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Sojourners for Abolition and Reconciliation make 300-mile trek to protest death penalty

Staff reports

A group of death penalty opponents began a 300-mile pilgrimage in Raleigh Sunday, June 14, calling for an end to the death penalty and promoting compassion for murder victims’ families and support for the families of those on death row.

Sojourners for Abolition and Reconciliation trekked through Garner and Clayton early last week in an effort to draw attention to the death penalty. BARRY E. MOORE, GCNT

Sojourners for Abolition and Reconciliation began walking at Central Prison in Raleigh and followed a route through eastern North Carolina before returning to Raleigh Tuesday, June 30 to lobby at the N.C. General Assembly. The group passed through the area Tuesday as they walked along Hwy 70.

Other stops included Zebulon, Wilson, Rocky Mount, Tarboro, Bethel, Robersonville, Williamston, Greenville, Winterville, Ayden, Kinston, New Bern, Emerald Isle, Jacksonville, Swansboro and Goldsboro.

In its first pilgrimage one year ago, the group walked a 300-mile route from Raleigh to Washington, D.C.

“We walk to remember murder victims, people on death row, the executed, the exonerated and the families of all these persons, and we walk to call for an end to the death penalty,” said pilgrimage organizer Scott Bass. The pilgrimage remembers those wrongfully convicted of murder as well as people who commit violent acts.

“Our faith calls on us to remember that we are all children of God, even those among us who have caused the greatest harm,” Bass said. “It’s about remembering that there is no right way to do the wrong thing, and executing human beings is wrong, an unnecessary evil that does not make us safer and cannot deliver on its false promise of helping murder victim families heal.”

SOFAR organizers want to create conversation about the death penalty issue and call attention to the needs of murder victims’ families and all people whose lives are affected by violence.

“The families of murder victims need more than tough talk and lip service,” Bass said. “They need responses that help them heal and adjust to lives without their loved ones who were taken so tragically.  The families of people accused of murder have actually quite similar needs.  And all of us benefit from turning more of our resources to crime prevention and away from broken systems that don’t work, like the death penalty.”

The group is deeply rooted in Christianity.

“We believe support for the death penalty is as inconsistent with Christianity as were earlier, widely accepted institutions like slavery,” Bass said.

The pilgrimage was sponsored by Nazareth House and cosponsored by People of Faith Against the Death Penalty, Capital Restorative Justice Project and Murder Victim Families for Reconciliation and is supported by many other individuals and groups.

For more information about SOFAR, visit abolition-reconciliation.blogspot.com.

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