Will you make your mark?Will you make your mark?
By Brandon Astor Jones
"Capital punishment is as fundamentally wrong as a cure for crime as charity is wrong as a cure for poverty." — Henry Ford
Australians Against Executions has lost its founder. Stephanie Margaret "Jill" Wilkinson, who died in March, will be sorely missed and certainly not forgotten. She worked hard to get people in Australia involved with men and women on death rows in the USA.
It was not an easy task, but it was one that brought her great pleasure and satisfaction when she realised that she had connected the right Australian with the right US prisoner. One of her greatest pleasures was the joining of total strangers into states of happy and respectful friendship. She once wrote that it was "a richly rewarding experience".
It is time for someone with an equally pure and selfless spirit to step into the huge void her death has created — not someone who will try to mimic her, but rather someone who will bring their own creativity and spirit into the culturally intriguing mix embodied in this truly noble work.
The requirements for the person or persons who would fill the void are few aside from a good and caring heart. If you are willing to work with Australians Against Executions, or simply to befriend a death row prisoner in the United States, please write to me directly at the address at the end of this column, or to Australians Against Executions.
The organisation needs members and the individual prisoner needs a friendly correspondent. If you are one or both of these wonderful people, I urge you to write immediately. If you do not feel you are the appropriate person, perhaps you know of someone who is; if so, please urge them to make contact.
While this organisation has Stephanie's mark on it — and will as long as there is a death penalty in the USA — there is plenty of room for your mark too. Will you make it?
[The writer is a prisoner in the United States. He welcomes letters commenting on his columns. He can be written to at: Brandon Astor Jones, Georgia State Prison, HCO1, Reidsville, GA 30453, USA. For the first time in 17 years, Brandon has the real hope of his sentence of death being mitigated. If you can help by contributing to his defence fund or in other ways, please contact Australians Against Executions, PO Box 640, Milson's Point NSW 2061. Phone (02) 9955 1731, fax 9427 9489. Cheques can be made payable to "Brandon Astor Jones Defence Fund".]