Notes from the Storytelling Coach

I’m in Philadelphia, coaching a unique group: eight men who have spent time on death row. Each was convicted of a crime they did not commit and sentenced to death. Each was exonerated and released. Now they devote time to telling their stories around the U.S., helping the campaigns to abolish the death penalty. (Photo: Delbert Tibbs, poet, writer, and death row exoneree)

Kurt Rosenberg is the head of a group called Witness to Innocence. A long-time “abolitionist,” Kurt noticed how anti-death-penalty activists talked about the stories of those wrongfully convicted of capital crimes, but also how the exonerees were seldom given a chance to tell their stories themselves. Witness to Innocence now runs a speaker’s bureau of death row exonerees.

This is my second time working with Witness to Innocence members. Both times, I have been impressed by the courage and conviction of these men, who – after the life-shattering experience of wrongful conviction and incarceration for many years of their lives – have done two difficult and admirable things:

1. Created new lives for themselves; and
2. Devoted themselves to preventing such things from happening to others

I have also been impressed by how fiercely they look out for each other. I joked last time, “Welcome to the world’s only support group for death row exonerees.” They feel a safety and comradery among each other that they hold precious. And they know how abandoned and vulnerable each of them has felt in the past. So they joke and tease each other – but they have each other’s backs.

I wish you could hear all their stories. They are moving and convincing. They are narratives of great injustice from society and its law-enforcement officers, judges, and elected officials. At the same time, they are moving narratives of persistence and intelligence in the face of circumstances that would make many of us “roll over and give up.”

I have had the honor to coach people around the world and in many walks of life. Helping these “ordinary people with extraordinary stories” clarify and hone their stories is, I believe, the greatest honor I have had.