A Message from Kevin Cooper in Memory of Reverend Jesse Jackson

I’m Kevin Cooper and I am still on Death Row in the state of California in 2026.

In 2004, on February 10th, at one minute after midnight, California was planning to torture and murder me via poisonous lethal injection drugs. However, at 11:00 A.M. on February 9th, the late Reverend Jesse Jackson came to San Quentin prison with one of my attorneys and brought me the stay of execution paper work from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. But it wasn’t over because the U.S. Supreme Court could still overturn the stay.

From 11:00 A.M. until 6:00 P.M. Reverend Jackson stayed with me and other visitors in the visiting room. He did everything he could to take my mind off of the fact that I still could be executed if the Supreme Court lifted the stay of execution. He told jokes and made me laugh. He prayed with me and for me. He told me about the struggles we Black people have in the criminal justice system and that the death penalty was no more than a modern-day lynching. He told me that we had to have faith that one day we would put an end to the death penalty and I believed him. I believe that still.

At six o’clock I was taken to the death chamber, but I was not executed. The stay held.

I thanked him then and I thank him now for his kindness and his humanity and for caring for everyday people like me.