My name is Hooman Hedayati, and I spent my spring break fighting to stop executions in Texas, the nation's #1 death-penalty state. I was one of the organizers of the 2007 Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break, which was sponsored by Texas Students Against the Death Penalty, Campus Progress, Texas Moratorium Network and several other organizations.

If you want to know why we chose to protest in Texas, the answer is simple: Texas leads the nation by far in number of executions. Texas performed 45 percent of all the executions in the United States in 2006. Since the U.S. Supreme Court's 1976 ruling that allowed executions to resume after a four-year period during which they were considered unconstitutional, there have been 1,066 executions in the U.S. Texas performed 387 of those executions, which amounts to about 35 percent of the national total. According to the 2000 census, Texas has only 7.4 percent of the nation's population.

This year's spring break was a big success. The participants received valuable training and experience in grassroots organizing, lobbying and media relations. During the week, we immediately put what we learned into action during activities such as the "Day of Innocence Rally," which we held right on the steps of the state capitol.

We also traveled up and down the halls of the capitol, lobbying members of the Texas Legislature on the need for a moratorium on executions. Since no one really believes Texas will pass an outright ban on executions anytime soon, we're trying to convince lawmakers to have a moratorium while the issue is studied. It's the least they can do considering all the problems with capital-punishment policies.

I also got a lesson in free speech during the week when a Texas state representative, Borris Miles, took it upon himself to remove two pieces of death-penalty-themed artwork from an exhibition that we placed in the state capitol as part of the spring break. He called the artwork "extremely inappropriate and highly objectionable." During the lobby day, some students and I headed to his office and expressed our concerns.

On our last full day, the Direct Action Day, we organized a major protest in the heart of the South by Southwest music festival in downtown Austin. Although some people disagreed with our view on the death penalty, many more wholeheartedly supported us. Some people chose to spontaneously join us while we marched, and others applauded as we chanted our way up and down Austin's famous Sixth Street.

During the week we had the chance to meet people who have had firsthand experience with the death penalty. We spoke with Kerry Cook, an innocent man who spent 22 years on Texas' death row and recently wrote a book, "Chasing Justice: My Story of Freeing Myself After Two Decades on Death Row for a Crime I Didn't Commit"; Shujaa Graham, a black man who spent three years on California's death row for a crime he did not commit; Moreese "Pops" Bickham, who was on death row when the 1972 Furman v. Georgia decision abolished the death penalty; George White, an innocent man who spent years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of killing his wife, only to be finally exonerated; and Christina Lawson, whose father was murdered when she was a child and whose husband, David Martinez, was executed in Texas in 2005 for murder (unconnected to the murder of her father).

Austin was definitely the place to be during spring break 2007 for young people who want to become part of the next generation of human-rights leaders. As my friend Cynthia Halatyn of Southern Methodist University told me, "I could have gone to the beach and changed my state of mind for a week, but instead I came to Austin to change the world forever."

You can find the full schedule of this year's events at Texas Students Against the Death Penalty's Web site, SpringBreakAlternative.org

- Hoomam Hedayati