Behind Locked Doors: Voices of Death Row
From 1972 to 1977, the United States of America did not commit state murder in the name of the death penalty. In 1972, the case Furman v. Georgia concluded with the suspension of the death penalty (Death Penalty Information Center). By 1976, Gregg v. Georgia allowed state’s the discretion to enact their own capital punishment policy. On January 17, 1977, the state of Utah killed Gary Gilmore by a firing squad–the death penalty was reborn in this country.
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.