Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ, author of the critically-acclaimed book Dead Man Walking, and Robert Blecker, professor of law at New York Law School, will keynote the 31st annual MAYDAY! Peace Conference at Gustavus Adolphus College on Wednesday, May 4. This year’s conference is titled “Executing Justice: Debating Capital Punishment.”
Sister Helen Prejean’s keynote address will be streamed live online. To watch Prejean speak at 10 a.m., go online to gustavus.edu/video/live.
The schedule for this year’s conference is as follows:
- 9:00 a.m. / Registration / Heritage Room, Jackson Campus Center
- 10 a.m. / Welcoming service and morning keynote address by Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ / Christ Chapel
- 11:30 a.m. / Break, book signing session, MAYDAY! Oratory Contest preliminary round
- 12:15 p.m. / International students panel discussion / Heritage Room, Jackson Campus Center
- 1:30 p.m. / Afternoon keynote address by Robert Blecker / Alumni Hall
- 3 p.m. / MAYDAY! Oratory Contest / Eckman Mall
- 4 p.m. / Closing ceremony and reception
Sister Prejean joined the Sisters of St. Joseph of Medaille in 1957 and later earned a B.A. in English and Education from St. Mary’s Dominican College in New Orleans in 1962 and an M.A. in Religious Education from St. Paul’s University in Ottawa in 1973.
In 1981, Sister Prejean began her prison ministry in New Orleans and soon after developed a relationship with death row prisoners Patrick Sonnier and Robert Lee Willie. Sister Prejean started speaking out against capital punishment and later wrote a book based on her experiences with Sonnier and Willie titled Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States. The book was well received and it was eventually made into a movie, for which Susan Sarandon won an Oscar for Best Actress for her portrayal of Sister Prejean.
Sister Prejan also wrote a second book titled The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions and she continues to be one of the world’s leading authorities and outspoken critics of capital punishment.
Blecker, in his afternoon keynote address, will argue the other side of the debate in his speech titled “The Worst of the Worst of the Worst: How Should They Live & Why Should They Die?”
Before accepting his current post at the New York Law School, Blecker served as Special Assistant Attorney General in New York State’s Anti-Corruption Special Prosecutor’s Office. Based on 13 years of interviewing convicted killers, and hundreds of hours inside maximum security prisons and on death rows, he makes a powerful case for the death penalty as retribution, but only for the “worst of the worst” offenders.
Blecker holds a B.A. from Tufts University and his J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a frequent contributor for the New York Times, PBS, CourTV, CNN, and BBC World News on capital punishment stories.
In addition to the keynote addresses, the MAYDAY! Peace Conference committee will once again host a high school oratory competition. The final round of the competition will take place at 3 p.m. on Eckman Mall (weather permitting) with orators vying for a $750 first prize.
There will also be two public film screenings on the two days prior to the conference. Dead Man Walking will be shown at 7 and 9:30 p.m. Monday, May 2 in room 103 of the F.W. Olin Hall for Physics, Mathematics, and Computer Science. The documentary film Robert Blecker Wants Me Dead will be shown at 7 and 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 3 in Room 103 of Olin Hall. The film features the relationship between Blecker and death row inmate Daryl Holton, who coolly and methodically shot his four children to death in 1997 with an assault rifle in Shelbyville, Tenn. A question and answer session with Blecker will follow the 7 p.m. screening.
The annual MAYDAY! Peace Conference was founded at Gustavus in 1981 by Florence and the late Raymond Sponberg of North Mankato, Minn., and is designed to educate the campus community about issues related to peace, human rights, and social justice. The conference occurs every year on the last Wednesday in April or the first Wednesday in May. Classes at Gustavus are suspended or shortened so that students and faculty may attend the 10 a.m. opening keynote speaker in Christ Chapel.
All events related to the MAYDAY! Peace Conference are free and open to the public. For more information about the conference, contact the Gustavus Office of Marketing and Communication at 507-933-7520 or marketing@gustavus.edu.
Leave a Reply