Annual Conference

Known as the “Grandmother of Juneteenth,” Ms. Opal Lee was present on June 17, 2021, when President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, which established June 19 or “Juneteenth” as a federal holiday.

Opal Lee was born in Marshal, Texas, in 1926 and moved to Fort Worth, Texas, in 1937. At the age of 12, her family’s home was destroyed on June 19, 1939, but she nor her family allowed that to deter them from making an impact in the community. She has served on many boards and with many organizations, including Citizens Concerned with Human Dignity (CCHD), Habitat for Humanity, and the Tarrant County Black Historical & Genealogical Society dedicated to preserving the history of the Fort Worth Black populace. During her tenure as Chairman of the Community Food Bank, the organization received the 1.3-million-dollar 33,000 sq. ft. facility that now serves 500 families a day. 

Ms. Lee is the oldest living board member of the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation, a national movement started by the late Dr. Ronald Myers to have Juneteenth declared a National Holiday. At 90 years of age, she started her walking campaign from Fort Worth to Washington, DC, to bring awareness to the need for celebrating Juneteenth nationally. She walked 2.5 miles in cities all across the country to represent the 2.5 years it took after Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation for enforcement to reach Texas to free the enslaved. In 2019, she launched an online petition campaign that garnered over 1.6 million signatures to continue the crusade for holiday observance. 

Ms. Opal currently serves on the board of Unity Unlimited, Inc. and Transform 1012 N. Main Street and is a Board Member and Honorary Chair of the National Juneteenth Museum. She has received seven honorary doctorates, was named 2021 Texan of the Year by the Dallas Morning News editorial board, the 2021 Unsung Hero of the Pandemic, Fort Worth Inc.’s 2022 Person of the Year, is a Nobel Peace Prize nominee and, most recently, became the second African American to have her portrait hung in the Texas State Senate.

Tom Mooney has spent his life in public service, as a combat veteran of the Vietnam War and then as a firefighter for 30 years in Tyler, Texas. He currently serves as an Associate Pastor at Southside Chapel and is a member of Bikers for Christ, a motorcycle ministry in which members ride their bikes and participate in events that put them in places where God can use them to minister and evangelize. In that capacity, Tom began visiting the Polunsky Unit and Texas death row in 2022, an experience that changed his life.

Dewey Williams is Pastor of Mt. Bright Missionary Baptist Church in Hillsborough, North Carolina, a doctoral candidate at the Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology at Virginia Union University, and a graduate of Duke Divinity School. In 2017, Dewey’s sermon series, Joy on Death Row, won the top award at Yale Divinity School’s Theology of Joy and the Good Life competition. 

Dewey turned his sermon series into the book, Finding Joy on Death Row, a powerful story of a broken preacher’s transformative experience learning about joy from death row prisoners, combined with dramatic handwritten responses from more than twenty men and women currently sentenced to die. In Finding Joy on Death Row: Unexpected Lessons from Lives We Discarded, Dewey journeys into the hearts and minds of those sentenced to death, illuminating for readers the ways in which the human spirit can suffer—and soar. 

Greg Hansch serves as the Executive Director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Texas. He is a Licensed Masters-Level Social Worker and a family member of a person with serious mental illness. Greg played a key role in the campaign to stop the execution of Andre Thomas, including authoring an opinion piece published in the Dallas Morning News, participating in a press conference with Thomas’s attorney to address the widespread support for clemency from mental health professionals in Texas, and mobilizing NAMI members to sign a petition for Thomas. About a month before the State planned to execute Andre Thomas, the 15th Judicial District Court in Grayson County withdrew the April 5, 2023 execution date to give Thomas’s legal team time to prepare a threshold showing that he is incompetent for execution.

Scott Ruthart is a resident of Fort Worth and a longtime supporter of TCADP. He become involved with the organization after visiting death row while working in former State Representative Lon Burnam’s office in the late 1990’s. Since 2013, he has been a member of the TCADP Lobby Corps, a dedicated group of volunteers who work with TCADP staff and board members to advance our legislative agenda and build relationships with elected officials. In that capacity, Scott visits the State Capitol in Austin regularly to meet with legislative offices and provide information on the death penalty, including the TCADP year-end report. Scott also participates in regular training events and local activities in Fort Worth.

Dr. Jamie Kowlessar is the Founder/Executive Director of Raise Your Voice Academy. As a pastor, he leads in the effort to fight inequality by joining with community and local church leaders to implement strategies that improve the economic, educational, and spiritual conditions in Dallas. Dr. Kowlessar is also the Executive Director of Faith in Texas, a multi-faith nonprofit organization, leading and appointing a diverse band of clergy — Catholics, Muslims, Jews, and Christians — to fight against injustice.

Dr. Kowlesser played an instrumental role in the campaign for clemency for Andre Thomas, a role that also made him very vulnerable and highly visible. His participation in the national press conference and his later op-ed writings furthered our mission to humanize Andre – a black man with severe mental illness. Dr. Kowlesser’s vocal presence in the campaign came with backlash, yet he has persisted for the sake of justice and mercy.