The life of VOCAL founder Miriam Shehane remembered in Montgomery
People in Montgomery paused to remember the life of Miriam Shehane, who founded the group called Victims of Crime and Leniency, or VOCAL for short.
VOCAL and the Alabama Crime Victims Compensation Commission hosted a memorial service for hundreds at the RSA Activity Center downtown to come out to pay tribute to Shehane and her impact on victims’ rights and services in Alabama.
Shehane founded VOCAL and for decades, led a victims’ rights movement that reshaped Alabama’s judicial and parole system.
She died June 17 at 91.
Shehane’s daughter, Birmingham college student Quinette Shehane, died after several men raped and murdered her a few days before Christmas in 1976.
Those crimes sparked Miriam’s push for Alabama lawmakers to support the families the court system often overlooked in those days.
“Her legacy needs to be carried on,” VOCAL Executive Director Wanda Miller said. “Her legacy needs to go on into the future, and it’s up to us to do that. I think the greatest way that we can honor her is to continue the work that she started back in the early 1980s to give victims’ rights and to make sure no one walks alone and to make sure that they are heard and seen.”
“I just want to let them know that she was a lady that had a big heart that cared a lot and did a lot for victims and she was just a caring person and that she just went over and beyond just to let everybody know that victims have rights,” Patrice Williams of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office Victim Assistance Unit said.
