racism of past, end death penalty
It wasn’t just the South. Ohio held at least 15 lynchings, as documented by the Equal Justice Initiative (or EJI), between 1877 and 1950.
As a white woman with German roots, I am appalled that the (mostly white) leaders of our state and country have yet to acknowledge, admit and be appalled at this ugly history. It is time to reckon with our painful past. As EJI states “in order to overcome racial inequality, we must confront our history.”
Across the pond, Germany has eliminated the death sentence from their country’s options for how to treat a person who commits a crime. German leaders know that their past of systemically executing a people group through the Holocaust is a horrific stain on their legacy.