April 26, 1999		Sister Helen Prejean to Speak at Oberlin College May 11 Media Contact: Betty Gabrielli
	LECTURE "Dead Men Walking - The Journey" Tuesday, May 11 7:30 p.m. King Building Room 106 on the corner of College and Professor streets Free public event Sponsored by the Oberlin College Office of Chaplains		OBERLIN--Death-penalty opponent and victims' advocate Sister Helen Prejean C.S.J--whose work inspired the Academy-Award winning film Dead Man Walking--will speak at Oberlin College next month. "Dead Men Walking-The Journey" is the title of the talk to be presented by Sr. Helen, who is a Nobel Peace Prize nominee. A member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Medaille since 1957, Sr. Helen worked with inner-city residents in New Orleans, where her involvement in 1981 led her to prison ministry at the Louisiana State Penitentiary. There she counseled death-row inmates, accompanied five men to execution and witnessed their deaths. Her account of the experience, Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States (Random House 1993), was a Pulitzer Prize nominee, on bestseller lists for 31 weeks and has been translated into nine languages. The film, starring Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon, won a Christopher Award "for artistic excellence affirming the highest value of the human spirit" and a best actress Academy Award for Sarandon. Currently, Sr. Helen continues her ministry to death row inmates and murder victims' families. A 1995 Guggenheim Fellow, she is writing a spiritual autobiography, which focuses on personal faith and the struggles of women for equality in the Roman Catholic Church; it is forthcoming next year. Convinced that a well-informed public will reject the death penalty as she has, Sr. Helen also works to educate the public about the death penalty by lecturing, organizing and writing. She has befriended murder victims' families and founded Survive, a victim's advocacy group in New Orleans. Her efforts have brought her international recognition, honorary degrees and numerous awards, including the Laetare Medal from Notre Dame University and the Pope Paul II Teacher of the Peace award from Pax Christi U.S.A. Mirabella named Sr. Helen among its "100 Fearless Women" and she has been the subject of numerous prime-time television profiles, including 60 Minutes and Frontline. She has served as a member and chairperson of the board of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and is a member of Amnesty International.