People of color make up twelve percent of the US population, yet forty-eight percent of the people on Death Row. You and Susan Sarandon recently joined FOR, which, as you know, is made up of people of all religions committed to peace and justice through nonviolence. Nonviolence means you don't kill, you don't practice violence, but it is also a very proactive way of life in which you seek justice because that's the only way you can really have peace. Violence is not just shooting people with guns. Violence occurs when people need open-heart surgery and can't get it, when they can't get health care.
Violence is structural.
So justice means people have what they need to live a decent and full human life, and that is also the meaning of nonviolence for me. They can write a person on Death Row. They can pray for and envision the day when the death penalty will end. They can educate themselves, and read Dead Man Walking . If they live near prisons and Death Row, they can go and visit someone.