In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

xi Acknowledgments and Permissions My dad put The Autobiography of Malcolm X into my hands at an early age and taught me, by example, to distrust the barbed wire, not the people inside . My mom always encouraged me to write, to think, to love. My first thanks to my parents, Bill and Mary Ryan, for whom justice is a matter of everyday struggle. To Renaldo Hudson and William X for sharing their lives and letters with me. They should be free. It has been a great pleasure to work with the contributors to this book. I owe special thanks to Bruce Franklin for his guidance and scholarly example . To Anthony Ross and Steve Champion, who trusted their words to a stranger.To Jason Stupp, who sent me a copy of Willie Francis’s “My Trip to the Chair”—and this collection found its opening. To Delbert Tibbs, who visited West Virginia University in 2004 and shared with students his experience on death row. I watched his words and spirit change minds. Karen Cardozo understood this project before I did and provided generous feedback on the introduction. Paul Wright offered detailed advice and extensive knowledge from his work at Prison Legal News. At every step I relied on Tony Christini for perspective and clearheadedness. For countless conversations over the years, I am joyfully in debt to Molly Ryan,Catherine John, and Jen Pepi. Many thanks to my friends at the Appalachian Prison Book Project and my wonderful colleagues in the English Department at West Virginia University, especially John Ernest, Mark Brazaitis , Cari Carpenter, and Gwen Bergner. I gratefully acknowledge support from the West Virginia University Eberly College of Arts and Sciences as well as research fellowships from theTanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah and the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas–Austin. In Utah, I had the good fortune of canyon walks with Melanie Rae Thon. Joe Parsons at the University of Iowa Press responded with enthusiasm to this manuscript, and I will always be thankful to him. For his patience and good humor—invaluable traits in a copyeditor—praise and thanks to Jonathan Haas. The same to Charlotte Wright. When my son Vincent saw a photograph of people carrying signs of an xii acknowledgments and permissions electric chair with a line through it, he asked me, “Why are those people against chairs?” I hesitated and stammered and interrupted myself to say, “You are only six. I don’t want to dump all the meanness of the world on you.” Vincent responded, “I want to know everything.” Here’s to you, Vincent. To justice, to peace. Some of the material in this collection has appeared in print previously. Steve Champion’s essay is drawn from a chapter in his memoir, Dead to Deliverance (2010), reprinted by permission of Split Oak Press. An earlier version of H. Bruce Franklin’s essay was published as “Billy Budd and Capital Punishment: A Tale of Three Centuries” in American Literature 69 (June 1997): 337–59. Jill McDonough’s poems are reprinted from Habeas Corpus (2008), by permission of Salt Publishing. A different form of John Barton’s essay was published as “Liberty Ltd.: Civil Rights,Civil Liberties, and Literature,” in REAL 22 (Yearbook of Research in English and American Literature), ed. Brook Thomas, 2006: 145–78. “Capital Punishment” is reprinted from The Summer of Black Widows (1996) by Sherman Alexie, by permission of Hanging Loose Press. David Kieran’s essay substantiallyexpands “Remembering Lynching and Representing Contemporary Violence in Black Arts Poetry” in M/MLA: Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association 41.1 (Spring 2008): 34–45. A longer version of Katy Ryan’s essay, under the same title, appeared in American Literature 83.1 (March 2011): 121–51. Delbert L. Tibbs’s poems appeared in Selected Poems and Other Words/Works (self-published). ...

Share