8/16: Stanley Tookie Williams Legacy Summit in San Pablo

An Invitation from Barbara Becnel

Today you have an opportunity to join with me in furthering the extraordinary legacy that my friend Stanley Tookie Williams, children’s book author and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, set in motion before he was killed by the State of California on December 13, 2005.

First, I invite you to join our STW Legacy Network, which will include many thousands of people from around the world, people who care about the life, work and legacy of Stanley Tookie Williams and have been asking me for a way to continue to honor his redemption by supporting his legacy.

Becoming a member of the STW Legacy Network requires only a $25.00 annual membership donation, tax-deductible (you can contribute more, if you wish). All STW Legacy funds will be dedicated to the pursuit and attainment of the goals that Stan envisioned for his work. The STW Legacy Network website—STWLegacy.net—offers more information about the goals that Stan set for us, for his work, for the culture of young men and women whom he wanted to deflect from the path he took as a young man.

The first 50 people who join the STW Legacy Network at the $100 Legacymaker level or higher will receive a SaveTookie.org tee-shirt. Many of the thousands of people who fought for Stan to receive clemency wore this shirt to display their opposition to his execution. This shirt is now a collector’s item. No more will be manufactured.

Also, I invite you to attend the First Annual Stanley Tookie Williams Legacy Summit on August 16, 2007, at northern California's Contra Costa College in the City of San Pablo (1:30 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.). This year’s topic: creating street peace and criminal justice reform. Dr. Maki Mandela, one of Nelson Mandela’s daughters, will be traveling from Johannesburg, South Africa, to be a keynote speaker at this inaugural event! (Go to http://www.stwlegacy.net/events.html for the site address and more details about the Summit .)

Five years from now, ten years, even twenty years from now, historians will not be able to report that we did nothing as a result of Stan's execution. Instead, they will write that our continued support allowed the legacy of Stanley Tookie Williams to move forward, uninterrupted by his death.

I look forward to working with all of you in the future and meeting each of you at the first of many Stanley Tookie Williams-inspired events.

Amani (Swahili for peace),



Barbara Becnel, Executor

Estate of Stanley Tookie Williams