Behind Locked Doors: Voices of Death Row

Behind Locked Doors: Voices of Death Row

Death row inmates
Death sentence
Death penalty
Abolition of capital punishment
Capital Punishment--Psychological aspects

With the reinstatement of the death penalty in the United States of America in 1977 came a wave of death row activism for abolition. The topic of death row has been mediated across academic, legal, moral, and literary discourses–but in these narratives, there is a consistent lack of media authored by those who have first person experience with life under the threat of death. Death row publications, such as The Texas Death Row Journal, addressed this lack of experiential knowledge and provided a new resource for death row activism. Written, edited, illustrated, and published by members of death row, The Texas Death Row Journal provides the perspective of the people under the threat of death and models how primary narratives serve as a particularly effective means of activism by humanizing the subjects, illustrating agency, highlighting unique knowledge, community building, and calling for action.

Aidan Ellis

Texas Death Row Collection, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin.