Alonzo Tucker:
True Justice
On May 28, 2022, Taylor Stewart brought Alonzo Tucker’s story to TEDx Portland and invited the audience to join this campaign to end the death penalty in Oregon with the question, “How do you reconcile a lynching?”
Only Oregon voters have the power to ultimately end the death penalty in Oregon. Thus, it is on each of us who believe in the ideals of truth, justice, and reconciliation to make sure our voice is heard. ORP is committed to getting an initiative before Oregon voters to abolish the death penalty in Oregon in the upcoming election years.

Lynching never ended, it simply evolved.
Lynching simply moved indoors where all-white juries and expedited trials carried out the same verdict as the lynch mob. Lynching and the death penalty are inextricably linked because at the same time lynchings in the United States started to go down, state sanctioned executions started to go up.
Alonzo Tucker’s story needs one last chapter–an end to lynching in Oregon. By using his story and this idea of historical repair to end the death penalty in Oregon, we can bring Alonzo Tucker’s memory a semblance of redemptive justice–the kind of justice that redeems our pain, our wrongdoing, and our stories.
We have been too busy asking ourselves the question, “Does this person deserve to die for their crimes?” that we haven’t first asked ourselves the question, “Do we deserve to kill?”
Discover More
Read our articles to learn about Alonzo Tucker.