Footsteps In The Dark

The story of a song and a message that stayed with me.

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

Around 8:40 PM, November 16, 2021- I was in the car on the way home from an event with my youth group. My mind was in a worried state.

Julius Jones, a prisoner on Oklahoma’s death row, was scheduled to be executed that Thursday. This did not sit well with me. After reading Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy at school that month, I wrote a research paper expressing my belief that he was innocent. I really did not want Julius to die, but all signs pointed towards his execution in less than 48 hours.

My dad turns the radio on to Sirius XM Channel 7: “70s on 7,” and I hear this riff:

If you recognize that riff, chances are, you recognize it from Ice Cube’s It Was A Good Day. I certainly did when I heard it when I was in the car that day.

That riff actually originated in The Isley Brothers’ Footsteps In The Dark, Pts. 1 and 2, released in 1977.

Intrigued by the first few seconds of the song, I listened further. I began to let the lyrics of Ronald Isley fill my brain instead of the thoughts about Julius Jones:

“I keep hearin' footsteps, baby
(In the) in the dark, oh, in the dark”

That worked for a little bit. Until I thought back to an article I had read about Julius earlier that day.

The article featured an account from Julius’s mom about seeing Julius for potentially the final time before his execution, and how he was crying as he was dragged out of the room, being pulled away by armed guards towards his cell adjacent to the execution chamber.

I couldn’t help but think about how horrified Julius would eventually become when he heard those heavy footsteps of the guards in the dark prison hallway, less than 48 hours later, ready to drag him to the death gurney, where he would be injected with the same drug that caused the horrific botched execution of Clayton Lockett eight years earlier in the same chamber.

I listened to the rest of the song with tears in my eyes. The next day, I listened to the song again as I thought about Julius. Luckily, Julius ended up being spared by the governor of Oklahoma mere hours before his scheduled killing on November 18, 2021.

As I listened to the song again several times over the rest of the year, it became a reminder for me as to why I needed to keep fighting for people like Julius, as well as criminal justice reform. The song also opened my soul up to the power of 70s music, which still fuels me today to write and advocate for issues that I think need to be solved. 70s music empowers me to help make the world a better place.

Lyrics from Harvest For The World by The Isley Brothers.