The long journey
Fourteen thousand five hundred and eighty-four days ago, the state of Louisiana executed Patrick Sonnier. Sister Helen Prejean was there with him as he died.
Ten days ago, the state of Texas executed Ivan Cantu. Sister Helen Prejean was there with him as he died.
I thought about this as I was reviewing this draft illustration from the graphic adaptation of Dead Man Walking:
Generational work
In a sermon in 1852, the abolitionist Theodore Parker wrote:
“You see a continual and progressive triumph of the right. I do not pretend to understand the moral universe, the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. But from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.”
Dr. King put this more succinctly in his speech at the National Cathedral in March, 1968:
“We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”
The arc is long. The task Sister Helen embarked upon in 1983, when she vowed to bring the American public into the country’s killing chambers, was generational work.
The present landscape
However, this grim landscape in two Southern states does not mirror what has been happening across most of the country since Sister Helen’s book ignited public discussion about capital punishment. Since then, executions have declined by 75% nationally and death sentences have dived by more than 85%.
With graphic Dead Man Walking, we hope to renew and supercharge the public conversation unleashed in 1993 when Dead Man Walking was first published. Our hope is that young people, in particular, will read this new adaptation and it will set their hearts, mind and feet on that long arc.