University Of Oregon To Host Death Penalty Opponent Sister Helen Prejean

The University of Oregon’s Prison Education Program will host a talk by Sister Helen Prejean, author of “Dead Man Walking,” on Thursday, May 11, at 7 p.m. in Room 282, Lillis Hall.

A longtime advocate for the poor and disenfranchised, Prejean is an international leader in the movement to abolish the death penalty. For more than 40 years, she has been a voice for people on death row, their families and the families of their victims. At the UO, she will share her insights on the country’s justice system.

Prejean will appear remotely from Oklahoma, where she is meeting with Richard Glossip before his scheduled execution. The event will be hybrid — join in person in Lillis Hall or via Zoom.

Paul Peppis, a professor of English and director of the UO’s Oregon Humanities Center, interviewed Prejean on UO Today last fall.

Prejean is known around the world for her work against the death penalty. She has been instrumental in sparking national dialogue on capital punishment and in shaping the Catholic Church’s vigorous opposition to all executions.

Born on April 21, 1939, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, she joined the Sisters of St. Joseph in 1957. After studies in America and Canada, she spent the following years teaching high school and serving as the religious education director at St. Frances Cabrini Parish in New Orleans and the formation director for her religious community.

In 1982, she moved into the St. Thomas Housing Project in New Orleans to live and work with the poor. While there, Prejean began corresponding with Patrick Sonnier, who had been sentenced to death for the murder of two teenagers. Two years later, when Sonnier was put to death in the electric chair, Prejean was there to witness his execution. In the following months, she became spiritual advisor to another death row inmate, Robert Lee Willie, who was to meet the same fate as Sonnier.

Those experiences inspired her to write a book, “Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States.” The book hit the shelves when national support for the death penalty was above 80 percent and, in Prejean’s native Louisiana, closer to 90 percent. The book ignited a national debate on capital punishment and it inspired an Academy Award-winning movie, a play and an opera. Prejean also embarked on a speaking tour that continues today.