Kenneth Reams (United States)
resistance
reading
Not everybody believed in the way in which Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr resisted through non-violence. Yet, history shows that their means of embodying this philosophy to stand against injustices and animate a change of society can light the spark that will trigger a revolution. Think about it.
At the age of 18, Kenneth Reams, an African American man, was sentenced to death as an accomplice in a botched robbery that resulted in the death of a white man named Gary Turner.
He became the youngest inmate on death row in Arkansas (US). This case perfectly symbolizes the injustices that the death penalty produces in the North American justice system. During his trial, Kenneth Reams was defended by a trainee attorney who did not investigate his case, did not call any experts to support his cause and did not question the prosecutor’s accusations against the young black man. Furthermore, during the trial, this attorney did not ask Alford, the acknowledged and condemned murderer, to testify on his behalf. The prosecutor, a racist, refused to include black individuals in the jury and hid from defense evidence that would have allowed criticism of the prosecution’s case.