On Oct. 15, the Afro-American society, Al-Nur Muslim Student Association, Dartmouth Asian American Studies Collective and Spare Rib Magazine held a vigil for Marcellus Williams. Williams was executed on Sept. 24 in Missouri despite protests from the case’s prosecutors and the victim’s family, according to the Associated Press.
Williams spent 20 years on death row after being found guilty in 2003 of killing Felicia Gayle, a 42-year-old reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Reuters reported. Gayle was stabbed more than 10 times with a knife, according to the St. Louis Post-Despatch. However, doubts were cast on Williams’s conviction following concerns about improper forensic and legal procedure — such as the exclusion of Black jurors from Williams’s trial — and a lack of DNA evidence connecting Williams to the murder weapon after new testing was conducted in 2016.
The original prosecutor, Wesley Bell, and Gayle’s family opposed Williams’s execution. In August 2024, prosecutors — including Bell — and Williams’s attorneys from the Innocence Project reached a new sentencing agreement. Under the new agreement, Williams would enter a no-contest plea and receive a sentence of life in prison, Reuters reported. However, the Missouri Supreme Court and Missouri Gov. Mike Parsons rejected the agreement and subsequent clemency petition, respectively, on Sept. 23, before Williams was executed on Sept. 24, according to the Associated Press. The U.S. Supreme Court also denied a stay, CNN reported.
According to Al-Nur advocacy chair and vigil organizer Noor Boukari ’26, the vigil — held on the Shabazz Center for Intellectual Inquiry lawn — intended “to celebrate [Williams’s] life appropriately.” Boukari noted that Williams advocated for Palestinian liberation and against climate change and domestic violence while he was incarcerated.
“He talked about all kinds of oppression, even as he was facing his own death,” Boukari said.
Attendees held candles and read Williams’s poems, “I! Can’t! Breathe!” — a piece about the 2020 George Floyd protests and racism in America — and “The Perplexing Smiles of the Children of Palestine.” While incarcerated, Williams published poetry under the pseudonym Khaliifah ibn Rayford Daniels, a name he adopted after converting to Islam, according to his public defenders.
Boukari also recited the Surah Fatiha — the opening lines for prayer in the Islamic tradition.
Boukari said attendees were asked to reflect on Williams’s impact on other prisoners, including those on death row, and his role as a “leader of the Muslim community” while incarcerated.
“[Williams] wrote thousands [of poems] throughout his life, and a lot of them were sent to other death row prisoners,” Boukari said. “He was truly a luminary, truly a genius, and his life was extinguished by the carceral state.”
The organizers chose to hold the vigil on the lawn in front of the Shabazz Center because the ground is a “sacred space … for activism” on campus, according to Boukari. The Shabazz Center is a community house for students with an interest in the “historical and contemporary experiences of people of African descent,” according to its webpage. It is named after El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, the name Malcolm X took after converting to Islam.
“This space is very important for activism in general at Dartmouth, especially considering it was a Black man who was murdered and the [religious] tradition he’s part of,” Boukari said.
Roan Wade ’25 said they attended the vigil because they feel it is “important to mourn Williams’s life while also taking the time to “combat the carceral state.”
“A person’s life was unjustly taken by the state and more than just mourning, I feel the need to continue on the struggle that they carr[ied] throughout their lives,” Wade said.
Wade said they volunteer with Study and Struggle, a Mississippi-based prison advocacy project “that organizes towards abolition through political education, mutual aid and community building across prison walls,” according to its webpage. Wade added that they are motivated by the circumstances of the “unjustly incarcerated” in their own organizing work.
“Every time I’m struggling or I feel stuck organizing, I think about all these amazing [unjustly incarcerated] people who are doing … incredible work to keep morale up, … and they’re still maintaining that sense of hope, and they’re still organizing, and they’re still trying to create the future that we want to see, despite all of these insane, impossible challenges that are put in their way,” Wade said.
Attendee Kourtney Bobb ’25 said she hopes the vigil can not only spark more discussion about racism but also make “people feel empowered to … continue forward with activism.”
Bobb added that she believes reform starts on college campuses, where students can make changes that “create a better world.”
“We need systemic institutional change, and that starts from us at college campuses,” Bobb said. “I think change is inevitable if we continue to work toward it and though it may take a while … there are great things in the world that we deserve to achieve.”
Representatives from the Afro-American Society, Dartmouth Asian American Studies Collective and Spare Rib did not respond to requests for comment by time of publication.
