(Note: This statement was prepared by Kevin Cooper before the state of California tortured and murdered Stanley Tookie Williams. He had hoped it would not be necessary. Elizabeth Terzakis of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty read the statement to the crowd gathered at San Quentin on December 12, 2005.)
If the state of California succeeds in the immoral and inhumane murder
of Stanley Williams, we the moral and humane people who are fighting
against this execution must redouble our efforts to once and for all
put an end the other government's pride and joy, its system of capital
punishment.
Throughout the history of this country, the people who have decided
who lives and who dies have called themselves "good Christians." Yet
these people seem to have forgotten that the very foundation on which
their religion is built is that of forgiveness and redemption! They
seem only to forgive their own kind. They seem only to find redemption
in the people who look just like them.
This is something that must change because, for too long, people who
look just like Stan, who look just like me, have been the scapegoats
and victims of men who want to play god!
Stanley Williams is now and will forever be my cultural brother, my
personal friend. I will personally see to it that the work that he is
doing to save the lives of all youths is continued. The life lessons
that I have learned from him will not let me do anything else!
The crime against humanity which is taking place tonight is another in
a long and rich history of such crimes in this country. It is this
kind of crime that brought into being the song "Strange Fruit" by
Billie Holliday. It is a song about lynching.
Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
(Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,)
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
(The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,)
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.
We who are here in 2005 ought to remember out connection to those who
came before us, to those who were lynched as the state is planning to
lynch Stanley Williams today, and those who fought against those
lynchings, as we do today.
In struggle from death row
at San Quentin Prison,
Kevin Cooper