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‘Don’t Let Me Die in Vain’: Executed Troy Davis Remembered at Memorial
Family, friends, advocates remember Troy Davis
Family, friends and supporters of Troy Davis, the convicted murderer who was executed in Georgia last week despite emotional pleas for his life, were saying goodbye to him Saturday morning at his funeral.
Funeral directors bring the casket of Troy Davis into the Jonesville Baptist Church before his funeral in Savannah, Ga., Saturday, Oct. 1, 2011. The 42-year-old Davis was executed by lethal injection last week for the 1989 slaying of off-duty Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail. In his last words, Davis insisted he was innocent and asked forgiveness for his accusers and executioners.(AP Photo/Stephen Morton) As a gospel choir quietly sang in the background, the service began in Jonesville Baptist Church.
Rev. Raphael Warnock, spiritual adviser to the Davis family and head of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, the church of Martin Luther King Jr., was to deliver the eulogy.
NAACP President Benjamin Jealous and Amnesty International USA executive director Larry Cox also were scheduled to speak.
In Friday night, more than 250 people, including Jealous and comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory, jammed the New Life Apostolic Temple in Davis' hometown of Savannah for a church memorial that served as a prelude to the much larger service Saturday.
Friends, pastors, anti-death penalty activists and Davis' lawyer all took turns at a podium behind his closed casket, decorated with a spray of white and purple flowers.
The 42-year-old Davis was executed by lethal injection last week for the 1989 slaying of off-duty Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail. In his last words, Davis insisted he was innocent and asked forgiveness for his accusers and executioners.
Longtime friend Earl Redman, who said he'd known Davis since age 8, told the crowd Friday that during prison visits Davis would often say that he expected to die in the death chamber.
"He looked me in the eye and he told me, 'Don't let me die in vain. Don't let my name die in vain,'" Redman said as a church usher tore paper towels off a roll for teary attendees to dry their eyes.
The Rev. Randy Loney, a Macon pastor who often visited Davis in prison, said he was always struck by Davis' gentle nature despite the death sentence looming over him. Referring to the catchphrase adopted by his supporters — "I am Troy Davis" — Loney said he came to realize that "in a lot of ways, we are not Troy Davis."
"We did not wake up every morning and go to sleep every evening with the specter of the executioner in our eyes," he said.
Jason Ewart, a Washington attorney who spent seven years handling Davis' appeals, fought back tears as he recalled sitting in the second row of witnesses at the execution and watching the life drain from Davis' eyes.
Ewart recalled many long phone conversations with Davis, never shorter than an hour, in which the men spent twice as much time talking about their families as they did legal strategy. Ewart said his own grandmother had just died, and he pictured her and Davis together at "heaven orientation."
"She would say, 'Jesus died on the cross not because he was guilty, but because we all were,'" Ewart said.
Davis' family opted to open the funeral Saturday to his supporters and the general public, holding the service at a church that organizers said can seat 2,000 people. Warnock said Friday that he hopes Davis' funeral will serve as wake-up call on the death penalty much like the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till shocked Americans to the brutal realities of Jim Crow.
"Like Emmett Till's mother insisted on an open casket funeral in a way that the world could see the injustice of Jim Crow, it's much to the Davis family's credit that they have been willing in the midst of their personal pain to see that we are talking about a larger, national moral crisis," Warnock said.
Till was killed and his body was mutilated by white men after the boy was seen speaking to a white woman at a grocery store in the Mississippi Delta in August 1955. His death was an early flashpoint that helped spark the civil rights movement.
Warnock, head pastor at the Atlanta church where Martin Luther King Jr. once preached, said "it's not a perfect analogy" to compare Davis' case to the Till lynching. Davis was convicted in 1991 of killing MacPhail, who was shot twice while rushing to stop an attack on a homeless man.
After four years of appeals since Davis' first scheduled execution was halted in 2007, every court that looked at Davis' case ultimately upheld his death sentence. MacPhail's family and prosecutors insist Davis was the killer. But Warnock said he's among those who believe Davis was innocent.
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22 Comments so far
Show Allhe died in "vein".
murdered by the State.
RIP Troy Davis. Your spirit lives.
We must end the death penalty.
Let this state sponsored murder come to an end.
RIP Troy Davis
the iceman speaketh
This just in from Ha'aretz:
"Report: Obama weighed clemency for Pollard, but Biden vehemently opposed move New York Times quotes U.S. vice president as saying that convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard would be released 'over my dead body'."
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/report-obama-weighed-clemency-for-pollard-but-biden-vehemently-opposed-move-1.387562
This is the same man - our illustrious Nobel Peace Laureate - who refused to intercede in Troy Davis' behalf because he did not consider it proper. Yet, interceding for a convicted spy from a foreign nation IS proper. This is so utterly disgusting, it makes one nauseous!
You should respect the judgement of your fellow citizens. Troy did the crime, he should have paid the penalty.
However, you should continue to work to abolish the death penalty.
I agree. If the death penalty is wrong, it should be abolished and I think that it should be. Davis though clearly was guilty and if you DO have the death penalty, he was no more or less deserving than Lawrence Brewer who was executed the same night.
Remember that Davis didn't even argue that he wasn't there in the commission of a felony when MacPhail was shot, he simply states that he didn't pull the trigger. His OWN attorneys only ever presented that 7 of 9 witnesses withdrew their testamony. (when there were 34 eye witnesses, that is that there were 27 that never changed their testimony.) Davis' lawyers didn't bring any of those witnesses to the SCOTUS ordered evidentary hearing. They simply said, "he's innocent" without providing any evidence that he was innocent.
No one deserves to be killed by the state, but IF there is a state penalty, it has to be applied evenly and Davis was AS guilty as most others that are executed. He is NOT a good example for the movement to abolish the Death Penalty.
Troy did the crime?
Considering that something like 7 witnesses of 9 recanted their testimony while saying that the police had coerced them into the testimony in the first place goes WAY BEYOND the reasonable doubt standard to PROBABLE doubt.
Are you a prosecutor? Or just a judge?
the death of troy davis,= a lynching.-
the death of anwar al-awaki,= a lynching.
-a white policeman is killed, a black man is lynched.
a brown man speaks out against the power structure, (uppity nigger), he is lynched...
there are no words to describe well enough the despicable house slave, the bought-and-paid-for shill who is oourprez...
After watching Democracy Now with Amy Goodman in her coverage of the execution of Troy Davis, I have a different perspective. I don't think this article does justice to this or even touches the reality of what happened. RIP Troy Davis.
In memory of Troy Davis—latest victim of America, the bull-headed.
America, the now wholly-owned corporate entity that hides behind its own created branding of "democracy", "fairness" and "dignity," regularly embraces death above life, control over dignity, makes terrible choices about the nature of man's relation to nature, struts about with proud macho bravado and blind will to the REAL needs of People and their Right to determine together how to deal with this.
What happened in Georgia was one more step in the downward spiral of a nation which early-on embraced genocide, enslavement, abuse of women and immigrants, and the raping of the earth's resources for private gain. Lest we forget. Without the 24/7 drumbeat of narrow media censored drivel and the programmed lack of paying work opportunities, it would be soon be imposiible to find enough warm bodies willing to kill and risk their lives to bolster a blind and bullying mega-corp called USA. That is WHY the Control Officers now have turned to unmanned drones to do their killing abroad, and use of mindless job-hungry drones to do it here. Let's stop the Killing and start the Rebuilding of community, respect, and nation. A lethal injection is an apt metaphor for What We Don't Need Any More Of.
The real promise of America resides in hearts on the street in the Occupations of Wall Street, DC, and other locations, as we all seek some corageous leadership to bring the nation back to the Light.
-Let's stop the Killing and start the Rebuilding-...thanks alank
If you want to do something, heed the call of the man Amy Goodman interviewed after Davis' execution, Wesley Boyd, who called for a total economic boycott and isolation of Georgia until they repeal their death penalty statute. You can find out which major companies are HQ'd in the state, but let's start with Coke, Home Depot, UPS, Delta Airlines, and some of the other biggest. Also, don't buy any agricultural products made in GA, like peanuts, pecans, peaches and Vidalia onions, and also insist that any organizations you belong to cancel any conventions or events they have scheduled for the state, as well as canceling your plans for that getaway weekend in "Hotlanta". Hitting them in the pocketbook is really the only thing these heartless bastards understand.
Because it's not meant as a joke, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
I think you should view the Amy Goodman coverage that this poster is referring to, it might not seem so funny.
One night in Georgia, a policeman was killed. A tragic occurrence, we feel for those who lost a loved one. We acknowledge the dangerous task of a Police Officer and we recognize the valor displayed by the policeman in going about his job and giving his life in defense of another. A crime was committed, a man's life was taken and the person responsible should be held to account. But...We have lived too long in a society where "any nigger will do", If the law is to mean anything to all of us, due process must be followed. Through due process, we get to sort out the facts and find the truth. The "human concern" must be central to the process for all that are involved. The questions that persist in this matter suggest that 'due process" was not followed and doubt lingers like poison in our Justice System. Yet another exmaple of a Nation losing its way.
a "Nation" never lost it's way. -it's what is done, not what is said-they used to make postcards of lynchings-....., worth thinking about exactly what a nation is, ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d33-Lk5Zbw&feature=watch_response
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