Joe’s path began in North Carolina—raised in Raleigh, educated at St. Andrews Presbyterian College in Laurinburg, where he earned a BA in Philosophy and Religion in 1968. After working as a tutor, teacher, and silversmith apprentice, he enrolled at Union Theological Seminary in New York City in 1970. Living and working in East Harlem, he visited the Bronx House of Detention in 1971–72—an experience that reshaped his life’s direction. He graduated from Union and was ordained into the United Church of Christ in 1973.
Returning to the South in 1974, Joe began his work with Southern Prison Ministry. Soon after, he helped found the Southern Coalition on Jails and Prisons (SCJP), an organization committed to challenging mass incarceration and opposing the death penalty across the region. Serving as Director from 1976 to 1990, he helped build a network spanning eight Southern states, grounded in direct relationships with men and women on death row.
In 1975, Joe helped launch the Visitation on Death Row (VODR) program at Tennessee State Prison in Nashville, a program that continues today at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution. Recognizing the urgent need for legal representation, he was also instrumental in establishing the Southern Prisoners Defense Committee, which—under the leadership of Stephen Bright—evolved into the Southern Center for Human Rights.
After leaving SCJP in 1990, Joe was awarded a fellowship at Harvard in 1991. He later returned to Nashville, where he co-founded the Neighborhood Justice Center, specializing in mediation and community-based conflict resolution. Throughout, he continued his advocacy against the death penalty, including his work with Joe Giarratano.
Joe is the author of several books, including Last Rights: 13 Fatal Encounters with the State’s Justice, The Inferno: A Southern Morality Tale, Slouching Toward Tyranny: Mass Incarceration, Death Sentences and Racism, and Too Close to the Flame: With the Condemned Inside the Southern Killing Machine.
He and his wife, Becca—whom he married in 1979—live in rural Tennessee, where they maintain an organic blueberry farm. Their daughter, Amelia, recently turned 38.