E M I L Y K A P L A N
Capstone Project
Click on this map
to enlarge and "my inpiration" to learn about my process,
click on this map
or "my project" to view my Capstone creation
My Process/Inspiration
I have been interested in crime since 8th grade, criminal justice since 12th grade. Then came college, where my curiosity expanded to one aspect of the criminal justice system in particular: capital punishment. This marks the 12th of my creations on the topic of capital punishment. I say “creation” because my work on the subject transcends paper. Yes, I have written research papers on the topic, but I have also composed a blog, a video ad campaign, a website, and most recently, a map—all devoted to thinking about capital punishment.
For my final project as a University of Michigan writing minor, I knew I wanted to do more with capital punishment and I knew I did not want to write a research paper. It was mid-semester and I started getting nervous—I still had no idea what medium to use. At first I thought I’d write a long-form narrative of sorts, using interviews from professors who had first-hang experience with the death penalty. I met with the professors and completed the interviews, but decided against using them; they most definitely captivated me, but I doubted they would have the same ability to seduce an audience of my peers.
After that strike out, I decided I would make a map denoting where in the world capital punishment is still executed (pun intended). I thought it would be an effective way to depict the fact that the United States is the only first world country that still uses the death penalty, without stating that outright. Unfortunately, this map proved too difficult to create considering it was a relatively boring idea. Strike two. Running out of time and my anxiety slowly increasing, I knew I needed to pick a project and stick with it- no more strike outs. After meetings with my professor and receiving feedback from my peers, I looked to writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit for inspiration.
My Inspiration
"An Apple A Day"
Like I said, My Inspiration for this project came from Rebecca Solnit. Throughout her career, Solnit has written seventeen books—on topics including geography, community, art, politics, hope, and feminism— and received two awards, the Lannan Literary award and the Book Critics Circle Award. Along with her books, Solnit collaborates with artists and cartographers to create unconventional Atlases of cities: Infinite City, she calls it. Mapping their complexities and cultures instead of their zip codes, Solnit examines themes—connecting, for instance, apple orchards and hospitals in Laramie, Wyoming—to analyze what makes a city what it is. The image on the top right of this page is Solnit's map of Laramie, Wyoming. Feel free to click on the map to enlarge it, and click here if you're interested in roaming around a site that provides audio recordings to accompany the maps.
My Project
This is my project, "Black Voices and the Death Penalty: A Map of Congress and Capital Punishment." I decided to create this map, layering capital punishmend and congress, beaause I was curious about any relationship there may be between states with/without the death penalty and states with/without African American representatives. I don't want to write much more that that, I hope that map I've created will say enough on its own, but I have recorded an audio segment to accompany you're viewing (located below the map). Here are a few of the more surpising facts I encountered while making this map:
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How few African American representatives we have in the United States.
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Georgia has the highest proportion of African Amreican representatives to total representatives in the country, despite the fact that at one point in time, the Supreme Court ruled that in Georgia, racial disparities in the death penalty were not a violation of one's Consitutional right to "equal protection under the law."
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This month in Texas, the Supreme Court will decide whether or not to hear the appeal of a man who was sentenced to death in part because he is black. Texas has five African American representatives.
There have been 31 white defendants executed for murdering a black person, compared to 297 black defendants executed for murdering a white person
More than 20% of African Americans who have been executed were convicted by all white juries
Since 1976, 80% of executions were for crimes involving white victims- even though black and white people are victims for nearly an equal number of murders
Of the 435 representatives in the house, 44 are African American (10%)
Of the 100 senators in the United States, 2 are African American (2%)
The 113th congress (2013-2015) marked the first time more than one African American served on the in the senate simultaneously. There were 2.