Shaka Sankofa Statement

Here is a statement from Shaka Sankofa (Gary Graham) who was killed yesterday by George Bush in Texas.



Excerpt from a letter Gary wrote to supporters in 1999.

In 1981 when I was a 17-year-old juvenile, I became the victim of poor legal

representation and a racially biased prosecution system that is more often

criminal than just. I was wrongly convicted of capitol murder and sentenced

to death by a nearly all white jury in spite of overwhelming and compelling

evidence of my innocence. My trial was a travesty of justice and a strong

people's movement is the only hope to prevent my legal lynching and to stop

my execution.

But my spirit of resistance will never be crushed by this racist injustice

and political repression, and never will I cease to struggle and fight for

the freedom and national liberation of my oppressed people. After 18 long

years of my illegal prosecution, I still have hope that justice will one day

be achieved in hits historic cause and this is so because of the tremendous

faith that I have in my sisters and brothers. The odds and the danger that

we face in our struggle for justice are great but even greater still is the

power of the people.

There is more momentum now around the death penalty than in recent times.

The international campaign to prevent my lynching and to stop my execution

has played a critical role in this important development and has brought

together diverse and wide groupings of people who have one message in

common: we will take a stand and defend social justice and human rights

because we care about human life and human dignity.

I beseech all of my brothers and sisters and supporters to persist in your

demand for justice to be done. We must all continue to take a strong and

firm stand in this historic battle because history tells us that this is a

repressive system that will never provide justice unless it is compelled to

do so by massive national and international protest and unrelenting and

uncompromising resistance by our sisters and brothers in the streets.