Troy Davis: ‘Dismantle this unjust system’

By Dianne Mathiowetz
Atlanta

Sep 28, 2011

Philadelphia photo: Joseph Piette

Sept. 26 — The outrage over the state of Georgia’s execution of Troy Davis at 11:08 p.m. on Sept. 21 has not abated. Rather, his name has become a code word for resistance and struggle.

Troy Davis

Youth chanted, “We are Troy Davis!” when attacked and arrested by New York City police on Sept. 23 and Sept. 24 during marches that took to the streets, denouncing his execution and rebelling against the rule of profit over people.

In Atlanta and elsewhere, people are meeting to strategize on how to carry the fight against the death penalty and the prison-industrial complex to higher levels, challenging a class structure that is imbued with racism and only serves profit.

The Davis family will hold a public funeral for Troy on Oct. 1 in Savannah, Ga., and encourages all of his supporters to visibly show that they are heeding his call to build a movement for justice for all. For more information, go to www.aiusa.org.

In the days leading up to Troy’s execution and since, a common question asked by the corporate media is why this case caused more than 1 million people to sign online petitions demanding clemency; brought out people in more than 300 cities on Sept. 16 for an International Day of Solidarity with Troy Davis; and compelled thousands to continue to fight for his life, right up to the moment that the lethal injection procedure began, after the Supreme Court refused to stay the execution.

Yusef Salaam speaks out for Troy Davis. Salaam was one of five Black youths framed up in the so-called “Central Park Jogger Case.” He was imprisoned for five and a half years before being exonerated. photo: Greg Butterfield

Youth, not even born or only very young children when Troy went on trial, make up a large percentage of those incensed by a judicial system that favors technicalities and deadlines over innocence and fairness. People of all ages are now withstanding the failures of this capitalist system to provide jobs, education, health care, housing, a clean environment, peace and equality. So many millions — not just in the U.S., but worldwide — have seen firsthand that the laws are written to benefit the rich and those in power, not to provide justice and fairness. That is why they recognized the truth of Troy Davis’s situation and responded in such huge numbers.

The facts of Troy’s case, told on the Internet, blogged and tweeted and covered on corporate TV, radio and in newspapers, became well known to millions who could recount the injustices and failings of the original trial and the many appeals. It was general knowledge that Troy has always said he was innocent and that seven of the nine trial witnesses had since recanted their testimony, many charging Savannah police with intimidating them into giving false testimony. The public knew that there was no physical evidence tying Troy to the killing of Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail; moreover, people knew that there was substantial testimony identifying another man as the shooter.

The case of Troy Davis was not just something that people had vaguely heard about. There was identity with the slogan, “I am Troy Davis.” His support grew and grew in the time following the denial of clemency by the Georgia Pardons and Parole Board on Sept. 20.

Last-minute appeals were launched for the White House and the Justice Department to intervene. Troy’s family and others brought more than 200,000 petitions asking to rescind the death warrant to Chatham County District Attorney Larry Chisolm on the morning of Sept. 21. Six former corrections officials — including Allen Ault, who had served as warden of the Jackson, Ga., prison that houses death row — issued a call for the prison staff not to carry out the execution, citing the lifelong trauma, guilt and shame to be felt in executing a likely innocent man. Emergency briefs were filed in Georgia courts and then with the Supreme Court.

As the hour of the execution drew near, a large sign-carrying crowd amassed in front of the Georgia State Capitol, where car horns blared to signal opposition to the death sentence. Similar actions were held across the country. In Jackson, Ga., people by the hundreds stood for hours along the road leading to the prison. Facing them was the armed might of the state: police from multiple jurisdictions, wearing full riot gear and carrying tear gas, Tasers and other weapons. Hope buoyed the crowds wherever they were gathered when the Supreme Court held off the scheduled 7 p.m. execution to consider Troy’s appeal. A few hours later, with no comment, the judges refused to intervene.

Troy Davis spent more than 20 years on death row. He had faced three other execution dates — a form of mental and psychological torture hard to fathom. His struggle to proclaim his innocence and win justice transformed his life. The message he wrote to his supporters days before his murder at the hands of the state is remarkable for its generosity of spirit and confidence in the people’s ability to struggle for justice and win.

With his last words as he lay strapped to a gurney, waiting for the lethal injection to begin, Troy again stated his innocence. He urged the witnesses in the viewing room to continue to search for the truth of who killed MacPhail.

At every location where protests were held on Sept. 21, Davis’ written call to his supporters was repeated and reinforced. He made clear that there have been other Troy Davises in the past — innocent people convicted and executed by a thoroughly racist and unfair judicial system. He appealed for support for the other Troy Davises currently on death row. And he spoke about the more than 2 million people held today in U.S. prisons and jails, so many just like him — young, coming from communities of color, workers, often poor.

Davis’ message to all those who signed petitions, wrote letters, demonstrated and worked tirelessly to save his life was to transfer that passion and commitment to the ending of capital punishment in the U.S., and to always fight for justice.

Georgia’s brutal and racist history

Georgia has a long and bloody history. It begins with the importation and sale of enslaved Africans and continues through the brutal forced removal of Cherokee and other Indigenous peoples on the Trail of Tears.

It stretches from the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot — when 10,000 white men and boys rampaged through downtown Atlanta in a murderous frenzy, killing and beating Black people and burning down their businesses — to the 1915 lynching of Leo Frank by an anti-Jewish mob comprised of prominent Marietta, Ga., community leaders. The days of Jim Crow segregation spawned the 1946 Ku Klux Klan killing of two Black couples at Moore’s Ford Bridge.

The death penalty in Georgia goes back to the earliest colonial days, when capital punishment was directed at quashing resistance by those enslaved as well as at abolitionist organizing. Capital punishment is the ultimate tool by an exploitative ruling class bent on maintaining its authority over all those whose labor provides its profits.

It was Georgia’s capricious and arbitrary use of the death penalty, as revealed in the 1972 Furman v. Georgia case, that caused the Supreme Court to declare a moratorium on capital punishment. Subsequent Georgia cases before the highest court permitted the resumption of the death penalty and denied admission of historical patterns of racial bias as evidence.

Recent statistics show that Georgia has the third-highest poverty rate in the U.S. It ranks among the top states for foreclosures. Its unemployment figures are consistently higher than the national average. On every index of social well-being — from health to educational quality and so on — Georgia is near the bottom of the list.

Without a doubt, Georgia’s red clay soil is stained with the blood of many, many victims of racism, poverty and bigotry.

This blatant injustice after Davis’ 22-year struggle to claim his innocence before numerous courts has torn away the veneer of due process and legality and revealed the ugliness of this class- and race-based judicial system. In Troy Davis’ name, the time for mass struggle, organization and resistance is now! On the morning of Sept. 22, the state of Georgia issued an execution warrant for Marcus Ray Johnson, to be carried out between Oct. 5 and 12.