Room 103 in Bingham Hall was surrounded by photos of young faces Monday night.
They were not the youthful faces of those seen on UNC's campus every day. Instead they were all teenage inmates in chains who are living on death row.
Toshi Kazama, a professional photographer from New York City, brought his project, titled "Juveniles on Death Row: A Documentary Exploration," to campus as part of a visit arranged by UNC's Campaign to End the Death Penalty and the Newman Catholic Student Center Parish.
CEDP President Frances Ferris said she saw Kazama's work last spring at an Amnesty International death penalty conference in Atlanta and thought it would be appropriate. "I really just thought that bringing him here was the best way to present this topic," she said.
The audience was given a half-hour to view the black-and-white images first. They consisted of not only portraits of the teenagers on death row, but also their families, locations of the crimes and various parts of the prisons, including several electric chairs and injection tables.
Originally from Japan, Kazama did not become interested in the topic until moving to the United States and building a family. He said that it was the frequent occurrence of crimes and injustice in this country that really fueled his interest.
"As a parent, it's very scary to raise kids in this society," Kazama said. "So instead of packing up and leaving, I thought I could use my tool, photography, to do something about it.
"I thought about dealing with guns, drugs or injustice, but I wanted to do something bigger. Capital punishment encompasses all of those things."
Kazama's project began in 1996 when, after six months of tedious paperwork, he was able to enter a correctional facility in Alabama to photograph the prison and an inmate named Michael Barnes, who was charged with two murders and was awaiting execution.
"(Barnes) had a full-scale IQ of 68, and he was known as mentally retarded," Kazama recalled. "I remember him saying, 'Toshi, I'm afraid of big guys. I'm a bitch,' and at first I didn't understand what he meant. Then my assistant told me that he was sexually abused."
His initial visit also produced a photograph of the prison's electric chair, which is painted a solid yellow to match the tiny room that holds it. It is known to the inmates and the employees of the facility as "Yellow Mama."
Even before Kazama knew of its nickname, he said he felt as though the wooden chair had almost a mothering draw to it. He wanted to sit in it.
This came as a shock to the audience, who had just been told that a black smudge in the middle of the seat was actually a burn mark made by a tailbone.
The photographs of "Yellow Mama" and Barnes posing in his handcuffs and shackles were blown up to life size and displayed in the front of the room.
Other subjects included Christa Pike, the youngest woman on death row, and her mother, both of whom hail from North Carolina. Pike's crime was committed in Tennessee, where she is awaiting execution.
Prisons around the country also were frequently seen in the presentation, including those in Texas and Alabama.
Kazama took photographs of several of a death row inmate's last stops. There was a picture of the last shower room and the last dinner table. Although the table is covered with a white tablecloth and adorned with a vase of artificial flowers, it sits only a few meters from the execution room.
While Kazama can still recall the chills he felt on several of his prison visits, he reiterated what he learned from the eight-year project.
"You have to learn to hate the crime, not the person," he said. "Meeting these people was a treasure."
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