Harmon Lee Wray Jr. (November 10, 1946 - July 24, 2007)[1] was an American activist and author, based in Tennessee, who supported human rights for the poor, abolition of the death penalty, and prison reform.
He advocated that Christians had a moral obligation to try to keep people out of prison, and persisted with his efforts of reform during decades of rising rates of incarceration in the United States, especially of minorities.
[6] In the decades since, the rates of incarceration increased dramatically nationwide, especially for minorities, both because of implementation of the war on drugs and more severe sentencing guidelines.
[3] Wray gave lectures about human rights for the poor at the Vanderbilt Divinity School and the West End United Methodist Church in the late 1990s.
According to his obituary in The Tennessean, Wray believed America's prison system "penalizes people who can't afford lawyers and lets respectable criminals get away.