Alabama’s Death Row Archive: Amplifying Marginalized Voices

Presenter Information

Jennifer Pate, University of North AlabamaFollow
Katie Owens-Murphy PhD, University of North AlabamaFollow

Presentation Type

Presentation

Location

Zoom.

Start Date

24-10-2023 1:00 PM

End Date

24-10-2023 1:45 PM

Description

In 2019 Collier Library hosted an exhibit, Ghosts Over the Boiler, as part of the University of North Alabama’s common read program. This exhibit, developed by English professor Dr. Katie Owens-Murphy and curated by librarian Jennifer Pate, led to the development of both a physical Alabama Death Row Archive and a digital archive housed in the library’s institutional repository, the Repository of Open Access Research (RoOAR). This archive aims to preserve and amplify the work of Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty (PHADP), the nation’s only 501(c)(3) organization founded and run by people on death row. The archive has grown to include creative writing manuscripts, eyewitness execution accounts, and interviews with those directly impacted by capital punishment. A significant portion of the work in this archive is created by the members of PHADP, much of which was previously published in their newsletter, On Wings of Hope. In this session, we will discuss the action research embedded in preservation and digitization efforts to counter official state narratives about the death penalty as well as our ongoing efforts to partner with larger platforms to extend the collection’s reach.

Author Bios

Jennifer Pate is an Associate Professor, Open Education Resources & Scholarly Communications Librarian at the University of North Alabama where she co-leads the campus OER initiative, which provides funding for faculty to find, assess, and develop OER for use in their courses. She also manages UNA’s Institutional Repository, the RoOAR, which includes the Alabama Death Penalty archive materials.

Katie Owens-Murphy is an Associate Professor of English and graduate coordinator of the MA English program at the University of North Alabama. She also serves as PI for the Restorative Justice Lab and as the state coordinator for the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program. Her most recent book with Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty, Ghosts Over the Boiler: Voices from Alabama's Death Row, was published by Vanderbilt UP in 2023.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.