Stanley Williams
FameRank: 6

"Stanley Tookie Williams III" was a leader of the Crips, a violent United States/American street gang which has its roots in South Central Los Angeles in 1969. Once incarcerated, he authored several books, including anti-gang and anti-violence literature and children's books.

On December 13, 2005, Williams was executed by lethal injection after pardon/clemency and a four-week stay of execution were both rejected by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, amid debate over the Capital punishment/death penalty. Williams was the second inmate in California to be executed in 2005.

More Stanley Williams on Wikipedia.

The only thing that I was doing was destroying my own kind.

Prison is a place where grown men have gone insane. It is a place where men have been killed and where some have even killed themselves. Prison is hell. This I know, ... Life in Prison.

For me, August Wilson is the person who made it appear that I had a place in the American theater. For the first time, I felt I actually saw characters that I knew, that spoke my language and had my stories and could express them in the riffs of blues and jazz.

The Stanley Williams case is about a man who has done what I think is the most important thing a man can do in this country, and that is reach out to the youth of this country with books, with tapes ...,

In prison, violence is like an active volcano -- it can erupt at any time. Violence can come from someone you hardly know, or even from someone who is very close to you. You can have a friend today, and tomorrow he can become your No. 1 enemy. It's crazy in here, ... Life in Prison.

I look at his work and I not only see my stories, but it becomes clear to me that these are stories of the human experience, regardless of ethnicity. It makes the stage so much bigger for me. I think his plays will resonate across time.

They would try at every turn to discredit me, but I was game.

If it's my time to be executed, what's all the ranting and raving going to do?