One of the very first essays that I wrote when I became part of this struggle to end the death penalty in this country was, "A Plea to the Black Community." I wrote it because I did not see or know about very many African Americans involved in this struggle.
In the years that have passed since I wrote that essay I am truly proud to say that many more African Americans are now involved in this very real and historic fight to end America's sick fascination with the death penalty. However, I am also sad that more African Americans are not involved in this fight, because truth be told this is our fight!
Many of my cultural brothers and sisters who are in this fight are people who know history and understand that they owe it to our ancestors to continue what was once their fight to end the death penalty and other crimes against our people. Many of them are in grassroots organizations that have the same mindset concerning their responsibility to our ancestors. But as a people we are still lacking what is needed from us to end this death penalty once and for all!
For example, if we could get as many African Americans involved in this fight as are on the dance floors across this country on a Friday or Saturday night, we could truly make our voice heard. Not only that, but we could truly put our historic and cultural face on this issue, so that we cannot be ignored by the powers that be. If we could get as many African Americans involved in this fight as are in churches across this country on a Sunday morning, (many of whom are asking the good Lord for forgiveness for what they did on Friday and Saturday night) we could most definitely make a difference in this issue.
There are some African Americans who don't even want to be called African Americans. They just want to be called Americans. Because they truly think this way, they have purposely removed themselves from our culture, both the good and the bad that is within it. They have assimilated into this country so much that they truly have no idea who they are. What they fail to realize is that no matter what we call ourselves, or what others call us, the death penalty American style has always been put next to our name.
When we were called naked savages in Africa, the death penalty was there. When we were called cargo at the bottom of the slave ships, the death penalty was there. When we were called nigger and coon and all those other names on the auction block, the death penalty was right there. When we became colored, then black, the death penalty was still there. And now that we are African Americans, or just plain Americans, the death penalty is still here! We can't escape this truth no matter how much we run from it, ignore it, or are silent about it.
A few years ago I was watching a church program that still comes on television, KICU Channel 36 in the Bay Area. This program was hosted by an African American minister, who was a great speaker. He preached about racism one week, then classism the next week, then sexism. So I wrote to this minister named Fredrick K.C. Price at his church in Los Angeles. I respectfully asked him to speak out against the death penalty. I watched his program every Sunday for the next month, hoping that he would speak about the death penalty, but he never did. A few weeks later I received a letter from his church, saying that they had received my letter and appreciated my writing to them.
But it also said that Reverend Price couldn't speak out against the death penalty because God had not told him to do so! I sat there looking at that letter, not understanding how someone could speak out against racism, classism, sexism, and religious prejudice, and not speak about the death penalty when the death penalty is the ultimate result of racism, classism, and all the other prejudices in the world!
No matter what black people call themselves or are called by others, we must acknowledge our past and the very real debt that we owe to all of those who came before us. It is because of their working, their fighting, their praying and their dying (many by the death penalty in all of its various forms in this country) that has made it possible for us to be here today!
And not just here being here, but doing as great as we are, for those of us who are doing so well, that is. Are we really and truly doing great if we won't for one reason or another continue this fight that was started by our ancestors? For example, when Frederick Douglass was fighting to end slavery, he was also fighting to end lynching, the form of the death penalty used against many of our people at that time. That was the most recognized way that the death penalty was applied, but there were many other forms that were used to murder niggers! Coons! Human Beings!!!!
The time has come for we who are darker than blue, we truly black people, to stop betraying our ancestors by being silent concerning our lives being taken from us at the hands of the government. If they had been silent, then slavery and lynching would not have ended. The government didn't want them to end, just as now they do not want to end the death penalty. But our ancestors' voices and our actions made them end slavery and lynching! Our ancestors knew then what I know now, that "Silence is Betrayal."
We cannot betray them, because they did not betray us! In fact, many of our ancestors have been quoted as saying that the main reason they were fighting was so that their children and their descendents wouldn't have to face the same type of crimes against humanity that they faced. They weren't silent! To use a verse from a song in the documentary series "Eyes on the Prize," "You know the one thing we did right was the day we started to fight, Keep your eyes on the prize oh Lord."
In Struggle From Death Row
At San Quentin Prison
Kevin Cooper