1,140 4 minutes read Anti-death penalty and racial justice advocates in Texas reacted with outrage and disgust at the Trump administration’s plan to carry out a record number of federal executions during the final two months of his lame-duck presidency. On the morning of Dec. 10, the day 40-year-old Brandon Bernard was scheduled to be executed, the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement met in Houston’s historically Black Third Ward for a press conference followed by an afternoon protest at the Federal Building downtown. The Abolition Movement decried the fact that, of the six executions scheduled to take place between Nov. 19 and Jan. 15, five are of Black men. They also denounced the Trump administration for being the first administration to carry out federal executions during the lame-duck period, in which there is a transition to a new administration, in well over 130 years.