Murphy Davis Tore Down the Prison Walls with Songs of Hope

Murphy Davis (1948-2020) was a Presbyterian pastor and a well-known death penalty abolitionist; she inspired Sr. Helen Prejean, who considered her a role model. Inspired by her time at the New York Catholic Worker, she and her husband, Rev. Ed Loring, founded the Open Door Community in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1981. The Open Door Community served the homeless and recently incarcerated. For more information about her life, see: Murphy Davis | Presbyterian Historical Society and Murphy Davis | Americans Who Tell The Truth.

This essay was adapted by Rev. Lauren Ramseur for the September/October 2024 issue of Hospitality, the newsletter of The Open Door Community. It is from Lauren’s introduction to A Bag of Snakes, a collection of writings by Davis and Loring. It is reprinted here with permission from the author. For copies of A Bag of Snakes, contact The Open Door Community.

Cover photo via Eduard Loring: Ed and Murphy at the Troy Davis March on September 16, 2011.

By Lauren Ramseur

Everywhere Murphy Davis went around her home at the Open Door Community at 910 Ponce de Leon Avenue in Atlanta, Georgia, she was teaching those around her. People came to learn from her, to learn with her, or just to soak in the joy of her company. I was and still am one of them. Always a student and a teacher, Murphy carried deep wisdom that came through education and reading alongside standing at the foot of the cross as she pastored men on death row. That wisdom was born of suffering through her accompaniment work, through her battles with cancer, and through soul-challenging advocacy to enlighten the heart of the legislature of the horrors of state-sponsored murder. Despite those soul-crushing challenges, her faith grew into a radical hope filled with joy and encompassing grace, formed through God’s love and her commitment to scripture and community. Her life and now her writings continue to bear witness to what the Holy Spirit can do with a faithful journey of solidarity and great courage in a human life.

The rides to Jackson, where death row is located, were some of my most treasured times, as an hour of uninterrupted time with Murphy and Eduard was a rare thing when you lived and worked in community. Once the long road stretched before us, Murphy and Eduard would share their journey with the men of Georgia’s prisons and death row over their decades of work. It was through these stories that I first began to carry in my own bones a deep love and commitment for those who are imprisoned. Under Murphy’s tutelage, I found the hope of the Gospel that is the resurrection of life even in the face of the most brutal death that the systems of oppression can dole out.

After long waits to get through security screening, we would trek through the underground hallway into the Jackson prison. The hallway was lined with pseudo-inspirational posters, extolling the virtues of “integrity,” “success,” and “leadership” to the prison staff making their way inside this hellhole. It was a bizarre juxtaposition of forced positivity and optimism as people entered a giant locked steel box, where on the best days they would control the movement and the bodies of other fellow humans, and where they were all, guards and prisoners alike, locked in cages together. On the worst of those days, the same employees, who were told to have integrity and be successful, would coordinate and carry out the murder of one of those humans with whom they spent the majority of their daily lives. Once through that portal and up the stairs, we passed the warden’s office, which always elicited stories of the battles with power that had been fought there just to be able to make pastoral visits. Then we entered the large visitation room where families gathered on weekends, breaking the bread of life made manifest in the form of Snickers and Cheetos from the vending machines. The room was empty on weekdays when pastors and lawyers visit, but the spirits of that family love remained there, as persistent as Murphy herself. Somehow, there was always a trustee there buffing the floors as if they were assigned to scrub away that love so it couldn’t get any further inside.

On one occasion, Eduard, Murphy, and I were all visiting in the long narrow room, spread out the required six feet apart from one another as we each visited our friends. It was a joy to visit together because we would set up four visits each, and as every person entered the visitation room, Murphy would have the opportunity to speak with and bless each of them like a pastor standing at her church door. Instead of four visits, she would get twelve; like the Biblical story of the loaves and fishes, Murphy’s visits were multiplied through the love of community. On this day, when the singing began, the room was packed with our visits and public defender lawyers meeting with their clients. I don’t remember who Murphy was visiting with that morning; it must have been Troy Davis or Jack Alderman who asked Murphy to sing. Murphy was a gifted preacher, an exceptional writer, public speaker, and advocate, but on top of that, she had the amazing gift of music. It should come as no surprise that the visitation room for death row was not usually a place where singing happened. It was not on the list of approved actions in that space. But when Murphy and Eduard visited, there would be laughter and singing, because when they came, they brought church with them. Murphy and Troy sang out, “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound… .” Conversations quieted as the surprising sound of that joyful noise made its way down the corridor to death row. And then the singing grew, and how could anyone not join in with Murphy’s beautiful voice leading us? The attorneys’ conversations stopped, and they too began to sing and soon the entire visitation room erupted in song, “and grace will lead me home.” For those minutes, none of us were in prison anymore. The walls of death row came tumbling down, and we were at church together singing mightily of the unending grace of God that held us all in Her hands.

Our God is a God of Liberation and when you sing with Her, there is freedom even in the places where the systems of death seem to have the tightest rein on human life. Murphy sang with our Liberating God, so beautifully and with such a welcoming grace that you could not help but join the song.

So often now in my work accompanying children in prison and detention in Virginia, Murphy’s grace shows up alongside us. Each December we assemble 300 care packages for children in detention and prison, and once again Murphy’s love is multiplied through the love of community. She shows up for me with courage when our visits get canceled, and we must navigate complicated relationships with prison officials to gain access again. Voices of Jubilee began as a Gospel choir in a children’s prison, the Bon Air Juvenile Correctional Center in Richmond, Virginia. One of our youth told us that when he was singing with us, he felt like he wasn’t in prison anymore, and I heard once again Murphy and Troy singing, Eduard and Jack joining in, and God’s faithful song of hope tearing down the prison walls.

In her writings, Murphy meets us, telling us the truth that shakes the shingles from our eyes. She is an open door inviting us to walk beside the Shepherd, and though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, she invites us to BE NOT AFRAID. Murphy invites us to take a seat at the welcome table, under the shelter of Grace’s wings, and to join her in the long struggle and unending song of Liberation. Murphy Davis, ¡Presente!

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Rev. Lauren Cogswell Ramseur is the Co-Pastor of Voices of Jubilee, a community of pastors, returning citizens, and volunteers who meet isolation with connection by accompanying incarcerated youth and their families in Richmond, Virginia.
www.voicesofjubilee.org