Nov. 8: Man who came within hours of execution on Georgia's death row to speak at Berry

Media release:  Is the U.S. system of mass incarceration the most racist institution in American life? Is this system, as Michelle Alexander has argued in a new book (The New Jim Crow) simply Jim Crow wearing new clothes? One of every 10 black males in the United States ages 25 to 29 is in prison, the largest and most expensive prison system in the world, and 50% of all black males without a high school degree will go to prison at some point in their lives.

The Rev. William Neal Moore, a survivor of Georgia's death row, will discuss his experience in the U.S. penal system and will guide the audience in a discussion about race in America in 2012, and about the movement away from reform and rehabilitation and toward the warehousing of inmates on the margins of American consciousness.

 

Moore will speak to the Berry Community on Thursday, Nov. 8, at 7 p.m. in Berry's Science Auditorium.

 

In addition, via Skype Moore will be reunited with his death penalty case attorney, Jack Boger, Dean of the University of North Carolina School of Law and a long-time leader in civil rights litigation, on what will be the 21st anniversary of Mr. Moore's release from Georgia state prison.

 

Moore's visit to Berry precedes by three days the national release of a new movie starring Moore called "Execution: Right or Wrong? You Decide." He will attend premieres in eight cities beginning three days after his talk on the Berry campus. Theater audiences will be invited to enter the witness room and sit front and center for the final days of a man's life on death row and ultimately his execution in the electric chair. 

 

The movie is intended to "make a great impact in the ongoing debate over the death penalty in America by allowing the audience a more immediate understanding of what an execution actually entails," said Steven Scaffidi of Ghost Rider Pictures, who directed and produced the film.

 

Moore, who plays the condemned man in the film, spent 16 years on death row and is the only self-confessed murderer to be released from death row. He is an unconditionally free man due in part to the forgiveness of the victim's family and the intervention of Mother Theresa.

 

Moore is author of the book, "I Shall Not Die", which recounts his days on death watch with only 72 hours to live.