She’s been known to captivate audiences — and change their minds — with her southern charm.
The award-winning author of the book “Dead Man Walking,” which was adapted into a 1995 movie starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn, Sister Helen Prejean has been known to bring people’s guard down. Now the woman who has been nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize and a Pulitzer Prize brings her message about repealing the death penalty in Oregon to the McDonald Theatre on Saturday.
Sponsored by the Life for a Life Campaign, Prejean’s speech will detail her experiences with death-row inmates, including Matthew Poncelet, and speak to Eugene residents about repealing Oregon’s death penalty.
Life for a Life began work against the death penalty in 2000, campaign manager Angela Harris said. Prejean, who is a nun in the Sisters of St. Joseph of Medaille convent, has worked with the group since the beginning.
Her journey began when she was asked to correspond with a death row inmate at a time when she had had no experience with death row or the prison system. Prejean developed a pen-pal relationship with Poncelet and eventually went to visit him through the last days of his life.
“She didn’t believe he was innocent,” said Pam Donegan, a Life for a Life volunteer in Eugene. “Her book chronicles her conflicting emotions; eventually, she helped him accept responsibility for what he did and helped him prepare for death.”
Prejean has been an advocate of abolishing the death penalty ever since.
“I have no doubt that we will one day abolish the death penalty in America,” Prejean said in a statement. “One day all the instruments of death — electric chairs, gas chambers ad lethal-injection needles — will be housed in museums. Let’s begin in Oregon.”
She has also worked with Murder Victim’s Families for Reconciliation, trying to help victim’s families not seek retaliation through the death penalty.
Barbara Nicholls, another Eugene volunteer with Life for a Life, said Prejean changed the mind of Jim Rice, a local Democrat who was once an active advocate of the death penalty.
“After talking to Prejean, he changed his stance,” Nicholls said.
“She’s not what one would typically expect from a nun,” Donegan said.
She will speak at the McDonald Theatre beginning at 7:30 p.m. shortly after a fund-raising dinner. A $5 donation for the speech is suggested.
Lindsay Buchele is the community editor for the Oregon Daily Emerald. She can be reached at [email protected].