ESSAYS

View from Death Row: The Disproportionate Blues

June 24, 2020

We African Americans have often been told that times have changed. We are tired of pretending.

Those Eyes

June 10, 2020

In the history of racist violence against Blacks, something remained the same in those oppressors, across time and place.

Why California Needs an Innocence Commission

May 17, 2020

To a large degree, DNA testing has proven that this criminal justice system is not as just as it claims to be. Throughout the history of this country, black people know this truth from experience.

Life on Lockdown

May 9, 2020

The coronavirus pandemic that has spread across this world has made the experience of having to live on lockdown against one’s will a reality for all people who certainly never expected this.

Experiencing COVID-19 on Death Row

April 25, 2020

A letter from Kevin Cooper to Death Penalty Focus.

Thank You, Gavin Newsom, From a Death Row Inmate

March 25, 2020

Real Justice – Not Cowboy Justice – For Rodney Reed

December 14, 2019

By Kevin Cooper in 2015 Still Relevant today (December 2019) (Original recording can be found here: https://www.prisonradio.org/media/audio/kevin-cooper/real-justice-not-cowboy-justice-rodney-reed-255-kevin-cooper) Mr. Rodney Reed who is an innocent African American man on death row in the state of Texas is in the fight of his life, for his life. He and his family are doing […]

A Key Reparation to Descendants of Slaves Wouldn’t Cost a Dime

October 23, 2019

This article was originally published on https://www.truthdig.com/articles/a-key-reparation-to-descendants-of-slaves-wouldnt-cost-a-dime/ Ending the death penalty, which is disproportionately imposed on African Americans, would be a good first step toward righting some of this nation’s wrongs.   On Oct. 10—World Day Against the Death Penalty—opponents around the globe gathered to call attention to the conditions […]

America Can’t Wipe Itself Clean of Blackface

February 28, 2019

This essay was originally publish on https://www.truthdig.com/articles/america-cant-wipe-itself-clean-of-blackface/ Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam offers a painful reminder that certain white people in this country just don’t get it, and likely never will. On March 14, 1968, The Rev. Martin Luther King gave a speech in South Grosse Pointe, Mich., in which he […]

Who Is Kevin Cooper?

January 21, 2019

This essay was originally published on https://www.truthdig.com/articles/who-is-kevin-cooper/ After being defined by so many others in unrecognizable terms, it’s time to set the record straight. Editor’s note: Kevin Cooper was convicted of a 1983 quadruple murder and sentenced to death in a trial in which evidence that might have exonerated him […]