that it was a concern about the racial disparities associated with the death penalty that moved them from a position of opposition to one of action. While it was typically not the first argument that the white activists pulled out of their long list of reasons to oppose the death penalty, rare was the white activist who did not at least recognize the value of racial frames to a description of all that is wrong with the death penalty.

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What frames are best for the movement to advance as the tireless activists who serve its mission press on in the fight for abolition? We are at an exciting time in that fight, with some recent victories to energize us and some openings in the political opportunity structure to encourage us to persevere. Some of the activists have been in the movement for many years and have survived long stretches of time within highly conservative political environments that contained numerous constraints and few opportunities. These activists had to think twice about the frames that they advanced when they were surrounded by such hostility. Now they may feel much like the newly hired worker who has survived a long period of unemployment and is tempted to go on a spending spree after she collects her first paycheck. Activists may be feeling a similar sense of liberation brought by the current political opportunities, thus eager to “cash in” on all of the arguments they withheld when they had to be much more calculated in what they said and to whom about the death penalty. While I have indicated that I can appreciate all of the arguments activists have used in their organizing against the death penalty, it is important for us to consider the possible reactions to the issues that we raise with each of our anti–death penalty frames. For instance, all of the national attention that has been given to the dozens of death row inmates who have been exonerated in recent years (approximately 138 since 197340) has popularized the innocence frame in the media and courts. Although there are many causes of false convictions (i.e., incompetent defense attorneys failing to introduce key evidence, witnesses recanting original testimony, corrupt prosecutors telling lies to seal a death sentence), the most publicized means used to free death row inmates has been newly acquired DNA evidence that is able to prove that the inmate is innocent of the murder for which he was convicted and sentenced to death. Activists in the movement have hosted many educational events, led many letter-writing campaigns, generated petitions, and so on, in which they have made arguments against the death penalty based, at least in part, on the dangers of executing the innocent. The stories of exonerees, such as Kirk Bloodsworth, are told in gripping detail before large audiences. Bloodsworth has traveled the world since he was exonerated in 1993 from Maryland’s death row, after becoming the first to be proven innocent on the basis of DNA evidence.41 At a symposium held in 2002 at the University of Oregon, Charles Ogletree was among a group of academics and attorneys who gathered to exchange ideas on the topic of death penalty politics. Ogletree centered his remarks on the theme of race and the death penalty.42 In his closing remarks, he offered suggestions for death penalty opponents. He cautioned them against basing their arguments against the death penalty upon the flaws found with the death penalty. Quoting recently published comments

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made by a news reporter, Ogletree read, “By focusing on flaws in the operation of the death penalty, opponents run the risk of surrendering the moral argument. They might also find themselves inadvertently helping to repair a system they would rather see eliminated,” helping to create a “modernized, sanitized death penalty.”43 Ogletree continues, warning abolitionists that excessive attention brought by the movement to the DNA testing that has helped to prove that there are innocent inmates on death row, for instance, may backfire on them. Those who push for retention of the death penalty may simply take extra care to address the concerns about the flawed death penalty, such as ordering DNA testing in every case.44 Bill Wiseman can appreciate Ogletree’s concern that efforts to reduce the use of the death penalty may backfire. Mr. Wiseman was a young state legislator in Oklahoma more than thirty years ago when he wrote the bill that made his state the first in the world to adopt lethal injection as a mode of execution.45 When Wiseman introduced this bill, he hoped to make executions more humane, as he was morally opposed to the death penalty. If his state was going to practice the death penalty, he reasoned that at least he would help to make it more humane.46 Since lethal injection became a legal mode of execution in Oklahoma in 1977, all but one of the thirty-eight death penalty states would eventually adopt lethal injection as their primary mode of execution, modeling their lethal injection legislation after Wiseman’s bill.47 As of October 20, 2009, there have been 1,006 people put to death via lethal injection across the nation’s death rows.48 Wiseman’s intention to make the death penalty more humane had backfired on him, as he now believes that the introduction of lethal injection as a mode of execution helped to “make them more common, by making it easier for squeamish judges and juries to hand down the ultimate punishment.”49 The warning that Ogletree gave abolitionists to refrain from framing their opposition in terms that focus on the flaws with the death penalty could have predicted legislation such as the bill that passed in Maryland on May 7, 2009. Governor O’Malley is opposed to the death penalty and was hoping that his state would ban it altogether. When he wasn’t able to get an abolition bill through the General Assembly, he agreed to sign a bill that would severely limit the cases in which the death penalty can be applied. These extremely limited cases that could receive the death penalty include cases that have a videotaped confession; those that have biological, DNA, or videotaped evidence; or those that are otherwise conclusively able to link a defendant to a murder.50 When I spoke with one of the Latinas in my sample, Diana, who lives in New Mexico, she was ecstatic about her state’s abolition of the death penalty just days earlier. She spoke about the difference between the legislation that passed in her state and that which the governor of Maryland was expected to sign soon. She referred to the restricted death penalty bill that was about to be signed in Maryland as “a little bit of a wakeup call for the

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movement.” She explained that there had been too much emphasis on the problems with the system and not enough on the immorality of the death penalty. Though she was quick to add, “I don’t think it’s anybody’s fault at all,” Diana described the lesson that Maryland taught the movement: I think we need to always be arguing fundamental morality now as well, not necessarily up front, as we have to be careful with the individual we are speaking to at the time, what language they speak, what’s going to reach them and what’s not. But I think we’ve got to be very careful not to ignore the fundamental, basic morality argument because Maryland has shown us there’s ways to fix this. It has shown us that when you start pointing out all of the problems with the system, that it is the system that is not working, that you will have people who are going to say, “Let’s see if we can fix it. We’re going to narrow it to certain circumstances.” That’s exactly what they passed in Maryland. They narrowed it so much that they cleaned it up for most people and that’s why we have to be very careful. We have to keep making the argument that no matter how much we try to narrow it, we can’t clean it up. We have to be really, really careful about trying to reform too much. If we reform too much then we’ve cleaned up the system so much that it’s not so horrific to mainstream Americans anymore. That is what we can learn from Maryland. I think that after Maryland, people are really going to have to rethink our messaging.

The point that Diana makes regarding the need for the abolitionist movement to rethink the best way to advance its message that the death penalty needs to be abolished is certainly a good one. I agree that it is important that we not lose sight of the basic morality argument that Diana refers to, as I have seen over my many years of involvement in the movement that the moral outrage the activists possess toward our nation’s use of the death penalty is what drives us; it is the heart of the movement. We are not in this fight to see that the death penalty is revamped, polished, more sanitized, or less messy in how it is applied. We are in this fight to see that it is abolished because we are very strongly, unequivocally morally opposed to the state or federal government killing its citizens. To abandon or even push aside our moral outrage as we focus on the many problems inherent with the administration of the death penalty would be to lose our heart in the process. Certainly we should be talking to anyone who will listen about the many reasons why we consider the death penalty to be a failed social policy, one that is fraught with contradictions and discrimination. In the process of explaining the many reasons why the death penalty is problematic, however, we cannot lose sight of the moral arguments that drive us the most to dedicate our time and energy to this movement. Just months before he stepped down from the bench of the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Harry Blackmun reached a position of death penalty opposition. For over twenty years, he had supported the death penalty, in one

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form or another, though his support had waned. As he sought alongside his peers to find the best way to retain the death penalty, he eventually realized that there was no way that the death penalty can be administered fairly. On February 22, 1994, Blackmun made the following statement when he issued a dissent from the Court’s decision not to hear a death penalty case (Callins v. Collins). His remarks suggest that it was his sense of morality that eventually liberated him enough to come down solidly against the death penalty. From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death. For more than 20 years I have endeavored—indeed, I have struggled—along with a majority of this Court, to develop procedural and substantive rules that would lend more than the mere appearance of fairness to the death penalty endeavor. Rather than to continue to coddle the Court’s delusion that the desired level of fairness has been achieved and the need for regulation eviscerated, I feel morally and intellectually obligated simply to concede that the death penalty experiment has failed.51

As I spoke with activists and sought to determine what drives them in their passionate stance and activism against the death penalty, a long list of reasons quickly formed, yet underpinning nearly all of the explanations that the activists provided me emerged a strong moral sense that the death penalty is simply wrong. I have devoted a great deal of attention in this book to analyzing these many reasons that activists are driven to the movement. I have found that contention often arises as one reason gets privileged above another in the process whereby the coalition of activists determine how best to frame their message that the death penalty is wrong. When activists shared with me that they were driven to the movement for “moral reasons,” this motive for their mobilization was often portrayed as one of many other reasons, yet the more they spoke, the more it became clear that the other reasons for their activism ultimately serve as conceptions that inform their notion of morality. For instance, those who indicate that they are driven to the movement for religious and moral reasons are actually driven to morally oppose the death penalty because God says it is immoral (and/or their religious teachings instruct them that killing is morally wrong, that we must defend the vulnerable among us, etc.). Those who say that they are opposed to the death penalty because it risks killing innocent people are saying that it is morally objectionable to kill innocent people.52 A first read of Blackmun’s above quote may lead one to conclude that he came to oppose the death penalty because he has questioned for years the presumed fairness associated with it and then eventually grew to morally oppose it. A second read of his quote, however, reveals that he developed a moral objection to the death penalty because it repeatedly assaulted his moral notion of fairness.

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The racial arguments against the death penalty can similarly be seen as yet another way to express moral outrage. Most people who feel outrage when instances of racial discrimination are made known to them are reacting in such a manner because racist behavior is viewed as morally objectionable behavior. The primary contention that I focus on with my study is generally found between the white activists and those of color around whether we should be promoting moral versus racial frames against the death penalty. Yet must our emphasis on moral frames preclude ones centered on race and racism? Turning back to Blackmun’s comments in 1994, when he announced his resolution to oppose the death penalty, it appears that in addition to his conception of fairness, or perhaps as one component of this conception, his conception of racial equality also informs his notion of morality. Continuing with his dissent, Blackmun states, “Even under the most sophisticated death penalty statutes, race continues to play a major role in determining who shall live and who shall die.”53 I am quite sure that I am not presenting any new revelations to my fellow activists here, with the connection that I am drawing between conceptions of race and morality. Indeed, there were a number of activists in my study who made that connection explicit in their comments as they spoke about their opposition to the death penalty. Whether or not it gets vocalized openly between activists during their organizing efforts, I would not be surprised to find out that most of them already associate their notions of racial equality and morality. The problem is not that they fail to see a connection between the two notions. According to most of the activists of color and too few white activists in my study, the problem is that this connection is not discussed nearly enough, both within the confines of the movement as activists strategize together and in the larger society as the activists disperse across the nation to frame their opposition for others. Why is the reluctance of many in the movement to talk about the intersections between race and the immorality of the death penalty a problem? For those who view this relative absence of dialogue as a problem, it is problematic because it prohibits the movement’s ability to attract significant numbers of racial minorities who are most likely to be driven to join ranks with abolitionists when the racial realities of the death penalty are deconstructed and laid bare for them to see how this issue is connected to their own communities. For those in the movement who do not view the level of discourse about race within their ranks and/or in their framing strategies to be problematic, they typically claim that any slight to race is a necessary evil. They counter that the larger society is unlikely to be open to any appeals made to save the lives of the “monsters” on death row that are associated with claims of racism. We live in a society, they might explain, where even law-abiding, otherwise upstanding citizens who make claims of racism in the workplace, for instance, are subjected to backlash from

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many whites who suffer from “racial fatigue” and have grown tired of “the race card.” Once any mention of race is made in association with death row, where the image of Hannibal Lechter looms in the minds of many who have bought into such highly sensational images of murderers, the “dialogue” between an activist and potential recruit is likely to turn into a monologue, since anything more that the activist has to say typically falls on deaf ears. Those (mostly white) activists who regret that racial frames are not received well by the larger society are quick to add that these frames are especially likely to be rejected by the white power structure who the movement targets when they take their message to the legislative arena. Yet today the power structure is in the midst of a slow, yet certain makeover that is changing its image to include a more diverse cast of characters than Capitol Hill has ever seen before. In a special report published by the National Journal Magazine in June 2009, it is noted that less than half (nine of twenty-two) of the cabinet rank officials designated by President Obama are white men.54 Democratic lobbyist Marcia Hale observed, “There’s diversity in this crowd that nobody else has approached before.” This veteran of Clinton’s White House added, “Four and eight years from now, there will be an amazing array of people from different backgrounds.”55 We have been seeing a great deal of media attention being directed to race, yet the rhetoric is not typically progressive in its tone. Race certainly gets talked about, though the message is more often than not embracing a colorblind perspective. Before Obama had even secured the nomination as the candidate for the Democratic Party, talk flourished throughout the media with each primary win that his success was a sign of the declining significance of race in America. Since his election, the view persists that his historic accomplishment is evidence that we have finally achieved a colorblind society. With his timely reaction to the public exuberance brought by Obama’s rise to the presidency, antiracist scholar Tim Wise cautions us not to “get carried away” in Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama. Although he allows for the possibility that Obama may serve to open the minds of whites, his tone suggests that the more likely result of Obama’s political success is that it “might deepen the denial in which so much of the white public has been embedded for generations.”56 Of particular concern to anti–death penalty activists, Wise notes that “white America may desperately want Obama’s success to serve as the final nail in the political coffin of civil rights activism.”57 Wise urges us not to resign ourselves to the sidelines of the new political terrain in which we are finding ourselves, however, “for the moment is too vital, too precious to be left to chance, too critical to engage in an act of mere wish fulfillment.”58 Given the temptation for many of us to be lulled into thinking that we have entered a “post-racial” era, whenever a highly publicized statement

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suggesting otherwise is made by a public figure, the reaction is swift and harsh. An example can be found with the public’s reaction to a comment that was made by Eric Holder on February 18, 2009, at a Black History Month event held for employees of the Justice Department. Just a couple of weeks after he was confirmed as our nation’s first black U.S. attorney general, Holder shared his views about the state of race relations in our nation. He called for honest dialogue across racial lines about matters of race, saying that “we, as average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race.”59 He challenged us to engage each other in “frank conversations about the racial matters that continue to divide us,” which should call us “to accept criticism where that is justified.”60 The statement that Holder made which received the greatest attention, and was plastered all over the headlines by the end of the day, was that even though our country “has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and I believe continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards.”61 The feedback that Holder received for that comment, via the numerous electronic means available to us to share our instantaneous gut reactions, revealed just how upset Americans were with Holder for referring to them as “cowards.” Many whites no doubt were angered at the notion that after having made the courageous move to elect Obama, they could be thought of as cowards. The outrage that Holder’s comments had generated was so great that more than two weeks later Obama felt the need to clarify Holder’s message in an interview with the New York Times.62 Obama said that he believes that Holder was simply saying that our country is uncomfortable talking about race until some sort of conflict occurs. While Obama indicated that he could appreciate what Holder was trying to say, he said that he would not have used the same language (presumably referring to Holder’s description of Americans as “cowards”) and added that “We’ve made enormous progress and we shouldn’t lose sight of that.”63 There are numerous other examples of public statements that have generated at least the same degree of outrage as did Holder’s during Black History Month. I purposefully selected Holder’s comment to illustrate my point regarding the prevalence of the colorblind perspective, however, because he is a key figure for the movement to target with its message of abolition. As a part of his role as attorney general, Holder makes the final decision as to whether or not he will authorize federal prosecutors to seek the federal death penalty. As a result, it is important for us to be aware of Attorney General Holder’s perspectives about race and the death penalty as we develop our framing strategies. The good news for abolitionists is that Mr. Holder is opposed to the death penalty. In fact, his position against the death penalty has been well known at least since 1997, when he was confirmed under the Clinton administration as deputy attorney general. When he was

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questioned about his position on the death penalty at that time, he pledged to cooperate with the laws and Attorney General Reno, adding, “I am not a proponent of the death penalty, but I will enforce the law as this Congress gives it to us.”64 Approximately twelve years later, during his recent confirmation hearings for the position of attorney general, Holder repeated this same personal objection to the death penalty, yet professional willingness to administer the death penalty as he deems appropriate. On the other hand, Holder has already demonstrated since his confirmation as attorney general that he is willing to set aside his personal objection to the death penalty as he makes decisions regarding whether or not to seek the federal death penalty. In the first five months since he took office, he authorized federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty in four cases.65 He authorized seeking the death penalty for these cases in spite of information about the extreme racial disparities that are found with the federal death penalty. During his tenure with the Clinton administration as deputy attorney general, he helped to conduct a study of the racial disparities found with the federal death penalty, and it was released on September 12, 2000.66 Deputy Attorney General Holder’s reaction at the time that the report was released was one of great concern. On the day that the report was released, Holder was quoted by the New York Times, saying, “I can’t help but be both personally and professionally disturbed by the numbers that we discuss today. No one reading this report can help but be disturbed, troubled, by this disparity.”67 Activists in the anti–death penalty movement need not necessarily use racial frames for the benefit of Attorney General Holder’s knowledge, as it is apparent that he is fully aware of the racial disparities with the federal death penalty. I believe that it is still worth the movement’s effort to use racial frames, however, as Holder may become increasingly more uncomfortable with seeking the death penalty if he sees NCADP campaigning at the grassroots level with the specific aim of educating people about the racial disparities with the federal system. With such a campaign focused on race and the federal system, activists could expose the fact that Attorney General Holder is aware of these racial disparities and then encourage people to remind him of his words publicly spoken at the Black History Month event, when he urged Americans to “be honest with each other” about race matters and “be able to accept criticism where that is justified.” Soon President Obama will be faced with a momentous decision as some pending federal death penalty cases are expected to come before him for review before the end of his first year in office. He will be asked for his authorization to execute the inmates, though he may opt to commute them instead. Racial frames would be helpful as the public is educated about President Obama’s pending decision, since all six of the men who are facing possible execution by the federal government are black.68 President Obama

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has indicated that he is not opposed to the death penalty, yet he does not appear to be much of a proponent either. In his book The Audacity of Hope, Obama said that he has not seen any evidence that the death penalty serves as a deterrent.69 Like Holder, I am sure that Obama already has an awareness of the racial disparities that are associated with the death penalty, both at the state level and especially at the federal level. Despite their knowledge about the intimate relationship between race and the death penalty, it may be helpful for the movement to educate the public in a way that lets both Obama and Holder know that we are watching them to see if they are willing to follow through on decisions that support the death penalty. Given our increasingly diverse power structure, containing many “firsts” of Blacks and Latinos, many anti–death penalty activists are very hopeful that the time is drawing nearer when we may finally be celebrating the end of the death penalty. Yet at the same time, many of us remain unconvinced that racial frames should be used as we organize, given the resistance by those within the larger society who are holding on to the illusion that we have finally achieved a colorblind society. On the other hand, national polls are pointing to a growing concern in the United States about the racial disparities associated with the death penalty. In less than a decade, two polls reveal a remarkable difference in the willingness of Americans to take the problems of race and class bias into account as they form their opinion toward the death penalty. In 1999, the Gallup Poll found that most people are aware of the race and class bias that exists with the death penalty, yet this knowledge did not prevent most of those surveyed (71 percent) from supporting the death penalty.70 Just eight years later, Richard C. Dieter, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, released a report indicating that Americans are starting to question the use of the death penalty, thirty years after it was reinstated in 1976.71 The survey respondents were given a list of factors that might have an effect on their opinion toward the death penalty, and then they were asked to identify the ones that would lessen their support if the factors were proven to be true. Coming in behind a concern for the innocence issue and a concern about death row inmates sitting on death row far too long before they are executed, if at all, 22 percent of the respondents indicated their support would lessen if they learned the fact that race, economics, and geography play a role in who gets the death penalty.72 The difference that knowledge of class and race disparities makes in the level of death penalty support found between the results of these two surveys gives activists reason to be hopeful that perhaps arguments based on racial issues (as well as class issues) may be generating increasingly more sympathy. Activists are cautioned against completely basing their decisions on the best frames to use on the findings of polls, however, as polls can

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fluctuate. I do believe that polls can be helpful for us activists to “know what we are up against,” so to speak, as we develop our strategies and determine the best audience for particular frames. If activists allow the polls to totally dictate their messages and strategies, however, they may appear less than genuine in the way that they come across. I think that activists are best able to elicit sympathy for their cause if they are using the arguments that they most passionately embrace. The polls may be able to help activists determine those groups who will be most receptive to their message so they don’t feel like they have to change their message to one that they do not embrace with the same passion. Ultimately, activists in the movement must find the courage to make racial arguments against the death penalty regardless of what the polls are saying, lest they be viewed, to borrow from Holder, a “movement of cowards.” Despite Tim Wise’s cynical view of the likelihood that the “Age of Obama” is somehow able to lure whites out of their centuries-old denial about the reality of racism in our nation, he nonetheless maintains a strong commitment to fighting racism. After offering an honest critique of the changing political landscape and what it means for race relations today, Wise makes several recommendations for whites in his “call for white responsibility.”73 While all of his suggestions constitute helpful advice toward the goal of improving race relations, one in particular stands out as especially relevant for white activists as they strive to be more inclusive of others in their work to build coalitions with racial minorities. Wise calls for whites to “speak up whenever and wherever we observe racism, overt or subtle, personal or institutional.”74 He recognizes that in a society where whites have been given privileges simply due to their race, it is not easy for them to speak out against racism. It is easier for them to remain silent largely because one of the privileges whites have been ascribed from birth, whether they wanted it or not, is being given the choice to speak up against racism or not. Wise explains, “Indeed, white silence is the only privilege whites can voluntarily relinquish: the rest obtain as a matter of merely living as a member of the dominant group.”75 When whites choose not to speak out about racism when they see it, Wise argues, “is to collaborate with it, to give our assent, to undermine our personal and national pretensions to democracy.”76 Whether we ever recognize it as such or not, the hard work that activists engage in to bring an end to the death penalty, to see that our government stops killing people, is also antiracism work. The disproportionate number of black and Latino lives that we will save once the death penalty is abolished will deem it successful antiracism activism. Just as there are many other fronts of racism within society that can use our help, there will certainly be many other areas of prison reform that will compete for our attention. The scope of our mission is truly daunting when you sit and think about all that it involves, both explicitly and implicitly. We are saving

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lives, yes that is for certain. We see the product of this work in the smiling faces of the exonerees and those formerly referred to as “death row family members.” But as we continue the fight until we see it to its end, there are so many other successes that we achieve, ones that are not easily measured, yet still must be recognized. We are fighting classism right along with racism. We are helping people to heal from trauma that most of us never imagine we could survive. Through our work, people learn the true meaning of forgiveness and compassion. This work is demanding and can be very emotionally draining at times. Though we may feel too tired to go on from time to time, the rewards are greater still. We are rejuvenated by each other as we celebrate each of the successes that we achieve along the way. It can be maddening to see the truth behind such a horrific part of what is deemed “justice” when so many others are oblivious to the reality of what executions do to us as individuals and as a society. We must persevere still. We must not give up trying to get others to see what we see so that they can share our outrage and help to make our voice louder, so that more and more people will join us in the struggle. On July 4, 1992, the renowned Justice Thurgood Marshall stood in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and accepted the Liberty Bell Award. The eloquent words that he stated on that historic day command us to continue our fight in the face of adversity. We cannot play ostrich. Democracy cannot flourish amid fear. Liberty cannot bloom amid hate. Justice cannot take root amid rage. . . . We must go against the prevailing wind. We must dissent from the indifference. We must dissent from the apathy. We must dissent from the fear, the hatred and the mistrust. We must dissent from a government that has left its young without jobs, education, or hope. We must dissent from the poverty of vision and the absence of moral leadership. We must dissent because America can do better, because America has no choice but to do better. . . . Take a chance, won’t you? Knock down the fences that divide. Tear apart the walls that imprison. Reach out; freedom lies just on the other side.77

A FINAL NOTE This study leaves little room for doubt that anti–death penalty activists struggle among themselves as they debate the most effective ways to respond to the political opportunity structure with their organizing and framing strategies. The struggles that take place within the anti–death penalty movement, however, are not particularly rare. This movement is not unlike any other social movement that is built around coalitions, in that it reveals the hard work that comes with coalition building. As is the case with most single-issue coalitions, tension is found between the various groups that come together to

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fight the death penalty. These tensions revolve around many factors, such as age, religion, political orientations, and class differences. The racial tension that received primary attention with this study was certainly found to exist as well. The black and Latino activists are extremely mindful of its presence, and the white activists too at least hint that they have an awareness of racial tension within the movement. Yet it lies just below the surface and does not typically enter formal discourse within the movement. Ultimately, the individuals I interviewed are activists. Though they do not remain unaffected by the significance of race, they are able to come together and form alliances in the midst of their disagreements as they engage in the fight against the death penalty. They are all driven by a sincere desire for justice that may arise from different interests or different orientations, yet is expressed with the same level of heartfelt passion regardless of race. I fully suspect that their strong drive, in the words of one activist, to “do the right thing to make our world better, a little bit more just, a little bit more sane” creates a solidarity among activists across racial lines that is not easily shattered. The strength of the bond between anti–death penalty activists is only intensified by the oppositional consciousness that they create in reaction to the overwhelming majority of those in society who view the activists’ work on behalf of death row inmates with bewilderment, if not outright disdain. Yet the alliances between activists could be made stronger still with honest, open discourse about the racial dimensions of the movement. The politics surrounding the death penalty are intricately connected to the racial politics operating within the larger society. And while activists do not ignore this reality by far, my findings suggest that the many complex and contradictory effects of systemic racism upon the activists hinders them from making full use of the racial politics of the death penalty in their organizing efforts. Though I do not propose to have the solution as to how best to make use of the racial aspects of the death penalty, I have offered a variety of interpretations for the different perceptions of black, white, and Latino activists regarding these aspects. As a result, this study stands to provide several different directions that activists can take in their efforts to build a racially diverse movement. Activists must rise to the challenges posed by the complex and contradictory ways that race operates within their movement in order to convey the racial meaning behind the death penalty to the rest of the society. I am in agreement with those activists who believe that there is still space open in our society to advance a call to abolish the death penalty that is based on a concern for racial justice. If we can’t count on progressives to make that call, particularly those who are perceptive and compassionate enough to invest their energy in the effort to reveal the humanity of those on death row, then who will?

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NOTES 1. Mark Peffley and Jon Hurwitz, “Persuasion and Resistance: Race and the Death Penalty in America,” American Journal of Political Science 51, no. 4 (October 2007): 996–1012. 2. Diann Rust-Tierney, welcome address for the 2009 NCADP Annual Conference Program. 3. Susan A. Banducci, Todd Donovan, and Jeffrey A. Karp, “Minority Representation, Empowerment, and Participation,” The Journal of Politics 66, no. 2 (May 2004): 534. 4. Lawrence Bobo and Franklin D. Gilliam Jr., “Race, Sociopolitical Participation and Black Empowerment,” American Political Science Review 84, no. 2 (1990): 387. 5. Bobo and Gilliam, Jr., “Race, Sociopolitical Participation and Black Empowerment.” 6. Ben Feller, “Obama Picks Sotomayor for High Court,” The Associated Press, May 26, 2009. 7. David A. Love, “Sotomayor’s Nomination Is Important,” The Progressive, June 2, 2009. 8. Love, “Sotomayor’s Nomination Is Important.” 9. Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, and Ann Coulter are among the conservatives who referred to Sotomayor’s remark as racist. (Huma Khan and Jake Tapper, “Newt Gingrich on Twitter: Sonia Sotomayor ‘Racist,’ Should Withdraw: Republicans Ready to Wage Fight over President Obama’s Supreme Court Justice Nominee,” ABCNews.com, May 27, 2009.) 10. Benjamin Weiser, “In ’98, Hints from Sotomayor on Death Penalty,” NYTimes.com, June 25, 2009. 11. In October 2008, the group changed its name to LatinoJustice PRLDEF. 12. Weiser, “Hints from Sotomayor.” 13. Weiser, “Hints from Sotomayor.” 14. In 1987, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against McCleskey after it rejected the relevance of the Baldus study of racial disparities on Georgia’s death row. The Court ruled that the statistics in the Baldus study alone did not prove intent to discriminate on the basis of race (David C. Baldus, George Woodworth, and Charles Pulaski, Jr., Equal Justice and the Death Penalty: A Legal and Empirical Analysis [Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1990]). 15. Weiser, “Hints from Sotomayor.” 16. Weiser, “Hints from Sotomayor.” 17. Jennifer L. Lawless, “Politics of Presence? Congresswomen and Symbolic Representation,” Political Research Quarterly 57, no. 1 (March 2004): 81–99. 18. Lawless, “Politics of Presence?” 19. Dan Clawson, The Next Upsurge: Labor and the New Social Movements (Ithaca, N.Y.: ILR Press, 2003). 20. Clawson, Next Upsurge. 21. Clawson, Next Upsurge. 22. Clawson, Next Upsurge. 23. Clawson, Next Upsurge.

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24. David S. Meyer and Debra C. Minkoff, “Conceptualizing Political Opportunity,” Social Forces 82, no. 4 (June 2004): 1457–92. 25. Meyer and Minkoff, “Conceptualizing Political Opportunity.” 26. Meyer and Minkoff, “Conceptualizing Political Opportunity.” 27. Meyer and Minkoff, “Conceptualizing Political Opportunity.” 28. Meyer and Minkoff, “Conceptualizing Political Opportunity.” 29. Meyer and Minkoff, “Conceptualizing Political Opportunity.” 30. J. Craig Jenkins, David Jacobs, and Jon Agnone, “Political Opportunities and African-American Protest, 1948–1997,” The American Journal of Sociology 109, no. 2 (September 2003): 277–303. 31. Jenkins, Jacobs, and Agnone, “Political Opportunities.” 32. Jenkins, Jacobs, and Agnone, “Political Opportunities.” 33. The unemployment rate was 9.5 percent in August 1983; Bureau of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov. 34. Jenkins, Jacobs, and Agnone, “Political Opportunities.” 35. Bureau of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov. 36. Bureau of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov. 37. The phrase “the Latino community” is often seen as a misnomer by many Latinos, given the immense diversity that is found among the many unique histories and cultures of the various nationalities that are combined together to create the category referred to as Latino or Hispanic. Also, Karen M. Kaufmann, “Cracks in the Rainbow: Group Commonality as a Basis for Latino and African-American Political Coalitions,” Political Research Quarterly 56, no. 2 (2003): 199–210. 38. Kaufmann, “Cracks in the Rainbow.” 39. Kaufmann, “Cracks in the Rainbow.” 40. DPIC, 2009. 41. DPIC, 2009. 42. Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., “The Law and Politics of the Death Penalty: Abolition, Moratorium, or Reform?” Oregon Law Review 81, no. 1 (2002). 43. Thomas Healy, “Death Penalty Support Drops as Debate Shifts; Foes Turning Focus from Moral Issues to Flaws in the System,” Baltimore Sun, July 25, 2001. 44. Ogletree, 2002. 45. Vince Beiser, “A Guilty Man.” Mother Jones, September 1, 2005, www.motherjones.com. 46. Beiser, “A Guilty Man.” 47. Beiser, “A Guilty Man.” 48. DPIC, 2009 49. Beiser, “A Guilty Man.” 50. Liam Farrell, “O’Malley Signs Death Penalty Bill,” HometownAnnapolis. com, May 8, 2009. 51. Callins v. Collins, No. 93-7054 (1994). 52. This is not to suggest that they would find it morally acceptable to kill the guilty necessarily, yet the “moral shock” that often accompanies the notion of the state killing innocent people is more likely to resonate with those who are equally innocent of murder and propel them into the movement. 53. Callins v. Collins, No. 93-7054 (1994) 54. James A. Barnes, “Obama’s Team: The Face of Diversity,” in “Special Report: Decision Makers 2009,” National Journal Magazine, June 20, 2009.

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55. Barnes, “Obama’s Team.” 56. Tim Wise, Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2009), 29. 57. Wise, Between Barak, 30. 58. Wise, Between Barak, 115. 59. Associated Press, “Holder: U.S. ‘A Nation of Cowards’ on Race: Nation’s First Black AG Says Americans Avoid Talking about the Topic,” MSNBC.com, February 18, 2009. 60. Associated Press, “Holder.” 61. Associated Press, “Holder.” 62. Associated Press, “Obama Backs Off Holder’s Race Comment: ‘We Shouldn’t Lose Sight’ of Racial Progress, President Says,” MSNBC.com, March 7, 2009. 63. Associated Press, “Obama Backs Off.” 64. Neil A. Lewis, “Justice Dept. Nominee Faces Questions but No Strong Opposition,” New York Times, June 14, 1997. 65. Brian Evans, “Obama’s Death Penalty Challenge and Race,” Daily Kos, June 23, 2009, http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/6/23/746012. 66. “The Federal Death Penalty System: A Statistical Survey (1988–2000),” A Summary of the Report on the Federal Death Penalty by the Death Penalty Information Center, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., www.deathpenaltyinfo.org. 67. “Released on September 12, 2000, the study found numerous racial and geographic disparities. The report revealed that 80% of the cases submitted by federal prosecutors for death penalty review in the past five years have involved racial minorities as defendants. In more than half of those cases, the defendant was AfricanAmerican. Attorney General Janet Reno said she was ‘sorely troubled’ by the results of the report and has ordered United States attorneys to help explain the racial and ethnic disparities” (DPIC, 2009). 68. Josh Gerstein, “Death Penalty Decisions Loom for Barack Obama,” Politico, June 21, 2009, www.politico.com. 69. Gerstein, June 21, 2009. 70. This Gallup Poll found that 65 percent surveyed are aware of the class bias associated with the death penalty and fully half of those surveyed also indicated that they have an awareness of the racial bias. (Michael L. Radelet and Marian J. Borg, “The Changing Nature of Death Penalty Debates,” Annual Review of Sociology 26 [August 2000]: 43–61). 71. Richard C. Deiter, “A Crisis of Confidence: Americans’ Doubts about the Death Penalty,” Death Penalty Information Center, June 9, 2007, www.deathpenaltyinfo.org. 72. Deiter, “Crisis of Confidence.” 73. Wise, Between Barak. 74. Wise, Between Barak, 147. 75. Wise, Between Barak, 148. 76. Wise, Between Barak, 148. 77. Carl T. Rowan, Dream Makers, Dream Breakers: The World of Justice Thurgood Marshall (New York: Welcome Rain Publishers, 1993).

Appendix A: Methodology

This study involves a combination of the following research methods: (1) forty-nine in-depth qualitative interviews with activists involved in various anti-death penalty organizations, which are all affiliated with the largest national organization active in the movement to abolish the death penalty (NCADP—National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty); (2) participant observation of formal and informal activities held by activists in the movement, such as conferences, organizational meetings, and demonstrations; and (3) content analysis of literature distributed by the anti–death penalty organizations represented by my interviewees.

1. QUALITATIVE INTERVIEWS My primary source of data collection arises from qualitative interviews that I conducted with individuals who are active in the anti–death penalty movement. I interviewed both activists who hold leadership positions in the national organization and those who make up the rank-and-file membership of the state and local affiliates. At the time of my interviews, the vast majority of activists (N⫽40) were participants in a variety of anti–death penalty organizations located in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States, including the following states: Virginia, Maryland, D.C., Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. I also interviewed activists (N⫽9) who resided at the time of my interviews in Puerto Rico, Florida, and New Mexico. The organizations that my interviewees represent are all affiliated with the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP), which is deemed one of the most influential national organizations in the movement.1 I interviewed 271

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seven leaders of the movement who work as activists at the national level, either as staff or as board members of NCADP. In addition, several of the rank-and-file activists identified solely as NCADP members, rather than as members of a state or local affiliate organization. The executive director of NCADP at the time that I began my interviews provided me with a list of anti–death penalty organizations located in the Mid-Atlantic region that are affiliated with NCADP. In those states where more than one affiliate exists, I selected several different organizations from each state. I called the individuals identified as the contacts for these organizations and arranged to meet with them and/or other member(s) from their organizations. In addition to the seven national leaders in my sample, I interviewed forty-two rank-and-file activists from the state and local organizations. Since race is a crucial variable in the present research project, and there are so few activists of color within the movement, I asked the executive director of NCADP to identify the race of those listed as contact individuals of the local affiliates. I wanted to be sure to locate activists of color for my study; therefore, when the race of the activists became known, I made sure to oversample them. (While there are equal numbers of blacks and whites in my sample, and the majority of my sample contains blacks and Latinos, these numbers in my sample are not proportionate to the presence of black and Latino activists relative to white activists within the national movement by far.) I compared the perspectives of white, black, and Latino activists as they described what mobilized them to become active against the death penalty, and as they shared their views of factors shaping the movement’s constituency. Of the forty-nine activists I interviewed, twenty are white, twenty are black, and nine are Latino. My study was initially limited to examining the views of whites and blacks for several reasons. Whites certainly are much more prominent than any other racial group in the movement. Though blacks are poorly represented relative to whites, blacks are still more visibly present than are other racial minorities. The fact that blacks comprise nearly 42 percent of those on our nation’s death rows, however, weighed most heavily in my decision to contrast black views with those of white activists. Considering the racial breakdown of both death row inmates and activists, the contradictory racial distinction found between these two populations provided the key reason for my decision to limit my focus to whites and blacks in my analysis of those within the movement. At the time I gathered my initial sample, there were very few Latinos in the movement. Due to their growing presence within the movement, though still very small in number, I added nine Latinos to my sample in the months leading up to the publication of this book. As I gathered information concerning the meanings attached to the actions of death penalty activists, I adhered to the following topical guides:

Methodology

273

(1) factors mobilizing activists against the death penalty, (2) impact of opportunities and constraints found in the larger political and social structure on their activism, (3) their impressions of the organizational dynamics within the movement, and (4) framing strategies of the anti–death penalty movement. In order to further explore the impact of race on both the mobilization of individuals who join the movement and the meaning that is attached to their action against the death penalty, I included an additional topic: (5) external factors interfering with greater racial diversity in the movement. All of those activists interviewed were asked the same questions so that I may compare and contrast the responses of blacks, whites, and Latinos involved in the movement against the death penalty. The only exception to this rule occurred when I asked the activists questions regarding the organizational dynamics of the movement. I asked national leaders five additional questions regarding NCADP that I did not ask the rank-and-file members. The interviews were designed to last from sixty to ninety minutes. All interviews were taped and transcribed. The activists’ responses were coded using a constant comparative method. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was utilized to generate cross-tabulations that would allow me to analyze the relationships between the variables within my study. As my findings are reported within this book, pseudonyms are given to the activists who participated in my study, in order to protect their confidentiality.

2. PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION In addition to interviews with activists, I observed numerous activities of anti–death penalty organizations, including meetings, conferences, community education programs, vigils at executions, demonstrations, and other such events. I made every effort to attend an equal amount of activities conducted by the various organizations selected for purposes of interviewing activists in the movement. As I observed these activities, I took field notes and then compared and contrasted the messages and themes that surfaced to those provided by the activists I interviewed. This contributes to my examination of the meanings attached to activism on the part of those involved in the anti–death penalty movement. It also allowed me to evaluate whether the data I collected from my interview subjects accurately reflect the dynamics and messages of the organizations found in the movement. As I attended anti–death penalty events, I observed the racial composition of those in attendance. A low number of racial minorities at these events confirmed the lack of racial diversity found in the movement. I noted when the racial disparities found with capital sentencing as well as

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Appendix A

the lack of racial diversity in the movement was stressed by the speakers at these events. Due to the limited emphasis that I found placed on these racial issues, support is given to the notion that activists in the movement are not framing the issue of the death penalty in a manner that is likely to attract a racially diverse group of participants.

3. CONTENT ANALYSIS A final source of data for this project lies with the unobtrusive research method of content analysis. Data was collected from the literature distributed by the anti–death penalty organizations selected for this project, including books, newsletters, and pamphlets. For instance, each of the organizations in the anti–death penalty movement typically distributes a pamphlet to the public that describes their organization and provides a list of reasons why its members are opposed to the death penalty. Analysis of these materials allowed me to determine the extent to which the “official” meanings attached to the activism of these groups either agree or conflict with the meanings communicated by the rank-and-file members interviewed and observed at events. The method of content analysis also enabled me to further evaluate the formal degree of importance attached to both the racist implementation of the death penalty and the lack of racial diversity in the movement against the death penalty. In doing so, I am able to add to my assessment of how strongly race factors into the meanings attached to anti–death penalty activism.

NOTE 1. Herbert Haines, Against Capital Punishment: The Anti–Death Penalty Movement in America, 1972–1994 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).

Appendix B: Demographic Characteristics of Sample

275

Black White Latino Total

10 10 5 25

10 10 4 24

Women

Gender

Men

Table B.1

5 4 2 11

26–35

7 3 4 14

36–45 6 6 0 12

46–55

Age

2 4 3 9

56–65 0 3 0 3

66 & up 3 2 2 10

Leaders 16 16 7 39

Rank & File

Movement Position

11 11 0 22

Protestant

0 4 0 4

Jewish

Religion

2 3 7 12

Catholic

7 2 2 11

None

Appendix C: Anti–Death Penalty Organizations Represented by the Activists

AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION (ACLU) The United States is the only advanced Western democracy that does not view capital punishment as a profound human rights violation and as a frightening abuse of governmental power. It is now obvious that the U.S.’s capital punishment process: (1) is fraught with error; (2) discriminates on the basis of socioeconomic status, race, and geography; (3) is arbitrary and capricious, including its use against the mentally ill; (4) costs taxpayers more than life imprisonment without release; (5) does nothing to protect people from crime; (6) seriously harms the survivors of homicide victims; (7) is plagued by the worst, not the best of American lawyering; and (8) greatly diminishes the worldwide stature of the United States and its ability to work to end human rights violations in other countries. The ACLU Capital Punishment Project is part of the growing national movement fighting for the end of the death penalty by supporting moratorium and repeal movements through public education and advocacy. We are engaged in systemic reform of the death penalty process, and casespecific litigation highlighting some of its fundamental flaws. We work to save lives and to protect and expand the rights of capital defendants. Please join us. (“End the Death Penalty,” Statement of John Holdridge, director, ACLU Capital Punishment Project)

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL (AI) In 1989 AI organized a worldwide campaign against the death penalty. AI continues to work for abolition by regularly monitoring developments, collecting information worldwide and organizing an on-going program of work against the death penalty in cooperation with other human rights organizations and 277

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governments. In 2000, AI, together with the Community of Sant’Egidio and Sister Helen Prejean of the Moratorium 2000 project, presented more than three million signatures to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan supporting a moratorium on the death penalty with a view to total abolition worldwide. (www.amnesty.org)

BECAUSE LOVE ALLOWS COMPASSION (BLAC) BLAC is a Delaware support group for the families of death row inmates. It was established in 1992 by two women who formed a bond after they met and learned that one of them has a son on death row and the other lost a daughter to murder. These two women provide support to families from the time that their loved one is sentenced to death row to the execution, doing everything from accompanying family members to appeal hearings to helping them arrange the funeral.

CAMPAIGN TO END THE DEATH PENALTY (CEDP) We have joined with other abolitionist forces to call for a national moratorium in the United States. Modeling our efforts on the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, we focus on grassroots organizing. We hold meetings and forums to bring people to publicize our cause and to confront lawmakers and politicians who want to hide behind a wall of silence. (“Justice for the Death Row 10: Victims of Police Torture”; CEDP pamphlet) CEDP provides 5 reasons for their opposition to the death penalty: (1) The death penalty is racist. (2) The death penalty punishes the poor. (3) The death penalty condemns the innocent to die. (4) The death penalty is not a deterrent to violent crime. (5) The death penalty is “cruel and unusual punishment.” (www.nodeathpenalty.com)

Note: While CEDP is still very active, with a dozen chapters across the country, it is no longer an affiliate of NCADP.

CITIZENS UNITED FOR ALTERNATIVES TO THE DEATH PENALTY (CUADP) CUADP works to end the death penalty in the United States through aggressive campaigns of public education, and the promotion of tactical grassroots activism. CUADP’s mission contains two areas of focus: (1) invigorated education about viable alternatives to the death penalty, (2) strategic and tactical grassroots activism. Invigorated education involves the use of mass media to effectively communicate to the U.S. public that the death penalty is bad public

Anti–Death Penalty Organizations

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policy on economic, moral, and social grounds. To effect political change, the death penalty must be made attractive to the majority of U.S. voters. Mass public education must be at the grassroots level by local organizations and respected individuals. Politicians must be provided that lead on this issue, even in the face of unpopular public sentiment. CUADP is committed to act as a catalyst for continued development and implementation of a national strategy. The following should be seen as priorities for development and implementation at all levels: public education, funding, direct action, and professional media campaign. (www.cuadp.org)

DEATH PENALTY INFORMATION CENTER (DPIC) The Death Penalty Information Center is a non-profit organization serving the media and the public with analysis and information on issues concerning capital punishment. The Center was founded in 1990 and prepares in-depth reports, issues press releases, conducts briefings for journalists, and serves as a resource to those working on this issue. The Center is widely quoted and consulted by all those concerned with the death penalty. (www.deathpenalty info.org)

DELAWARE CITIZENS OPPOSED TO THE DEATH PENALTY (DCODP) The Delaware Citizens Opposed to the Death Penalty formed in 1992 as a reaction to the resurrection of executions. In 1992, the first person in 40 years was executed in Delaware. This is a statewide organization of individuals who oppose the death penalty through public education campaigns, legislative action, and serving as a presence at executions with candlelight vigils. This organization is currently working on building for a moratorium on the death penalty in Delaware. (www.enddeathpenaltyde.org)

MARYLAND COALITION AGAINST STATE EXECUTIONS (CASE) The Maryland Coalition Against State Executions is a coalition of groups and individuals united to end the death penalty in Maryland through education, legislative action, and public demonstration. (www.mdcase.org)

On their website, CASE provides eight reasons for their opposition to the death penalty, including their claim that the death penalty (1) does not deter violent crime, (2) targets the poor, (3) is racist, (4) is expensive, (5) is irreversible, (6) is a political solution, (7) makes everyone a victim, (8) teaches violence.

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Appendix C

MURDER VICTIMS FAMILIES FOR RECONCILIATION (MVFR) Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation provides information about the needs of victims’ families, and about the concerns of victims’ families who are opposed to the death penalty in all situations. MVFR knows firsthand of the deep hurt and pain that occur when a loved one is murdered. MVFR knows that—in spite of that pain—vengeance is not the answer. The taking of another life by state killing only continues the cycle of violence. MVFR believes that all life is sacred, and that no one has the right to take another life. MVFR knows that we can make a difference in the struggle to abolish the death penalty. MVFR works with organizations such as Amnesty International, the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, CURE, American Friends Service Committee, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and other local and religious groups toward the goal of ABOLITION. (www.mvfr.org)

NATIONAL BLACK POLICE ASSOCIATION (NBPA) When the National Black Police Association was organized in 1972, it created a network between minority officers across the country. Since that time, the number of minority officers has doubled within the nation’s police departments. The NBPA fosters a bond between minority officers and their communities. This nonprofit organization has helped to improve relations between police departments and the community. . . . The NBPA protest the application of the death penalty in all instances. The NBPA feels the death penalty is unAmerican, unjust, and unconstitutional. (NBPA pamphlet)

NATIONAL COALITION TO ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY (NCADP) The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP) was founded in 1976 in response to the Supreme Court decision in Gregg v. Georgia which permitted executions to resume in the United States. Our mission: abolish the death penalty in the U.S. and support efforts to abolish the death penalty world wide. Headquartered in Washington, DC, NCADP serves its network of over 100 state and national affiliates. NCADP provides them with technical assistance, training and strategic advice and assists in devising public policy campaigns to end, limit or repeal the death penalty, state by state. For advocates committed to ending the death penalty NCADP serves as a clearinghouse with contacts and information. NCADP produces reports, fact sheets and other public education materials for use in state campaigns. NCADP publishes Lifelines, Lifelines State and Execution Alert. To support local efforts for policy change NCADP also mounts national campaigns on specific death penalty cases and issues. (www.ncadp.org)

Anti–Death Penalty Organizations

281

NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF BLACK LAWYERS (NCBL) The National Conference of Black Lawyers is an association of lawyers, scholars, judges, legal workers, law students and legal activists founded in 1968. Our mission is to serve as the legal arm of the movement for Black Liberation, to protect human rights, to achieve self-determination of Africa and African Communities and to work in coalition to assist in ending oppression of all peoples. NCBL is a bar association but its program concerns matters of critical concern to the broader Black community. NCBL has several different committees. The criminal justice committee has several different goals, including “exposing race, class, gender, and sexual preference discrimination in the imposition of criminal sanctions within the United States criminal punishment system.” (www.ncbl.org)

NEW JERSEYANS FOR A DEATH PENALTY MORATORIUM (NJDPM) The goal of New Jerseyans for a Death Penalty Moratorium is to win public and political support for the passage of Assembly bill A-1913 and Senate bill S-1112 in the NJ State Legislature. A-1913 and S-1112 call for the creation of a study commission on the death penalty and a suspension of executions pending completion of the study and legislative and executive action. A study is needed to allow legislators and citizens to address issues of fairness, wrongful convictions, and cost in the imposition of the death penalty in New Jersey. (www.njmoratorium.org)

Note: The above message was on the website for NJDPM when I interviewed activists from this organization. NJDPM has since shut this website down, as it successfully passed an abolition bill in 2007.

NEW YORKERS AGAINST THE DEATH PENALTY (NYADP) New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty (NYADP) began in 1978 as a statewide coalition of organizations and individuals committed to the abolition of capital punishment. NYADP provides information, advocates for public policy and mobilizes rejection of the state’s use of homicide as an instrument of public policy. We urge you to join us in this struggle. (www.nyadp.org)

Note: This was the message on the website when I interviewed activists from this organization. The death penalty has since been dismantled in this state, though the website is still maintained.

282

Appendix C

PENNSYLVANIA ABOLITIONISTS UNITED AGAINST THE DEATH PENALTY (PAUADP) Founded in 1997, Pennsylvania Abolitionists has energized the movement to end capital punishment in our state. By mobilizing a powerful network of individuals and groups, we have implemented a comprehensive strategy designed to put a stop to all executions, death warrants, and death penalty prosecutions in Pennsylvania. We are organizing an action-oriented citizens’ movement which engages local and statewide power at every level and in every setting—executive, legislative, judicial corporate, religious, and community. (PAUADP pamphlet)

Note: PAUADP is no longer active in Pennsylvania. In its place is the Pennsylvania affiliate of NCADP called Pennsylvanians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (PADP), based out of Harrisburg. The description of this relatively new NCADP affiliate found on the organization’s website is as follows: Pennsylvanians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (PADP) is a grassroots non-profit organization dedicated to ending executions in Pennsylvania. Through grass roots outreach, focused campaigns and citizen mobilization we have defined a comprehensive strategy to end the death penalty in Pennsylvania. By mobilizing citizens throughout Pennsylvania, PADP is cultivating a cohesive and consistent statewide voice against the death penalty. Our regional chapters establish structures, goals and tactics to meet their particular geographical needs while carrying out the organization’s mission. The PADP state office in Harrisburg manages the chapters and oversees the statewide strategy. (www.padp.org)

PUERTO RICAN COALITION AGAINST THE DEATH PENALTY (PRCADP) The Puerto Rican Coalition against the Death Penalty (PRCADP) is a nonparty, non-sectarian organization incorporated in Puerto Rico in March 2005 to promote the elimination of the capital punishment. The PRCADP aims to join efforts among the different abolitionist organizations and activists in Puerto Rico. Its Statement of Principles emphasizes that it does not believe in the impunity of a crime and identifies with the pain of the families of both the victims and the accused. It rejects the death penalty inside and outside Puerto Rico. The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, a Spanish-speaking archipelago of 4 million inhabitants, has been under US sovereignty since 1898. It has its own constitution and laws, which are subordinated to the US federal legislation. Puerto Rican abolitionists opposed the US-imposed death penalty from the early 20th century. They obtained a four-year moratorium in 1917. The last execution took place in 1927 and the Puerto Rican legislature abolished the

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death penalty in 1929. Today, Puerto Rico is the only territory under US sovereignty to have included the abolition of capital punishment in its constitution. However, the Federal Death Penalty Act and the Federal Extradition Act apply to Puerto Rico, exposing Puerto Ricans to death sentences. The Puerto Rican Coalition against the Death Penalty aims at excluding Puerto Rico from the scope of the Federal Death Penalty Act, as is the case for other federal laws. (www.worldcoalition.org)

RELIGIOUS ORGANIZING AGAINST THE DEATH PENALTY (ROADP) The Religious Organizing Against the Death Penalty was created to galvanize and empower the religious community in the United States to work against capital punishment. Coordiated by the American Friends Service Committee’s criminal justice program, the Project provides people of faith with the tools and resources they need to become effective advocates for abolition. (www. deathpenaltyreligious.org)

VIRGINIANS FOR ALTERNATIVES TO THE DEATH PENALTY (VADP) Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (VADP) is a statewide citizens’ organization dedicated to educating the public and government officials about alternatives to the death penalty. In addition, we seek to provide outreach to murder victims’ families. The bases for our beliefs and actions include the following: (1) Our opposition to the death penalty in no way negates or contradicts our sorrow over the loss of life suffered by murder victims and our compassion and sympathy for their families and friends. (2) The death penalty panders to fear and attempts to provide a simple solution to complex questions. (3) The death penalty is ineffective. Numerous studies show that it does not deter crime. (4) The death penalty, as applied today, discriminates against the poor, people of color, and the mentally impaired. (5) All of humanity’s wisdom traditions call on us to love one another and value human life. The state should not completely devalue human life and execute anyone by repeating a violent act. (6) The death penalty saps our economic resources. Since it costs more to execute a prisoner than to rehabilitate or house that person for life, executions waste tax dollars that could be spent much more effectively. (7) Research shows that despite all legal safeguards, innocent people have been wrongly convicted of murder and have been executed by the state. Common sense tells us that because humans err, the justice system simply cannot be made foolproof. Innocent people will be executed as long as there is a death penalty. These mistakes can never be corrected. This is intolerable in a civilized society. (www.vadp.org)

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Index

Abolition legislation: New Jersey, 3, 11n7, 135, 143n103–4; New Mexico, 3, 93, 111, 134–35, 143n100, 143n102, 163–64, 191n12, 244 abortion, 37, 65, 112, 223–30, 234nn49–56, 234n59 abortion attitudes, 224, 226–227 Acosta-Martinez, 130 African Americans. See blacks American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), 17, 19, 27, 33, 73, 169, 172, 190n3, 277 American Indian Movement (AIM), 103, 139n15 Ammiano, Tom, 41 Amnesty International, 19, 27, 33, 39–40, 58n90, 78, 80, 105, 120, 169, 190n3, 192n38, 222, 234n45, 277, 280, 290 Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, 115 Arkansas, 115 Ashcroft, John (attorney general), 124 Asian Americans, 6, 11n17, 184, 242 Atkins v. Virginia, 164

Baraka, Ajamu, 169 Bedau, Hugo, 6, 10, 11n19, 141n62 Benford, Robert, 16, 55n24, 196, 232n6 black churches, 15, 56n59, 58n81, 186, 220–23, 233n23 Black Panther Party, 44–45, 59n112, 103, 139n15, 173, 286 Black Power Movement, 45, 102–3 blacks, 1, 3, 7–9, 17–18, 20, 33–35, 42, 44–52, 86–94, 100, 114–15, 119, 121, 136, 172–73, 183–85, 189, 210, 212, 214–21, 223, 227–30, 235, 237–39, 241–43, 245–54, 263 black theology, 34–35, 56n59, 56n67, 88–89, 211, 218, 222, 233n23, 286 Boggs, Carl, 122–23, 142nn70–71 boot camp prison movement, 115 Britain, 67, 99 Brown, John, 7, 12n20 Buechler, Steven, 113, 141nn52–53, 286 Buenoano, Judias, 165, 170–74, 192n40 Bureau of Justice Statistics, 108

Baldus, David, 39, 58n85, 117, 267n14, 285

Campaign for a Color-Blind America, 116 295

296

Index

Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP), 27, 77–78, 80, 154, 158– 59, 278 Canada, 99, 139n2 candlelight vigils, 151–54, 279 Caribbean Abolitionist Network, 162, 187 Castro, Raul, 132, 143n96 Catholic Church, 36–37, 90 Catholic Mobilizing Network, 40, 58n91 Center for Media and Public Affairs, 109 checkbook activism, 182 Chicago, 103, 159 Christian Coalition, 167, 203 civil disobedience, 128, 151–58, 172, 176–78 Civil Rights Movement, 7, 12n21, 16– 18, 35, 39, 44–46, 55n11, 55n34, 59n105, 61–63, 98–102, 118, 121, 139n4, 145, 156, 158, 182–83, 190, 190n1, 200, 212, 231, 238–39, 278, 286, 290–91 Clark, Mark, 103 Clark, Pat, 219–20 Clinton, Bill (president), 112, 115, 132–33, 260–62 Cloward, Richard, 100, 139nn5–6, 193n61, 286 Coalition Against State Executions (CASE), 154, 279 coalition politics, 28–29, 223, 243 COINTELPRO, 103–4 collective behavior perspective, 13 collective identity, 16, 37, 85 Collins, Patricia Hill, 230, 234n60, 286 Colorado, 111, 142n88 colorblind perspective, 21, 27, 116–17, 136, 236, 238, 260–61, 263 Commission of Interracial Cooperation (CIC), 7 Community Reinvestment Act, 42 Cone, James, 35, 56n59, 56nn66–67, 233n23, 286 Connecticut, 111

conscience constituents, 7, 14, 18, 69, 181–82 conservatives, 48, 82, 109, 122, 124, 157, 166–68, 200–205, 207, 209, 211, 217, 246–47, 267n9 Consistent Life, 224, 234nn47–48 Cook, Kimberly, 225–30, 234nn53–56, 234n58, 286 Corzine, Jon (governor), 3, 135–36, 143nn103–4 cruel and unusual, 107 Cuba, 132, 143n96 death penalty attitudes, 51, 132, 143n93; public opinion polls, 2, 8, 19–20, 50, 101, 111–12, 114–15, 132, 139 Death Penalty Information Center, 110–11, 130, 132, 141n50, 142n80, 263, 269n71, 279 Death Row 10, 159–60, 191nn17–18, 278; racial disparity in Virginia, 1, 3; racial disparity in Pennsylvania, 3; exonerees, 11n3, 76–77, 162, 187–88, 190, 255, 265 Delaware, 69–70, 84, 127, 152, 191n11, 220, 271, 278–79 Delaware Citizens Opposed to the Death Penalty (DCODP), 70, 152, 279 Democratic Party, 45–46, 100, 131–32, 246, 260 DeSena, Judith, 25, 56n48, 287 DNA, 2, 11n3, 11n8, 22, 129, 255–56 ecology movement, 123 Eighth Amendment, 107 Emerson, Michael, 218, 223, 233nn36– 39, 287 environmental movement, 107, 189 Equal Credit Opportunity Act, 42 Equal Justice USA, 40 Espinosa, Gaston, 37, 57n79, 58nn80– 81, 287 Evans, Timothy, 99 exclusionary solidarity, 28–29 expressive justice, 109

Index Farr, Kathryn, 173, 192nn45–48, 287 FBI, 103–4, 108, 139n15 federal death penalty, 66–67, 70, 72, 90, 115, 129–30, 132–33, 141n63, 142n80, 142nn82–83, 161, 247, 261–62, 269n66, 283 Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project, 130, 141n63, 142nn82–83 feminist movement, 28–29, 107, 123, 230, 234n60 Ferree, Myra Marx, 28–29, 56nn52–54, 287 flawed executions, 107 Fleury-Steiner, Benjamin, 116, 141nn65–66, 287 Florida, 76, 138, 142n88, 165, 170–71, 187, 271 Ford, Gerald (president), 103 Framing, 16, 20–22, 28, 30, 33, 38, 43–44, 54, 85, 105, 147, 196–97, 204, 206–211, 214, 217, 221, 223–32, 254, 256, 259, 261, 265, 273–74, 292 Freedom Riders, 7 Furman v. Georgia, U.S. Supreme Court Ruling, 2, 10n2, 17, 38, 52, 76, 97–101, 104–7, 112–13, 117, 130, 149, 164

297

Haines, Herbert, x, 2, 4–5, 10n1, 11nn10–12, 11n14, 18, 25–26, 40, 55n10, 55n26, 55nn29–30, 56n39, 56nn42–45, 56nn50–51, 56nn56– 58, 58n84, 58n86–88, 58n92, 87, 95n6, 97–98, 107, 117, 139n1, 140n24, 141n67, 142n68, 146, 155–57, 181–82, 185, 191nn13–16, 193n57, 193n60, 193n63, 193n65, 196, 212, 224, 232n7, 233n26, 234n46, 234n57, 240, 274n1, 288 Hampton, Fred, 103 Hampton, Ron, 34 Harvard Law Review, 42, 59n101 Hawkins, Steve, 26 Hispanics, 9, 49, 143nn91–92, 289 Holder, Eric, 137, 261–64, 269nn59– 62 Holmes v. South Carolina, 164 Hurwitz, Jon, 88, 95nn7–11, 215–17, 233nn27–35, 241, 267n1, 291 immigration, 47, 53, 132, 137–38, 180 Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), 138 initiator movement, 231 International Family and Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal, 242 Jasper, James M., 41, 59nn98–100, 288

Gamson, William, 14, 54n7, 207–8, 233nn19–20, 288 Georgia, 10n2, 39, 52, 97, 117, 141n64, 164, 193n55, 280 Goffman, Erving, 16, 196, 232n5, 288 Goodman, Ellen, 167–68, 191n32, 288 grassroots, 15, 25–26, 28, 31, 105–7, 127, 156, 158–64, 175, 183, 207–9, 217, 226, 229, 232, 236–37, 242– 43, 245, 262, 278–79, 282 grassroots deficit, 25, 182 Green Party, 116 Gregg v. Georgia, U.S. Supreme Court Ruling, 2, 5–6, 11n2, 17, 101–2, 105–7, 164, 280 Guatemala, 132

Kennedy, Robert, 7, 100 labor movement, 29, 47 Lakoff, George, 201–202, 233nn10–15, 289 Latinos, 5–6, 8–9, 21, 24, 33, 36–37, 42, 45–49, 51, 53–54, 65, 86, 90– 91, 93, 104, 108, 129–33, 136–39, 171–172, 183–84, 204, 209–212, 214–18, 235–39, 241, 243, 246, 248–49, 253–54, 263–64, 266 law and order politics, 8, 101–2, 108, 114–15, 122 LeBon, Gustave, 13, 54n2, 289 lethal injection, 107, 111, 140n25, 256

298

Index

Liberal retreat from race, 16, 18, 23, 56n37, 291 liberals, 17, 23, 31, 48, 55n36, 104, 122–24, 142n74, 184, 200–202, 211, 230 life without parole, 59, 70, 111 Lighting the Torch of Conscience, 39 Luker, Kristin, 225, 227–30, 243nn49– 52, 289 Lyons, Paul, 107, 123–124, 140n23, 142n69 MacInnes, Gordon, 55n36, 124, 142, 290 mandatory minimum statistics, 108 Marshall Hypothesis, 52, 147 Marshall, Thurgood (justice), 52, 147, 265, 269n77 Maryland, 3, 80, 111, 120, 154, 177, 255–57, 271, 279 McAdam, Doug, 18, 43, 55nn13–14, 55n18, 55n25, 55n34, 56n38, 59n104, 63, 94n1, 139n3, 139nn10–11, 139n14, 145, 190nn1–2, 195–96, 231, 232n1, 232n4, 234nn61–62, 290 McCarthy, John, 14, 54n7, 54n9, 55n25, 59n104, 146–49, 156, 158, 190n2, 191n4, 191n6, 191n8, 193n56, 193n59 McCleskey v. Kemp, U.S. Supreme Court Ruling, 38–39, 117, 134, 247, 267n14 McKinney, Cynthia, 116, 141n64 McVeigh, Timothy, 124 Melendez, Juan, 187, 190 Melendez, Miguel, 104, 140n21, 290 Melucci, Alberto, 38, 55nn21–22, 58n82, 94n3, 113, 141n51, 232n3, 290 Meyer, David, 250–52, 267nn24–29, 290 Minkoff, Debra, 250–52, 267nn24–29, 290 moral outrage, 4, 38, 69, 77, 86, 89, 196–97, 199, 211, 219–20, 257–59 moral shocks, 41

moratorium legislation, 2, 10, 21–22, 38, 106, 111–14, 125, 132, 141n44, 143n96, 148–50, 154, 159, 175, 206, 243–44, 277–78, 281 Mumia Abu Jamal, 174–75, 179, 181, 192n54, 193n55, 242 Murder Victim’s Families for Reconciliation (MVFR), 27, 40, 72, 160, 280 NAACP, 7, 15, 17, 30, 45, 62, 121, 173, 191n26, 221 NAACP Legal Defense Fund, 17, 38, 117, 126–27, 191n26 National Black Police Association, 75, 280 National Black United Front, 173 National Conference of Black Lawyers (NCBL) 98, 281 National Interreligious Task Force on Criminal Justice, 39 National Weekend of Faith in Action (NWFA), 40, 221–22, 234 Native Americans, 6, 11n17, 104, 242 NCADP (National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty), 5–6, 11n13, 11n18–19, 23, 26–27, 33, 40, 67, 146, 157, 160–61, 172, 173, 175, 186–87, 191n19, 192n55, 222, 244, 262, 267n2, 271–73, 278, 280, 282 New Black Panther Party, 173 New Jerseyans for a Death Penalty Moratorium (NJDPM), 281 New Left movement, 122 new social movement theory, 15, 196 Newton, Francis, 172–74, 192n49, 192n51 New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty, 281 nihilism, 48 Nixon, Richard (president), 98, 101, 103–4 Obama, Barack (president), 24, 42–43, 93, 108, 131, 133–34, 136, 143n105, 244–46, 250, 252, 260–64, 267nn5– 6, 267n9, 268nn54–55, 269n56,

Index 269nn62–63, 269n65, 285, 287, 289, 293 Oberschall, Anthony, 14, 54n7, 55n12, 182, 193n62, 233n18, 291 Oklahoma, 172, 191n11, 192nn42–43, 256 Olson, Mancur, 14, 54n4, 54n7, 291 O’Malley, Martin (governor), 3, 11n8, 256, 268n50, 287 organizational dynamics, 25–26, 43–44, 85, 105, 114, 145–47, 156, 180, 184, 195, 208, 217, 231–32, 273 Patterson, Aaron, 159 peace movement, 99, 123, 189, 224 Peffley, Mark, 88, 95nn7–11, 215–17, 233nn27–35, 241, 267n1, 291 Peltier, Leonard, 103 Pennsylvania, 3, 40, 54n1, 67, 72, 128, 148, 152–54, 157, 174, 186, 213, 244, 265, 271, 282 Pennsylvania Abolitionists United Against the Death Penalty (PAUADP), 282 Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 8, 12n23, 12nn25–26, 36 Pew Hispanic Center, 36, 143n91 Pew Research Center, 36–37, 57nn73– 78 Piven, Frances Fox, 100, 139nn5–6, 193n61, 286 political opportunities, 9, 15–17, 25, 39, 43, 46, 63, 85, 98–99, 114, 131–33, 195–196, 217, 231, 239, 244–45, 250, 255, 268nn30–32, 268n34, 289, 292 political opportunity structure, 16–17, 43, 54, 97, 104, 108–110, 113–14, 117–18, 121–23, 125, 129, 133, 135, 138–39, 145, 156, 181, 195, 197, 217, 231, 236–37, 245, 250–52, 255, 265 political process model, 9, 13, 15–16, 236, 239, 245 political theatrics of terror, 109 post–civil rights era, 44, 56n37, 102, 107, 117–18

299

prison industrial complex, 61, 108 pro-choice, 223–29 professional social movement, 14, 26, 54n40, 182, 193n64, 289 progressives, 9–10, 18, 21, 45, 47, 101, 108, 119, 123–24, 168, 218, 230, 239, 243, 260, 266 pro-life, 1, 65, 71, 223–29 Protestantism, white, 34–35, 211 Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, 247 Puerto Rican Liberation Movement, 104 Puerto Rico, 43, 65–68, 71–72, 77, 90, 129–31, 133, 143n95, 163, 188, 191n20, 214, 271, 282–83, 290 Quaker, 36, 57n68, 64, 189, 222–23 racial disparity in capital sentencing, 1, 3–4, 8, 17, 21, 23, 39, 49, 52–53, 75, 79–81, 87, 89–90, 98, 114–115, 117, 130, 134–36, 142n80, 169, 215–18, 237, 244, 247–48, 254, 262–63, 267n14, 273 racial diversity, 4, 9, 23–24, 26–27, 32, 43–44, 54, 63, 129, 168, 183, 243, 273–74 racial fatigue, 22, 117–18, 260 racism, 6, 8, 19–24, 31–35, 38, 45, 79–81, 87–88, 90, 92–94, 98–100, 116–22, 124, 136, 184–85, 209, 214–20, 230, 236, 239, 245, 247, 259–60, 264–66 reform filters, 113 Refuse ’n Resist!, 177 relative deprivation perspective, 13–14, 54n3, 288 Religious Organizing Against the Death Penalty (ROADP), 219, 221, 283 Reno, Janet (attorney general), 133, 262, 269n67 Republicans, 101–4, 112, 131–32, 141, 157, 200, 204, 251–52, 267n9 resource mobilization theory, 14–15, 26, 54n5, 54n7, 69, 145, 180–82, 191n6, 196, 290–93

300

Index

Richardson, Bill (governor), 3, 134–36, 143n100, 143n102, 163 Rickey Ray Rector, 115 Rivera-Alejandro, 130 Roper v. Simmons, 164 Roth, Silke, 28–29, 56nn52–54, 287 Ryan, George (governor), 2–3, 82, 111 Seamless Garment, 224 The Sentencing Project, 9, 140nn26– 27, 140n31 Simpson, O.J., 51–52 Smith, Christian, 218, 223, 234nn36– 39, 287 Snow, David, 16, 55nn23–24, 196, 232n6, 291 social movement organization (SMO) 47, 56n40, 59n110, 146, 181–82, 193n64, 250 social rage, 109, 139n9, 140n30, 140nn34–35, 233n17 Sotomayor, Sonia (justice), 246–48, 250, 253, 267nn5–10, 267nn12–13, 267nn15–16 Souter, David (justice), 246 Southern Baptist Convention, 35–36, 56nn63–64, 56n69 spin-off movement, 231 Stiegerwald, David, 123, 142n73, 292 Taylor, Mark, 109–110, 150, 159, 175–76 Texas, 112, 120, 127, 132, 151, 166, 168, 170, 173, 191n11, 191n28, 192n33, 192n49 Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement, 173

three-strikes-you’re-out legislation, 108 Trudell, John, 103 truth in sentencing movement, 115 U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, 40, 57n70, 57n72 U.S. Supreme Court, 2, 39, 97, 99, 101, 106–7, 117, 129, 135, 165–66, 246–50, 253, 257, 267n9, 267n14, 280 Vietnam War, 99, 102 Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (VADP), 198, 283 von Hirsch, Andrew, 102, 139n8, 292 Wallis, Jim (reverend), 168, 292 West, Cornel, 48, 60n118 white backlash, 17, 39, 102, 238 white privilege, 22, 46–47, 92, 118, 210, 218, 230, 237, 239, 242 whites, 4–9, 17–22, 26–28, 34–39, 44, 46, 49, 51–52, 86–88, 91–94, 100, 116, 118, 123–24, 130, 135, 169, 182, 188–89, 204, 208–219, 227–30, 237, 243, 253–54, 259–61, 264, 266 Wiseman, Bill, 256 Young Lords Party (YLP), 45, 59n111, 103–4 Zald, Mayer, 14, 54n5, 54n7, 54n9, 55n25, 59n104, 146–49, 156, 158, 190n2, 191n4, 191n6, 191n8, 193n56, 193n59

About the Author

Sandra J. Jones, Ph.D., LCSW is an assistant professor of sociology at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey. She received her Ph.D. in sociology from Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and her M.S.W. from Norfolk State University in Norfolk, Virginia. Her primary research areas are race/ethnic relations, social movement theory, and the area of death, dying, and bereavement. She has worked as a mental health/ substance abuse therapist and community activist for many years and is currently examining the bereavement process confronting the families of death row inmates.

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