The Righteous on Death Row: How a Killer Almost Won the Nobel Prize for Children’s Books

How do we usually imagine a Nobel Prize nominee? Famous writer whose books are published in millions of copies; a doctor who found a cure for an incurable disease; an outstanding economist or politician who conquered poverty or stopped world conflicts… In a word, Stanley Williams, nicknamed Tookey, fits very difficultly into this series of ideal portraits, although he wrote books and won battles – only all of his writings were created behind bars, and battles were fought on the streets of Los Angeles and struck fear among the people of the city. Williams has been nominated nine times for the Nobel Prize: five times for peace, four times for literature. He never received the award, but he became the only candidate to be sentenced to death, on December 5, 2005.

Stanley Williams had a typical dysfunctional childhood: the family lives in poor neighborhoods, first in New Orleans and then in Los Angeles, the father disappears in an unknown direction when the child is six months old, the single mother is all time at work. The boy was on his own and enjoying himself as best he could – vagrancy, drugs, fights, dogfights. At the age of twelve, Stanley started carrying a knife to defend himself against the same hooligans as him, after a few years he became a famous street fighter in his area, then he was arrested for stealing a car and sent at a juvenile correctional facility for a few years. There he found an enviable figure of a bodybuilder and a new dream – to become the leader of the biggest gang in the world, and he managed to realize it quite quickly.

Along with 15-year-old Raymond Washington, with whom he studied at the same school until he was expelled, 17-year-old Williams founded a gang called the Avenues Cribs – the first word was taken from the name of the Central Avenue Zone where they lived, and the second translates to “cabin”. But in the history of American crime, the group, which really became one of the most important in the country, entered under the name of Crips (“lame”). The fact is that one of the attributes of its participants was foppish canes, so elderly Japanese women, who were attacked by teenagers on the street, described them to the police as lame.

When the gang gained such strength that it began to fear not only Los Angeles, small groups of opponents had to unite – this is how the Bloods alliance was born, and the battles of Crips and Bloods in the 70s almost brought the country to the brink of chaos. Many members of both alliances died in this confrontation, and even more went to prison, but Williams miraculously managed to get away with it for several years. More than one charge was brought against him, but all were eventually ruled untenable – Williams was only caught in 1979 for the murder of a store clerk during a robbery, as well as a family Thai. The leader of the Crips went to prison, where he went from criminal to children’s writer, humanist and Nobel Prize nominee.

The jury found Williams guilty on all counts and he was sentenced to death, but more than 20 years elapsed between conviction and execution. Williams consistently filed appeals and requests for clemency. He did not admit his guilt, saying he did not kill anyone. It is customary to say that in prison he repented, and this may be true – but not in a crime, in which he completely denied his participation, but rather in the fact that in principle, he linked his life to crime and banditry.

On death row, Stanley Williams wrote twelve books, including some for children, in which he urged not to repeat mistakes, to stay away from drugs and to obey the law. It demystifies the romanticism of the streets, which sometimes attracts teenagers, and shows what is behind it – the dirt, the blood, the violence and the inevitable retribution of freedom or life.

The books became bestsellers, Nobel Prize nominations came and went, and Williams himself continued to fight until in 2005, then-California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger denied him finally a grace. That’s when the sentence was carried out, and that’s when Schwarzenegger said the hardest thing about the governor’s job is dealing with someone else’s life.

Photo: Legion Media, East News