3/15 Kevin Cooper Live from Death Row Report

Bottomline: a tremendous success!
-Cameron

Approximately 50 people came to hear Kevin Cooper speak live from
death row on Monday, March 15, 2004. Kevin's voice came through loud
and clear at 7:45 p.m. in the Associated Students of the University of
California lounge on the second floor of Eshleman Hall at the
UC-Berkeley campus at a "Live from Death Row" (LFDR) that was
organized by the Campaign to End the Death Penalty and co-sponsored by
the American Civil Liberties Union. Kevin was joined by one of his
attorneys, David Alexander along with Rita Barker and Cameron
Sturdevant who were added at the last minute to stand in for our
invited speakers Derrel Meyers and Donna Larsen who were called away
from the event. (See below for brief biographies of the additional
speakers.)
"My brothers and sisters, I thank you attending this event. Really I
had no idea that I would even be allowed to do another Live From Death
Row. I honestly thought these people were gonna murder me last month.
I thank you for protesting and demonstrating and fighting for my life.
And I thank you so much for your continued fight against this crime
against humanity that the United States re-fuses to let go of, the
death penalty. ... They don't want to spend money on life, they'd
rather spend money on death. Taking money away from schools, raising
people's tuition, doing everything that seems to be against human
nature. Looks like they have their priori-ties all mixed up. They are
firing teachers but the aren't firing the executioners. They are
pumping poison into people's bodies but not knowledge into people's
brains," is how Kevin started his part of the program. Unlike the most
recent LFDR, held on Saturday, Febru-ary 7 just two days before Kevin
was scheduled to be executed at 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday, February 10,
the audience was easily able to hear Kevin's voice as the technical
crew overcame the tremendous challenges of staging a telephone call
from San Quentin State Prison.
After a short statement Kevin went on to answer a questions from the
primarily student audience for nearly 40 minutes. People asked how
Kevin got through day-to-day, about the spirits of the other death row
inmates in light of Kevin's 11th hour stay of execution and order from
the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for the District Court to implement
further testing that could show evidence tam-pering as well as hearing
from additional witnesses that were not sought out at the time of
Kevin's original trial in San Bernadino County nearly 20 years ago.
Other questions such as one inspired by Kevin's recent portrait of
Malcolm X gave Kevin an opportunity to draw connections between the
racism and poverty that often leads to death row and the daily racism
experienced by African Americans and other racial minorities. Kevin
also made a special note that there are women on death row in
California and in many other states and that our fight for the
abolition of the death penalty should reach out to women prisoners.
David Alexander gave background about the legal issues in Kevin's
case. David talked about the challenges still facing Kevin's de-fense
today and gave the audience a real sense that the legal team and
investigators are doing everything necessary to right the injus-tices
in Kevin's case.
Near the end, Kevin was asked to comment on the enduring legacy of
racism today and on the outside.
"To my knowledge, this prison system is based upon the plantation
system. I mean they call the wages that inmates earn in here "slave
wages." One group of people controls the lives of another group of
people. The death penalty is right here. The death penalty was on the
plantation. ... The only thing that has changed is the date."

The next meeting of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty at the
UC-Berkeley campus is Monday, March 29th at 7:00 p.m. at room 259
Dwinelle Hall. We hope everyone who can will attend to help us
organize a group viewing of "Redemption" on Sunday evening, April 11,
2004. Call 510-333-7966 for more information.
Additional information about "Redemption"
Redemption: The Stan "Tookie" Williams Story, Starring Jamie Foxx
Where is there a Nobel Peace Prize nominee on death row?
Right here in the Bay Area in San Quentin!

"With vibrant energy and style, actor/director Vondie Curtis Hall takes
over the camera to give us Redemption, the inspiring true-life story of
Stan "Tookie" Williams, the founding father of the infamous Crips street
gang, whose time in jail inspired him to help inner-city youth and pen
books that earned him two Nobel Prize nominations.

Jamie Foxx turns in an exceptional performance as a man who transforms
himselfÉ Redemption teaches by example how someone can craft his own
redemption."--Shari Frilot, from the Sundance Film Festival Guide

*Additional biographic information for invited and stand-in speakers
at LFDR:
Derrel Meyers, member of Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation
and father of Jo Jo White, Derrel's son, who was killed in a random
act of violence in San Francisco.
Donna Larsen, is a longtime and tireless advocate for her son Keith
Doolin who is on death row in California. Donna has been fight-ing the
death penalty for many years and has spoken at CEDP events many times.
Rita Barker is an appellate attorney and the special friend of Tom
Thomson who was executed by the State of California in 1998.
Cameron Sturdevant is an organizer for the Campaign to End the Death
Penalty and a long time visitor of Kevin Cooper.
Crystal Bybee facilitated the telephone call with Kevin Cooper and is
also a member of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, as is Kevin
himself.