Reginald S. Lewis

Reginald is a widely-published, award-winning Black poet, essayist and a playwright who's written two self-published collections of poetry, entitled, Leaving Death Row, and Inside my Head, for which he's known as the 'Poet Laureate of Death Row'. His newest book is entitled, Where I'm Writing From:Essays from Pennsylvania's Death Row.

He will be sending us plenty more, but here's a taste:

LET TOOKIE LIVE
By Reginald S. Lewis

The American psyche is battered, bruised, and relentlessly assailed with the pervasive negative media images of prisoners as cold, merciless, murderous beasts filled with hate and misguided rage - and the collective hearts in a once compassionate country, have hardened.

It is very rare to see a positive portrayal of prison inmates in Hollywood, so when the inmates on Pennsylvania's Death Row watched the FX movie Redemption, starring the now Academy Award winning Actor Jamie Foxx, in the role of Death Row inmate, and co-founder of the Los Angeles Crips gang, Stanley "Tookie" Williams, we were riveted to the screens, awe-struck by the cinematic beauty of the powerfully moving movie that captured the essence of the tortured soul and brilliant mind of a black man, whom, while sitting in a small, cramped cell on San Quentin's death row, churned out nine anti-violence books for children and incarcerated adults, for which he was nominagted four times for the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Williams was also nominated five times for the Nobel Peace Prize after creating the international peer mentoring program called "The Internet Project for Street Peace." He has singlehandedly brokered peace treaties between rival gangs across the country and beyond, which greatly contributed to the drop in statistics for Murder.

Over the prison telephone lines connecting him to the larger world hungry for his message, Stanley "Tookie" Williams has even mentored numerous Chicago Public School principles and students, and his mentoring skills are in such hot demand, the school board decided to create a curriculum based on his amazing work, and there's a long waiting list!

The state of California has set December 13, 2005, as the date Stanley "Tookie" Williams should be put to death. How does it advance mankind to snuff out the life of a man whose inner light has illuminated so many darkened souls around the entire world? Did the Prophets teach for naught? Are the acts of Penitence, Forgiveness, and REDEMPTION worthless, meaningless concepts now waxed old? Then what does it say about the crucible of the soul of a man, whom, President Bush awarded the 2005 Presidential call to service award?

LET TOOKIE LIVE!

I am -

Reginald S. Lewis
Author of "Where I'm Writing From"

CALL THE GOVERNOR'S OFFICE AND DEMAND CLEMENCY FOR STANLEY WILLIAMS.
(916) 445-2841

For more information about Reginald S. Lewis, his legal cases, photos, poems, sample essays, and his books, you can visit his web sites:

Reginaldslewis.org
Reginaldlewis.net

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