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Executed Tookie's funeral service to be a fiery affair

Funeral speakers * Louis Farrakhan, Nation of Islam leader * Snoop Dogg, rapper * Bianca Jagger, human-rights advocate * Reverend Jesse Jackson, civil-rights activist * Bruce Gordon, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Source: AFP

The leader of the Nation of Islam is said to be preparing to deliver a fiery oratory at a "statesman-like" Los Angeles funeral for an executed gang founder lauded as a role model for urban African-American youth.

Stanley "Tookie" Williams was killed by lethal injection in San Quentin Prison on San Francisco Bay early on Dec. 13, despite pleas to keep him alive so he could discourage other youths from following in his violent footsteps.

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and rapper Snoop Dogg will take part in a grand memorial service for Williams in Los Angeles on Tuesday, according to LaNiece Jones, a spokeswoman for the failed "SaveTookie" campaign.

Speakers at the memorial service are to include Farrakhan, civil rights activist Reverend Jesse Jackson, human-rights advocate Bianca Jagger, Snoop Dogg and Bruce Gordon of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

A celebrity-rich crusade to get Williams' sentence changed to life in prison grew to one of the biggest US anti-execution campaigns in decades.

More than 2,000 people -- including Hollywood actor Sean Penn and folk singer Joan Baez -- gathered outside the prison during Williams' execution to protest and call for an end to the death penalty.

Williams, 51, was sentenced to death in 1981 after being convicted of four shotgun murders but became an anti-violence crusader on death row.

While on death row, Williams insisted he was innocent of the murders but admitted being a founder of the Crips gang that terrorized Los Angeles from the 1970s through to the 1990s. It has been blamed for hundreds of killings.

Williams helped orchestrate a peace deal between rival gangs and wrote books urging children to steer clear of gangs. He was nominated several times for the Nobel Peace Prize.
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