Moral Monday rallies target Delaware's death penalty
About 20 people stood outside Dover's Legislative Hall on Monday morning, chanting and holding signs that called for an end to the state's death penalty.
Organizers promised to hold more of the rallies, called Moral Monday protests, to try and pressure lawmakers into ending the punishment.
"Lawmakers cannot just reject our desire to repeal the death penalty at the outset of the legislative session and expect us to simply go away," said the Rev. Donald Morton, executive director of the Complexities of Color Coalition. "We intend to be here every week making a lot of noise with old fashioned protests, speeches and rallies to remind the politicians that they can’t keep ignoring these festering issues of basic human rights."
A bill to abolish the state's death penalty failed in the state House of Representatives last month, 23-16. Organizers said they plan to push lawmakers to listen to their constituents.
"This is a growing coalition. More folks are going to come," said Jeremy Collins, a member of Delaware Repeal Project. "There are going to be demonstrations all across the state, but we're going to occupy this space until the Delaware Legislature makes up their mind that they are going to do the right thing."
Kristin Froehlich, board president of the Delaware Citizens Opposed to the Death Penalty, said people should know that the death penalty does not bring the closure that lawmakers think. Because most death penalty cases linger in the court system for more than a decade, Froehlich said families of victims are often re-traumatized when the matter comes up for appeals.
Ending the death penalty brings legal finality and allows survivors to move forward, said Froehlich, whose brother was murdered in Connecticut in 1995.
"My Christian values support life," she said. "They don't support murder. They don't support killing."
While state lawmakers are not in session on Mondays, Morton explained that Moral Monday is a movement started in 2013 by the Rev. William Barber II, pastor of Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, North Carolina, and president of the North Carolina NAACP.
The rallies, started in response to several actions by North Carolina's government, have been characterized by civil disobedience.
"We wanted to make sure that there is a consistent proverbial badgering of individuals who have consistently voted 'No' against repeal," Morton said. "And to let them know that not only is it us symbolically gathering like this, but it is also to let them know that for those that occupy those seats that have voted 'No' continually that we want to make sure that we want candidates that vote 'Yes.' "
Contact Esteban Parra at (302) 324-2299, eparra@delawareonline.com or Twitter @eparra3.