A letter from our Civil Wrongs coordinator

May 17, 2024

Dear Reader,

There are some experiences and connections that cannot be replicated online.

In 2018, I was in the audience when Bryan Stevenson, founder of Equal Justice Initiative, came to Memphis to talk about finding hope amid his work on death row. He talked about wrongful convictions, the inhumane treatment that prisoners can face and how the death penalty is unevenly applied.

One of his foundational principles to create lasting change: Get proximate to the oppressed.

Laura Kebede-Twumasi

And that’s exactly what Nashville journalist Steven Hale’s new book “Death Row Welcomes You” does.

Last week, I moderated a book talk with Hale sponsored by Burke’s Book Store and Just City. One statistic in the book jumped out at me:

In the two years leading up to the pandemic, Tennessee executed seven men – more than any other state except Texas at the time. That’s in contrast to the rest of the U.S., where the death penalty is in decline. (Gov. Bill Lee paused all executions in Tennessee in 2022 because of systemic problems in the state’s execution protocol.)

Yet, the book goes beyond statistics and tired debates and gets to the humanity at play in Tennessee’s death row – both people who are incarcerated and those who have chosen to regularly visit them despite no other personal connection.

The book is full of deep research and thoughtful storytelling about the lives of the men sentenced to death at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. He tells their stories before, during, and after the crimes that landed them in prison – a rarity in news cycles that have little time for nuance and context. He speaks with victims’ families, who have a range of views on the death penalty.

He also follows a group of people who have gotten to know the men on death row for more than their past. One is a journalist-turned-friend of a prisoner, another is a dad who has been in favor of the death penalty for most of his adult life.

Yet another is a minister who has helped other death rows organize for better treatment. All were initially hesitant to go behind prison walls. All eventually come to see the men on death row as fellow humans, not as monsters.

Reading this book and talking with Steven Hale reminded me how easily issues like this can be ignored because, by nature, our prison system is out of sight and out of mind for most people.

Steven Hale

But we can choose differently and get proximate. That’s where change begins. 

Laura Kebede-Twumasi

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The Institute is led by director Marc Perrusquia, who worked nearly 30 years as an investigative reporter at The Commercial Appeal. He’s the author of the 2018 book “A Spy In Canaan,’’ which exposed civil rights photographer Ernest Withers’ secret life as an FBI informant and inspired the 10-part podcast “Ernie’s Secret” and the documentary film “The Picture Taker,’’ to be released on PBS in January.

The Institute’s associate director, David Waters, worked more than 30 years at The Commercial Appeal and another four at The Washington Post. He is revered as Memphis’s best news writer and is beloved for his work exploring faith, child poverty and education

Laura Kebede-Twumasi is a Report for America corps member. She recently hosted and wrote WKNO public television’s special “History, Justice and the Journalists” on unresolved civil rights crimes in the Memphis area. She previously covered education inequities for Chalkbeat Tennessee and local government and religion for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.