What's Happening Newsletters: A Look into the Texas Death Row Community

What's Happening Newsletters: A Look into the Texas Death Row Community

Death row community
Capital punishment
Art and written word within prison
Anti-capital punishment movement '
Anti-death row movement

All items in the collection are from the What's Happening newsletters, published by Texas inmates on death row in the early 1990s. Funded by the Endeavor Project, an anti-capital punishment reform group, the newsletters was initially meant to circle around the death row wing in the Ellis Correctional Unit, located in Huntsville, Texas. The newsletters focus on a variety of topics, including the following: nonviolent protests, religious appeals, legal advice, and calls for community action. Primary analysis of the newsletter reveals the depth and complexity of death row and its inmates, and shows evidence of a variety of people who live among death row. The newsletter also demonstrate the importance of written word within the prison community, and express that there is a well-educated and creative community behind the prison newsletter. While collection is not meant to be an argument against capital punishment, the collection does work to eliminate some of the bias against death row and its inmates.

What's Happening newsletter staff

Dolph Briscoe Center for American History

The Endeavor Project

September 1991- August 1992

What's Happening newsletter staff

This material is made available for education and research purposes only. The creator of this exhibit does not own the rights for these items; it cannot grant or deny permission to use this material. Copyright law protects unpublished as well as published materials. It is your responsibility to determine the rights status and secure whatever permission may be needed for the use of any item. Due to the nature of archival collections, rights information may be incomplete or out of date. We welcome updates or corrections. Upon request, we'll remove material from public view while we address a rights issue.

Box 2L149, Endeavor Folder 1, A Guide to the Texas Death Row Collections, [ca 1980s] -1995, The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin.

English

Newsletters

Ellis Correctional Unit, Huntsville, Texas