Rallies are planned Wednesday across the country and in Memphis for Pervis Payne, a Memphis man who has been on death row for 33 years.
The rallies taking place in New York, Chicago, Dallas, Washington D.C., and here near the intersection of Union and McLean, will mark the one-year anniversary of the weekly #FreePervisPayne rallies in Memphis.
A year ago, Andre Johnson, pastor of Gifts of Life Ministries, began organizing weekly rallies here to raise awareness about Payne’s case.
Since then, the Innocence Project, which works to exonerate the wrongfully convicted, has taken on Payne’s case, working to get him off death row. The group started a petition in support of Payne, which has garnered more than 750,000 signatures to date.
Johnson issued a call to action on Facebook Wednesday, urging people to “come and bear witness.”
“You really want to be on the right side of history,” Johnson said. “And you really want to be able to say that you were a participant and helped free an innocent man… We believe that Pervis Payne is profoundly and profusely innocent of this crime.”
The rally in Memphis is scheduled for 4 p.m.
Payne was convicted of murdering Charisse Christopher and her two-year-old daughter in 1987. He was set to be executed in December 2020, but was granted a temporary reprieve of execution due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
In May, Payne’s legal team filed a petition arguing that it would be illegal to execute Payne because he has an intellectual disability. A hearing on this claim is set for December 13.