[Nettime-bold] Nobel Peace Prize nomination

["marisa@mail.concentric.net" <marisa@mail.concentric.net>]

For your consideration...

Many of us are trying to nominate Stanley "Tookie" Williams for a Nobel Peace Prize.

You may know of Mr. Williams as the man who co-founded the Crips street gang in Los Angeles, in the early 1970s.  He has been on death row for over 20 years. There is considerable evidence that Tookie was framed for the crimes for which he was convicted and his case is currently under appeal. 

During his time in San Quentin, Mr. Williams has undergone a remarkable transformation. He has written a series of books aimed at deterring young people from joining gangs, and he has launched the Internet Project for Street Peace, which has had an international impact, including in Switzerland and South Africa. As a result of his work, he was last year nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by a member of the Swiss Parliament. 

There is now an effort to re-nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize, this year (along with the non-profit agency which works closely with him). Below is a draft of a letter to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, in Oslo, which contains further details about Mr. Williams's accomplishments. If you would be willing to add your name to this letter, please send your name, title, affiliation, and country of residence to nancyz2@mindspring.com.

Obviously we have no expectation that Tookie will actually be awarded the Peace Prize, but the publicity from simply being nominated is of considerable value. As Tookie's case reaches a critical stage, this publicity might play a role in not only raising awareness for his work, but also in saving his life.

The nomination has to be submitted in one week's time, so please respond as soon as possible if you would be willing to add your name to the nominating letter.

Dear Distinguished Members of the Nobel Committee: 

I am pleased to nominate Stanley "Tookie" Williams for a 2002 Nobel Peace 
Prize, based on his exceptional international work to end youth gang violence and crime.  I am also nominating the Neighborhood House of North Richmond, a nonprofit social services agency, for a 2002 Nobel Peace Prize for that organization's support and implementation of Mr. Williams's work.  

Mr. Williams, a 48-year-old prisoner on San Quentin State Prison's death row, is an award-winning author of nine children's books and a reformed street gang leader from South Central Los Angeles.  Nearly 32 years ago, he co-founded the notorious Crips youth gang.  In the spring of 1979 he was arrested and charged with killing four people during two robberies. Despite the fact that he has always maintained his innocence, he was found guilty of those crimes in 1981, and was sent to San Quentin State Prison's Condemned Row to await execution.  In 1988 he was placed in solitary confinement after he was stabbed in the back of the head.  He spent 6  years in "The Hole" (solitary confinement) but during that period began to educate and rehabilitate himself. This ultimately led to his work to steer young people from joining gangs, from following in his footsteps. 

Neighborhood House of North Richmond (NHNR) is a grassroots agency that has 
been providing valuable services to northern California residents since the 
agency was founded nearly 48 years ago.  Some of those services include youth conflict mediation and gang prevention/intervention instruction, substance abuse treatment for adults, HIV/AIDS education and prevention, free hot lunches each day for low-income elderly men and women, and for HIV/AIDS patients in need of nourishment. NHCR's Board of Directors and Executive Director have displayed great courage in fighting to obtain community, governmental and political support - as well as funding - in order to implement Mr. Williams's exemplary work. 

Mr. Williams's most recent book, Life in Prison, co-authored by Barbara 
Cottman Becnel, provides a unique educational and credible voice for readers 
in schools, libraries and prisons throughout the United States and elsewhere, including Cape Town's Pollsmoor Prison in South Africa.  The book 
de-romanticizes prison life for those young men who consider a stint in prison essential to proof of their manhood.  Mr. Williams details how dehumanizing it is to be incarcerated and discourages youth from committing criminal acts that could lead to their imprisonment.  Life in Prison has received two national book honors, including one from the American Library Association.  Mr. Williams also wrote, in 1996, Tookie Speaks Out Against Gang Violence (an eight-book series) for students from 5 to 10 years old. 

In addition to the contributions already mentioned, Mr. Williams has conceived from his San Quentin cell a comprehensive international youth violence prevention program called the Internet Project for Street Peace (IPSP) to support the world's youth in rejecting, as a way of life, gangs, violence, drugs and imprisonment. The curriculum for the IPSP is based on his book, Life in Prison.  The program is headquartered at NHCR.  Ms. Becnel - Mr. Williams's co-author - is the Executive Director of NHNR. 

Mr. Williams also continues to develop content for his own educational website that serves youth at www.tookie.com.  At least 250,000 youth, parents, teachers, librarians, law enforcement officials, gang members and others have visited Mr. Williams's site, and more than 25,000 people have sent emails expressing appreciation for Mr. Williams's work.  The great majority of the youth who have emailed him have expressed how life-changing his work has been; many say they have opted not to join gangs or have withdrawn from gang membership as a result of reading his books. 

In addition, Mr. Williams and Ms. Becnel are working with the National Urban 
Technology Center, headquartered in New York City, to develop an online 
violence prevention/youth leadership development animation project, using Mr. Williams's image and message of street peace to education youth through an interactive Internet-based curriculum. 

Mr. Williams and NHNR are acting to reduce the level of youth street violence in communities around the world, to promote peace and security in 
neighborhoods and townships that routinely struggle with poverty, unemployment and grassroots anarchy.  

In the wake of events since September 11 of last year, this is a perfect 
moment to recognize the global reach that a single extraordinary person 
aligned with a local nonprofit agency can have.  From a small northern 
California community, in a suburb of San Francisco, Mr. Williams and the 
Neighborhood House of North Richmond have laid the foundation for a worldwide movement to develop a core of youth leadership which eschews gang violence, crime and community destruction. 

I nominate Mr. Williams for a Nobel Peace Prize because of his courage in 
sharing his experience with young people throughout the world so that they can learn from his mistakes. I also nominate him because I respect him for his willingness to be public with his stand against gangs and for peace, though he must cope, daily, with a violent prison environment where gang members and unfriendly prison officials surround him, many of whom do not support his message or his work.  Moreover, I admire Mr. Williams because of his ability to do this remarkable work for youth, despite the fact that he is, in prison jargon, a "dead man walking," and must therefore deal with his mortality every second of his life.  Mr. Williams is nearing the end of his appeals process (he has two to three years left of his legal battle). This means that if he does not receive a favorable ruling, he will be executed by the State of California. 

I nominate the Neighborhood House of North Richmond for its willingness to 
make a bold step in working with Mr. Williams, a death row inmate, to best 
serve the most at-risk youth of the world's low-income communities.  

Thank you very much for this opportunity to nominate a man and an 
organization, both of whom are extraordinary, for the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize.  















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