In Salt Lake City, Utah, two men were executed by firing squad about a century apart, each leaving behind a philanthropic mission for family, friends and supporters. One was fighting for a classless society, and the other wanted to build an organic farm.
The first man was Joe Hill, who was shot and killed on Nov. 15, 1915. The second was Ronnie Lee Gardner, who died the same way on June 18, 2010.
In each instance, the man was charged with armed robbery and shooting innocents in cold blood. His supporters pleaded with the parole board for his sentence to be commuted, saying the death row prisoner was an artist working for social change. But popular opinion opposed the "dangerous killer," and the court denied the protests.
On the morning of the execution, each man sat strapped to a chair with a paper target pinned over his heart. In newspaper accounts of each execution, journalists reported the condemned man was at peace with his fate when five gunmen aimed at their target and fired. Each requested his remains be cremated and shipped out of state.
A labor organizer and songwriter, Joe Hill became a folk legend and union martyr immortalized in poetry, novels, plays, a film and most famously, in the song "I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill, Last Night" sung by Paul Robeson, by Joan Baez at Woodstock and on picket lines throughout America.
Ronnie Lee Gardner passed to much less fanfare. Some people were shocked that capital punishment could still look so barbaric in the age of the lethal injection, but fewer paid much attention to the man. As it had done with Joe Hill almost a century ago, Salt Lake City's Deseret News called for his death in an editorial opined, "If there is such a thing as a death penalty on the books, it ought to be used in the case of Ronnie Lee Gardner." Predictably, the op-ed discussed only the day of his brutal murders rather than his life as a whole. Articles that bothered to cover his horrific childhood abuse or his philanthropic aspirations used the details as human-interest space-filler, or portrayed them as excuses and stunts to evade the ultimate sentence.
Before they were executed, both men wanted their supporters to carry out projects that they would no longer be able to realize in their lives. Hill, a member of an unabashedly socialist union called the IWW, urged his supporters, "Don't waste any time on mourning. Organize." In a separate letter, he expanded that to tell workers around the globe to "organize our class and march to victory."
Gardner's instructions to his fewer advocates were much more modest. He wanted family and friends to realize his decade-long vision to open a 160-acre organic farm near Salt Lake City for underprivileged youth.
Hill addressed the letter, which contains the message folklore remembered as "Don't mourn, organize," to two friends in his Defense Committee.
Gardner addressed his letter, which was read in full during his commutation hearing on June 11, to Oprah Winfrey.
He began the letter with well-wishes from the "great state of Utah," a few words of introduction, an explanation of how he got to death row and the greeting "Dear Oprah."
