Prejean’s Experiences Help Tell Stories That Needed to be Told
If Sister Helen Prejean had not written “Dead Man Walking” and “The Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions,” telling the stories of men who were sentenced to death by execution, she believes it would have been a mistake.
“Story is the only way to tell the truth,” said Prejean, the keynote speaker for San Diego’s Big Read event on Thursday night at the University of San Diego’s Shiley Theatre. The Big Read is a National Endowment for the Arts project designed to restore reading to the center of American culture.
Ernest J. Gaines’ 1993 book, “A Lesson Before Dying,” is this year’s local Big Read selection. It poses the question, “Knowing we’re going to die, how should we live?” It’s the story of an uneducated young black man, Jefferson, who is accused of the murder of a white storekeeper, and Grant Wiggins, a college-educated Louisianan who teaches at a plantation school. The book examines a bond that, shaky at first, develops into something stronger as Jefferson prepares for his death by execution.
The USD campus has held book discussions and also showed the HBO movie version starring Don Cheadle. Thursday’s event, meanwhile, featured not only Prejean, but also a “Dying” book excerpt performed live by Kevin Morrison as “Jefferson” and Grandison M. Phelps III as “Rev. Ambrose.” Singer-songwriter Lanee’ Battle, a USD Human Resources department employee, sang “He Looked Beyond My Faults and Saw My Needs,” written by late Southern Gospel musician Dottie Rambo.
Prejean’s experience with death row inmates and being witness to something “people don’t see” inspired her tell the stories of Patrick Sonnier (“Dead Man Walking”) and Dobie Gillis Williams and Joseph O’Dell (“The Innocents”).
“’Nobody heard Dobie’s voice, and that’s why you have to be his voice,’” said Prejean, recalling the family’s plea to her. “That’s why I wrote that book.”
The Baton Rouge, La., native travels the country to educate others about the death penalty. Prejean founded Survive, a victim’s advocacy group in New Orleans, enabling her to counsel death row inmates as well as families of murder victims.
U.S. statistics, provided by the Bureau of Justice through October 2009 and available at www.antideathpenalty.org, show that 35 states, including California, as well as the federal government and the military, enforce the death penalty. Fifteen states do not, including New York, New Jersey, New Mexico and Massachusetts. There have been 41 executions in 2009, four more than in 2008. There are 3,220 people on death row, including 56 women.
Sonnier, a convicted killer of two teenagers and sentenced to die in the electric chair in Louisiana’s Angola State Prison, became pen pals with Prejean. She became his spiritual adviser. Through their visits, she learned about the state’s execution process. The experience became the 1994 book “Dead Man Walking” and, later, a film that earned actress Susan Sarandon an Academy Award for her portrayal of Prejean.
“When I began my journey with Patrick Sonnier, I never dreamed that I’d be there to see 1900 volts go through his body,” Prejean said. The experience made her ill.
Her 2004 book, “The Innocents” centered on Dobie Gillis Williams and Joseph O’Dell, whom Prejean also accompanied to their executions. She believed both men were innocent, and her research revealed flaws in the law and how the death penalty system failed and led to the execution of innocent people.
Prejean reflected on the common threads between her experiences and those told in “A Lesson Before Dying.”
“It’s a man on death row, and the journey was to let him know that he was a human being. That’s what the story is all about. It’s when you have to face the dignity of a human being.”
— Ryan T. Blystone
The final Big Read event at USD, which has co-sponsored all events with the Black Storytellers of San Diego, is a free panel discussion from 3-5 p.m. on Nov. 13 in Salomon Hall. To RSVP, go here.