Campaign to End the Death Penalty

The Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP) is a national grassroots organization, founded in 1995, that has approximately 20 chapters in various cities across the United States, including in California, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, New York, Ohio, Texas, and Washington, D.C. Its mission is to build public awareness of and public opposition to the death penalty.

The campaign places an emphasis on organizing a network of grassroots activists, prisoner family members, and former and current death row prisoners. The CEDP's stated goal is to put a human face on the death penalty, by giving voice to those who are directly affected by the death penalty: family members of those on death row and death row prisoners themselves. Family members and exonerated death row prisoners speak at various CEDP local and national CEDP events, and writings of death row prisoners are featured in the organization's bimonthly newsletter, the New Abolitionist. This connection—a relationship between activists on the outside and prisoners on the inside of prison walls—is a signature feature of the CEDP.

The CEDP has been involved in local and national struggles against the death penalty. Some examples are the fight for justice for the Death Row 10, prisoners sent to death row based on confessions tortured from them by Chicago police; the fight to save Maryland death row prisoner Vernon Evans from execution; the fight for California death row prisoner Kevin Cooper, who came within 4 hours of execution; and the national and international effort for Stan Tookie Williams, who was put to death in California in December 2005. In 2004, the organization won a grant from the Ford Foundation, under its Leadership for a Changing World program.

Each fall, the CEDP hosts an annual convention in Chicago, bringing together chapter members with other anti–death penalty activists. During these conventions, the work of the CEDP is critically assessed, and plans are forged for the coming years' work. The organization says that it models itself on the grassroots organizing of the 1960s. CEDP chapters organize public forums; “Live From Death Row” events, during which death row prisoners call in via speaker phone to address live audiences; press conferences, protests, and visits to death row. The organization also maintains a national listserve and a website: http://www.nodeathpenalty.org.