What Happened and How Can We Make Things Right

Earlier this year, Friends School welcomed evangelical activist Sam Heath to campus. A friend of Latin teacher Stella Bowman, Heath spoke at Collection and with a small group of students in the Controversy in Dialogue club. A former history teacher and longtime advocate for restorative justice, he spoke about his work seeking to abolish the death penalty and challenging systems of harm rooted in fear.

Now working with the Equal Justice USA evangelical network (EJUSA), Heath draws on his personal experiences, his Christian faith, and the stories of incarcerated people to call for a justice system focused on healing rather than punishment. In his Collection talk at Friends, Heath spoke about the injustices of the death penalty, and the importance of restorative justice to minimize violence in the US. After his talk, we sat down to continue the conversation.