|
Sally Peck
Livonia, Michigan
- Journey Participant: Indiana, Georgia, California, Virginia, Missouri, Texas, Ohio, Tennessee, and European Events
- Helped organize a limited journey in Michigan, March 14-21, 1999
|
|
|
|
Printer-Friendly Page
|
|
Sally Peck is a former teacher, an advocate for the mentally ill, and a
peace activist in her home state of Michigan. Sally's elderly mother was
brutally killed in her Detroit home by a mentally ill 20-year-old brother of
her newspaper carrier. From her mother's living of her Christian faith,
Sally knew she was not to judge what had brought the young man to commit
such horror.
Sally is a mother of eight children and one of her sons is
mentally ill, and she is the grandmother of 11. Through prayer, vigil and
even divine obedience (civil disobedience and arrests,) Sally has worked
tirelessly to maintain Michigan's historic ban of the death penalty. She
has brought other family members, death row family members and the
wrongfully convicted survivors of death row to her state to address public
forums speaking against the death penalty.
One of Sally's goals is to
create some good out of the evil of her mother's killing.
Reprinted with permission from "Not In Our Name: Murder Victims Families Speak Out Against the Death Penalty," a publication of Murder Victims Families For Reconciliation, Barbara Hood & Rachel King, Editors. MVFR
Links to Sally’s Journey:
Sally Peck Quotes:
"To want to kill my mother's killer would desecrate the beauty of her gentle
life and violate her examples of forgiveness. She deserves a more fitting
memorial than vengeance done in her name. I don't want to cause her
killer's family to suffer what we did. I want an end to all violence."
“Where the death penalty is an option, the victim's family is apt to be drawn into the spirit of vengeance with the promise that an execution will give them 'justice'. This prolongs their grief and pain through the years of court proceedings. We are grateful that Michigan does not have the death penalty, and did not give us a sentence of prolonged grief or hold out a false promise that an execution would make it all better. Holding on to hate and vengeance will not help us heal.
|
|
