Reverend Jeff Hood is a Southern Baptist preacher and death penalty activist living in Denton, Texas. Hood is a theologian educated at Auburn University, the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. He currently serves on the board of directors of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. At the time of the interview Hood had just completed a two hundred mile pilgrimage between the Polunsky Unit in Livingston, Texas and the Texas State Capitol in Austin. In Tape 1, Rev. Hood describes his evangelical upbringing in Atlanta, Georgia, moving through his education as a theologian and later a preacher. He gives a look into the slow changes that took place during those early years and how he came to death penalty activism after the conviction of Troy Davis for the murder of a police officer in 1989. Hood recounts how he came to adopt a philosophy of love and acceptance, moving from what he describes as “t-shirt activism” to working with the TCADP, corresponding and visiting inmates on death row. He concludes by giving an account of his two-hundred mile walk from Livingston to Austin; giving insight into the sort of people he met along the way; the fear and physical exhaustion he faced; and the journey’s conclusion in front of the Texas State Capitol building. This interview took place on June 20, 2014 at the Texas After Violence Office in Austin, Texas.
Contributor | Contribuidor:
Hood, Jeff (Narrator), Texas After Violence Project (Contributor), Lorins, Rebecca (Interviewer), Lorins, Rebecca (Videographer), Rees, Christian (Transcriber), Lorins, Rebecca (Proofreader), Rees, Christian (Writer of accompanying material), Brown, Marianne (Proofreader), Richard, Hillary (Proofreader), Swindell, Morgan (Proofreader), and Brown, Marianne (Writer of accompanying material)