October2.2013
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Minority & Small Business Week_______________
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Immoral, Biased and Ineffective
Brutal practice
of capital
punishment
Correia, the case against Troy
lacked conclusive evidence after
m any of the key w itnesses re
canted testim ony from the time of
the original trial.
In the last weeks of Troy's life,
the G eorgia State Board o f Par
dons and Paroles received 663,000
petitions from people im ploring
the group to reconsider the e x
ecution given the sheer am ount of
d o u b t s u rro u n d in g th e c a se .
W orld figures, including Pope
Benedict XVI and form er U.S.
President Jim my Carter, human
rights groups and com m entators
urged the execution to be halted -
- all to no avail.
In the hours before his death,
the NAACP held a rally and lob
bied the D epartm ent of Justice to
intervene on the grounds of a civil
rights violation. The glim pses of
sadness and quiet resolve I saw
on the faces of Troy's fam ily when
his death becam e im m inent will
stay with me forever. The last time
I saw Troy, he told me "This m ove
m ent started before me, and it
ignored the facts,
doubts and pleas of hundreds of
thousands of people and killed Troy
Anthony Davis. On the anniver
sary of his execution, we rededicate
ourselves to ending the immoral,
biased and ineffective practice of
capital punishment.
For 15 years, we fought along
side Troy to clear his name for the
killing of Savannah Police Officer
M ark Allen M acPhail. Troy re
m ained adam ant about his inno
cence to his last breath. As ex
plained in the new book I Am Troy
Davis, by author Jen M arlowe and
T ro y 's siste r, M a rtin a D avis-
needs to continue, no m atter what,
until we destroy the m achinery of
death."
W hile many o f the supporters
who stood in solidarity with Troy
have put away their signs and
returned home, the battle to end
the sham eful practice of capital
punishm ent wages on in his name.
Side by side with T roy’s fam ily,
we rem ain on the frontlines o f this
fight to abolish a system that is
ineffective and steeped in racial
bias.
Racial disparities pervade ev
ery com ponent o f the justice sys
tem. A report from Amnesty Inter
national concluded that 77 per
cent o f people executed since 1977
were people convicted o f crim es
involving white victims, compared
to only 15 percent o f people ex
ecuted for killing blacks. A full 42
percent of the 3,100 inm ates on
death row are people of color.
Furtherm ore, we know that the
death penalty is a poor deterrent
ofcrim e. FBI data shows that all 14
states without capital punishm ent
in 2008 had hom icide rates at or
below the national rate.
The only effective way to deter
killings in our streets is to ensure
justice is swift and certain. In or
der to do so, we must ensure both
that we have police leadership that
builds strong partnerships and
trust with all communities and also
that they have enough officers
and detectives to ensure every
hom icide in every com m unity is
responded to with the requisite
resources to find and catch killers
quickly.
Since Troy’s death, we have
made definitive strides in our ef
fort to end the death penalty. We
have worked with a diverse and
m ultifaceted coalition o f advo
cates including Am nesty Interna
tional and the National Coalition
to Repeal the Death Penalty fix
our nation’s broken justice sys
tem.
Last year our work led to C on
necticut repealing the death pen
alty. This year, M aryland became
the first state south o f the M ason-
Dixon Line to do the same. Those
two states now jo in New Jersey,
New York, New M exico and Illi
nois as the fifth and sixth state in
six years, and the 17th and 18th in
the nation to abolish the death
penalty.
O ur strategy is clear. Our strat
egy is simple. We will outlaw capi
tal punishm ent in a m ajority of
states, and then we will go to the
United States Suprem e Court and
make the argum ent that the pun
ishm ent is cruel by its very nature
but also unusual because most
states have passed laws against
it.
"I Am Troy" rem inds us that
each year on the Sept. 21 anniver
sary o f his death will serve as both
a solemn anniversary and a call to
action. It is and will continue to be
an annual rem inder that justice
and comm on sense dictates that
we end this brutal practice of capi
tal punishm ent.
Benjamin Todd Jealous is the
president and chief executive of
ficer o f the national NAACP.
Good for Football and Good for America
Another barrier
in sports is
falling
receivers, they did not possess the
ability or intellect to be quarterback
-- the on-the-field CEO - of a Na
tional Football League team.
At one time, a black NFL quar
terback was as unthinkable as a
black American President. But,
what was once a rarity is now
becoming the norm.
In 1920, Frederick Douglas
“Fritz” Pollard became profes
sional football ’ s first black quarter
back, leading the Akron Pros to
victory in the NFL’s inaugural cham
pionship game. It wasn’t until al
most 50 years later on the first Sun
day of the 1969 regular season that
James Harris, playing for the Buf
falo Bills, became the first black pro
fessional quarterback to start on an
opening day - and subsequently
the first black NFL quarterback to be
a full-time starter at that position.
by M arc H. M orial
Sports is one of
the most race-neutral
m e rito c ra c ie s
in
America. From the
record-shattering feats of Jesse
Owens to the transcendent accom
plishments of Serena and Venus,
there is no doubt that African Ameri
cans can excel at the highest levels
in any sport if given a chance.
Historically, that chance has
rarely been given to aspiring black
professional quarterbacks. For de
cades, the prevailing view seemed
to be that while African Americans
made good runners, blockers and
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From 1969-1977, with the excep
tion of a six-game start in 1974 by Joe
Gilliam for the Pittsburgh Steelers,
Harris was the only starting black
quarterback in the NFL. In 1988,
Doug Williams became the first black
quarterback to win a Super Bowl. A
stellar few have joined them in the
modem era-W arrenM oon, Randall
Cunningham, Steve McNair and
Donovan McNabb come to mind.
But according to a 2012 article in
Pro Football Weekly, “Surprisingly,
based on the overwhelming major
ity of black players in the league,
only four, or 12.5 percent, of the 32
starting QBs in the league on the
final day of the 2011 regular season
were black.”
The 2013 season has seen that
number more than double.
The third week of this year’s NFL
season saw nine starting black quar
USPS 959-680
R eporter /P hotographer Donovan M.
Smith
meritocracy. I still root for Drew
Brees on Sundays, and most of the
black NFL quarterbacks will tell you
themselves that race doesn't mat
ter. Their only goal is to compete
and win.
But as we celebrate 50 years of
African American progress, I can
not help but note that another bar
rier in sports is falling. More black
quarterbacks are getting a chance
to excel on the field and earn the
dignity, big salaries and endorse
ments that come with their success.
That is good for football and good
for America.
Think about that as you sit back
and enjoy another weekend of NFL
skirmishes. And may the best man -
the best team - win.
Marc H. Morial is president and
chief executive officer o f the Na
tional Urban League.
4747 NE Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd., Portland, OR 97211
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terbacks take the field for their teams
— the most in history. They include:
Robert Griffin III (RG3) in Washing-
ton; R u ssell W ilso n , S eattle
Seahawks; Terrelle Pryor, Oakland
Raiders; Colin Kaepemick, San Fran-
cisco49ers; EJ Manuel, Buffalo Bills;
Geno Smith, New York Jets; Michael
Vick, Philadelphia Eagles; Josh Free
man, Tampa Bay Buccaneers; and
Cam Newton, Carolina Panthers.
The trend is accelerating, and the
new class of black quarterbacks is
making history. Jason McIntyre, co
founder of The Big Lead, a popular
sports website, predicts that “It is
conceivable that by week one in
2015, half the 32 NFL teams will have
a black starting QB ”
This is not to imply that we should
only root for black quarterbacks. I
began this column by noting how
sports is largely a color-blind
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