College-Wide Reading Program to Host Conversation on "Life and Freedom after 'Justice'"
(Delaware and Chester Counties, PA • April 2, 2018)—Join Delaware County Community College on Tuesday, April 17 for “Life and Freedom after ‘Justice’: A Conversation between Anthony Ray Hinton and Dr. Sandra Joy of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty.” The event is free and open to the public and will begin at 9:35 a.m. in the Large Auditorium of the Academic Building on the Marple Campus (901 S. Media Line Road, Media, PA).
“Life and Freedom after ‘Justice’” ties into the 2017-18 College-wide reading of attorney Bryan Stevenson’s memoir Just Mercy. Stevenson founded the Equal Justice Initiative, which has helped exonerate more than 150 wrongly condemned death row prisoners. One of those prisoners is Anthony Ray Hinton, who will discuss how he spent 30 years on death row for a crime he did not commit. After receiving assistance from the Equal Justice Initiative, Hinton was eventually exonerated and released from prison in 2015. His story is detailed in the final chapter and postscript of Just Mercy.
Attendees will also hear from Dr. Sandra Joy, Professor of Sociology at Rowan University and a licensed clinical social worker. Dr. Joy is also a community activist, who has been an abolitionist in the anti-death penalty movement and serves on the Board of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty. She is the author of Coalition Building in the Anti-Death Penalty Movement: Privileged Morality, Race Realities (2010) and Grief, Loss, & Treatment for Death Row Families: Forgotten No More (2014).
Hinton and Dr. Joy’s conversation will form the capstone of the College-Wide Reading events, which included lectures and art exhibitions that explored themes found in Just Mercy, including social injustice. The College-Wide Reading Program is intended to provide a common reading that encourages thought, discussion and collaboration at Delaware County Community College. To learn more, visit www.dccc.edu/college-wide-reading.