When I was thirteen, I was living to Reunion Island, to Mont-Vert les Hauts and I was at Emilien Adam De Villiers college.

One day, my english teacher, proposed to us to correspond with an American named James. We were surprised when she told us that he was sentenced to death, but she reassured us talking to us about Justice pour Tous's commitment for James and about his innocence.

 

We were studying segregation so we quickly understood that James was an afro-american man at the wrong place at the wrong moment. The first letters were uncertain: we had never corresponded with French people, so making acquaintance in a foreign language was difficult for the young people that we were.

 

Our teacher took pictures of us to send them to James. We did them with all our heart. I think that doubts disappeared at this moment and we began to build a confident relationship with him through the letters we wrote. We just were young students, so we wrote those in a rough version, our teacher was correcting them and we would then rewrite them clean in order for her to send them to James.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He answered us one by one and a long work of translation began with our teacher's help. This work was extended and hard but our curiosity about James' answers was so strong that we did it with a lot of pleasure. Furthermore, we knew that James had a lot of more important things to do than answer us. In fact, he was busy  studying the laws and teaching the law to other residents of Alabama's death row.

I remembered that we wrote with a writing machine on a very thin paper. So thin that it was almost transparent.

 

For Christmas in 2003, James and one of his friend made black and green key rings with our names engraved on it. Each of us had one which was handmade and that key ring was, for me, the most beautiful present I had ever had. It was the first time someone was giving me such a personal gift and I understood, at this moment, that nothing was better than a handmade gift.

 

 Unfortunately, I just was a child and when I left college I stopped writing to him. I often thought of him but the international correspondence seemed too complicated to keep. So I grew up without having news about James and without giving him news about me. I thought, by the way, that I would never have news anymore. Until the day I read an article on internet about a man supported by “Justice pour tous” who was executed whereas he was innocent. This scared me. I thought that the man was James.

 

 I did some research and noticed that he still was alive and unfortunately, he still was in the death row.  I contacted him again last year and when he replied to me, it was as if we never had stopped talking together. The love and confidence relationship we built when I was at college was still the same. I think I can say that I met my father of heart again. The one who were able to ensure the job of father when my own father was alcoholic and was abandoning his family.

 

He did by letters things that my father were unable to do eventhough we were living in the same house. He comforted, advised, appeased me and it's still the same today. Nonetheless, when I tell him that I will never be able to really forgive him, he stands up for him and reminds me that I only have one father and that even if he was clumsy when I was young, he went to rehab and tried to be a better man.

My father doesn't know James but he owes him a lot.

 

One day, when James' situation seemed too hard for me and I felt disorientated, James promised me that as soon as the truth will be revealed, he'll come to see me. I realized the greatness of his soul and the strength of his mind at this time. This man is on death row and yet, when I send him letters, sometimes I feel as if he was living in a life condition as good as mine. I forget his situation because of his love of life is high.

 

Today, I'm waiting for his freeing with a lot of impatience because I know that when I finally meet him, it will be like seeing my father, without discomfort and totally natural. I have so many hope about the actions led by “Justice pour tous”. It's so important that he finally can turn up his freedom, his right to travel (cause he really like that) and especially, his kids, after 26 years.

 

 

James is supported by the French association Lutte Pour La Justice