[DP] Fwd: [TCADP-BOARD01] A QUESTION FOR TEXAS

[Marie des Neiges Leonard]

dp atwood <dpatwood at igc.org> wrote:



From: "dp atwood" 
Date: Sun, 7 Dec 2003 15:43:21 -0600
Subject: [TCADP-BOARD01] A QUESTION FOR TEXAS

The following letter to the editor was sent out to a number of Texas newspapers.   Dave                                                                                        
 
 
 
 A QUESTION FOR TEXAS
 

While the Texas execution machinery relentlessly puts people to death (5 executions scheduled in December alone), the rest of the world looks on with amazement.  

I learned this recently while participating in a program in Italy with Ross Byrd, son of James Byrd, Jr., who was murdered in Jasper, Texas, in 1998.    Ross has come out against the death penalty for the men who murdered his father and actually visited one of them in prison. 
 
Ross had an opportunity to express his opposition to the death penalty during a program called Cities for Life, Cities Against the Death Penalty, which took place in Rome, Italy, on November 30.  Over 125 cities throughout the world illuminated a monument or important building that evening as an expression of opposition for the death penalty.  Those cities included Rome, Berlin, Amsterdam,  Tokyo, Santiago, Vienna,  Madrid, Brussels, Bogota, Stockholm and San Salvador.  In Texas,  Catholic Cathedrals were illuminated in Houston, Austin, Dallas, Ft. Worth, El Paso and Victoria.  
 
Ross and I were able to participate in the 4th World Summit of the Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, hosted by Mikhail Gorbachev.  During this conference, the Nobel Peace Laureates issued a statement which said, "We appeal to the governments of the world to stop all executions and to search for better instruments of justice, defense of human life and human dignity".  
 
A common question addressed to both Ross and myself was this:  If a young African-American man whose father was brutally murdered by three racists in Texas was able to speak out against the execution of those men, what is wrong with the rest of Texas?     A good question for all of us.  
 
David Atwood
1802 Kipling St.
Houston, TX 77098
713-529-3826




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