Sister Helen Prejean, whose book about her experience with a death-row inmate became the acclaimed film "Dead Man Walking," will speak Tuesday, March 1, at Bluffton University and at First Mennonite Church, 101 S. Jackson St., Bluffton.
Prejean, an opponent of the death penalty and advocate for restorative justice, will deliver the university's annual Smucker Lecture, "Dead Man Walking-The Journey Continues," in a Bluffton Forum at 11 a.m. in Founders Hall. She will then speak at the church at 7 p.m. Both presentations are free and open to the public.
Prejean is a member of the Congregation of St. Joseph. In the mid-1980s, after moving into the St. Thomas Housing Project in New Orleans, she was asked to correspond with death-row inmate Patrick Sonnier.
She became his spiritual advisor and, after witnessing his execution, wrote "Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States." The book was adapted not only into the 1995 film starring Academy Award-winner Susan Sarandon as Prejean, but also into an opera and a play for high schools and colleges.
For more than 25 years, Prejean has divided her time between educating citizens about the death penalty-sparking national dialogue on the issue-and counseling individual death-row prisoners.
Accompanying six men to their deaths, she began to suspect that some were not guilty. That realization inspired her 2004 book, "The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions."
She is currently working on another book, "River of Fire: My Spiritual Journey," and has facilitated formation of the Catholic Mobilizing Network. That group is dedicated to developing communication, education and action on all levels regarding the death penalty, victims' families and restorative justice.
Bluffton's Smucker Lecture Series brings significant contributors to the field of social work to speak on campus. It is named for Carl Smucker, who taught social work at Bluffton for 34 years beginning in 1944.
