Sí, se puede

Remembering the unforgettable Leno

I’m handing this column over to Sister Helen Prejean this week, because on Thursday we lost a dear friend and champion, Magdaleno ‘Leno’ Rose-Avila, a man who played a crucial role in Sr. Helen’s first steps into broad-based activism, and who was an inspiration to so many of us, both as an activist and as a poet with a huge heart.

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Here is Sr. Helen’s reflection:

We have lost a good friend and advocate for human rights in Magdaleno Rose-Avila yesterday.

He was such a good friend to me when Dead Man Walking first came out.

We loaded books into the back of a van and he helped me get the books out all across the west coast from San Diego to Seattle. And this was not to crowds; this was going into restaurants and giving out the book to busboys or whoever happened to be around.

With Leno at the launch of the documentary SISTER in 2018.

Leno always got it about human rights.

When we planned a march in Atlanta he got the involvement of the S.C.L.C. [Southern Christian Leadership Conference] Martin Luther King’s group to join with us for the march.

It was a two-week trek from death row in Stark, Florida to the Martin Luther King center in Atlanta. Leno was in charge of the ninety coffins to be brought into Atlanta to represent all the people who had been executed in 1990.

Leno was of great value to me and he introduced me to wider circles.

I was just beginning in Louisiana, but he introduced me into Amnesty International circles and to a great gathering of young people in Boston where I gave an address and we brought the book.

When you called Leno and he wasn’t there to answer on the phone, he had this message, it was always this message of “Sí se puede.” “Yes, we have the power to do this, we can change the world.”

Leno with another man who made his mark on justice, capital defense lawyer Millard Farmer.

So we lost him to death, but we haven’t lost his spirit, and I just want to acknowledge what a tremendous help he was to me in the formation of the work that I’m doing today.

I’m in touch with his wife Carolyn, with his daughter Aviva, with his son Kimbo, and I will be participating in the memorial for him which we will hold in Los Angeles, June 13th. It’s an honor for me to participate in that.

So, sí se puede, Magdaleno Rose-Avila. We will never forget you, and your spirit lives in us.

Alleluia.

“No human being is illegal.” Magdaleno Rose-Avila.