Resurrection After Exoneration Hosts Fundraiser This Weekend

Resurrection After Exoneration (RAE) is a New Orleans organization dedicated to serving innocent men who were once wrongfully imprisoned.

From their website:

Each year, we hear about more innocent people being released from prison in the United States. Today, there are over 400 exonerated men and women who have been wrongly convicted and victimized by our criminal justice system. On average, each has served more than 10 years in prison before being released. RAE was founded in 2007 by exonerees to promote and sustain a network of support among formerly wrongfully incarcerated individuals in the South. RAE works to reconnect exonerees to their communities and provide access to those opportunities of which they were robbed.

RAE was founded in 2006 by John Thompson, an exoneree who spent 18 years in prison – 14 on death row – for a crime he didn’t commit. RAE now provides exonerees with case management, social services and education, and the opportunity for exonerees to share their stories with the world.

RAE is hosting their first ever fundraiser on June 19 - Juneteenth - from 5:00pm - 7:00pm. As an organization dedicated to helping emancipate modern-day prisoners and captives–those wrongfully incarcerated in the Louisiana state penitentiary–RAE is dedicating this event to celebrating freedom in every form, while commemorating the long road ahead to providing true freedom to all.

The fundraiser will be at the Angela King Gallery, at 241 Royal Street in the French Quarter. It will feature music by the Leroy Jones Jazz Trio, art and a silent auction, hors d'oeuvres from area restaurants, and will be hosted by special guest Jed Horne, the Pulitzer-winning author of Breach of Faith and Desire Street.

Above: John Thompson holds picture of Jim Williams, the man who sent him to death row. Williams is posing with model electric chair he had made.
Photo by Frank Aymami.