Stanley 'Tookie' Williams: the last man to be executed in California
The once-feared leader of the Crips, put to death in 2005, had a warning for UK gangs. Tony Thompson met him in prison
Tony Thompson
Wed 13 Mar 2019 14.37 EDT First published on Wed 13 Mar 2019 14.37 EDT
Stanley “Tookie” Williams is not typical of the 629 death row inmates at San Quentin prison in San Francisco. Convicted of four murders and the self-confessed cofounder of the Crips, the world’s deadliest street gang, he has become a successful children’s author whose conversations are sprinkled with Latin phrases and references to ancient Greek mathematicians. He has been nominated for the Nobel peace prize four times for his anti-gang initiatives, which he is now extending to Britain.
His biography, Redemption, published in the UK last week, features a “Protocol for Peace”, which gangs can use to help formulate a truce.
“Within the prison system rival gangs have agreed to make peace for the purpose of survival. That simple philosophy can be transmitted to rival gangs out on the streets,” Williams explains. “Instead of our killing each other, that energy can be harnessed to oppose poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, discrimination and other social and judiciary injustices. The protocol is intended to be simple and straightforward. You don’t need to understand Euclidean geometry to work it out. It’s all there in black and white to stop the killing, to address the social emergency of urban violence, to stop the madness.”
The protocol achieved its first success in June, when hundreds of members of two street gangs in New Jersey used it to bring calm to their community. In the four months before the treaty was signed, there had been 34 gang-related murders. The peace has held ever since.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/nov/28/biography.tonythompson
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