I spent a good part of last night re-reading speeches by Dr. Martin Luther King and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. I do that sometimes when I am trying to get my bearings. As the state of Georgia prepares to kill a man tonight on the International Day of Peace, it would seem that we all need to get our bearings.

I am against the death penalty so for some I am disqualified from giving an opinion about Troy Davis’s impending execution. And yet it has been written that: “A time comes when silence is betrayal.” I cannot be silent in the face of this great injustice. Even ardent supporters of capital punishment must be troubled by the fact that a man will be murdered by the state based on doubtful evidence. I deeply believe this to be true. Anyone who is concerned with the sanctity of life cannot turn away from this case, cannot turn away from the vagaries of execution. In an editorial, the New York Times called the Georgia Parole Board’s denial of clemency for Troy Davis a “tragic miscarriage of justice.”

I have heard and read many references to Troy Davis’s execution being tantamount to a “legal lynching.” I want to recoil from this characterization. I want to protest, “no, this is wrong.” Then I remember a few lines from Ansel Elkins’s searing poem Reverse: A Lynching:

Return the tree, the moon, the naked man
Hanging from the indifferent branch
Return blood to his brain, breath to his heart
Reunite the neck with the bridge of his body
Untie the knot, undo the noose
Return the kicking feet to ground
Unwhisper the word jesus
Rejoin his penis with his loins
Resheathe the knife
Regird the calfskin belt through trouser loops
Refasten the brass buckle
Untangle the spitting men from the mob
Unsay the word nigger
Release the firer’s finger from its trigger
Return the revolver to its quiet holster

“Release the firer’s finger from its trigger, Return the revolver to its quiet holster.” Read the entire poem and think of Troy Davis today. We all want to release the guard’s finger from the syringe that will administer the lethal injection. We so desperately want to “Reverse: An Execution.”

So while I want to reject the idea that Troy Davis is being “legally lynched”, I find that I cannot. I remember seeing images years ago from a searing book and online exhibition titled "Without Sanctuary." No matter how much I tried, years later I still could not erase the images of crowds of gleeful Americans watching black bodies hanging from poplar trees.

Then just recently I saw the same images of gleeful Americans cheering capital punishment. It was at a recent Presidential candidates debate. Brian Williams who was one of the debate moderators was so taken aback by the crowd reaction that he asked one of the candidates what he made of the cheering. Rick Perry responded: “I think Americans understand justice.” All I could think in that moment was: “Oh were that to be true!”

The reality is that it falls to the minority of us, to as Dr. King often said: “Save America’s Soul.” We need to remind everyone that without justice, there can be no peace. The death penalty is unjust and it cannot be reformed; it must be abolished.

In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech of 1964, Dr. King said: “I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing streets of our nations, can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men.” I have to believe that this is possible. I have to believe that we can lift our wounded “justice” system; that we can create something better than our current oppressive system. On this International Day of Peace, I offer these words by Dr. King for Troy Davis and for all of us:

“For we must come to see that peace is not merely the absence of some negative force, it is the presence of a positive force. True peace is not merely the absence of tension, but it is the presence of justice and brotherhood.”

Over the past few years, so many of us have tried to be that positive force in advocating that the State spare Troy Davis’s life. We do and will continue to strive for “the presence of justice and brotherhood” (I would add sisterhood too) all across the world.

I will end with Troy Davis’s eloquent words from a letter that he wrote to his supporters last week:

So Thank you and remember I am in a place where execution can only destroy your physical form but because of my faith in God, my family and all of you I have been spiritually free for some time and no matter what happens in the days, weeks to come, this Movement to end the death penalty, to seek true justice, to expose a system that fails to protect the innocent must be accelerated. There are so many more Troy Davis’. This fight to end the death penalty is not won or lost through me but through our strength to move forward and save every innocent person in captivity around the globe. We need to dismantle this Unjust system city by city, state by state and country by country.

I can’t wait to Stand with you, no matter if that is in physical or spiritual form, I will one day be announcing,

“I AM TROY DAVIS, and I AM FREE!”

Never Stop Fighting for Justice and We will Win!

What else is there to say? Nothing except perhaps this…