Excerpt—Arnold Schwarzenneger’s Statement of Decision regarding clemency for Stanley Williams:
“The dedication of Williams’ book “Life in Prison” casts significant doubt on his personal redemption. This book was published in 1998, several years after Williams’ claimed redemptive experience. Specifically, the book is dedicated to “Nelson Mandela, Angela Davis, Malcolm X, Assata Shakur, Geronimo Ji Jaga Pratt, Ramona Africa, John Africa, Leonard Peltier, Dhoruba Al-Mujahid, George Jackson, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and the countless other men, women, and youths who have to endure the hellish oppression of living behind bars.” The mix of individuals on this list is curious. Most have violent pasts and some have been convicted of committing heinous murders, including the killing of law enforcement.... But the inclusion of George Jackson on this list defies reason and is a significant indicator that Williams is not reformed and that he still sees violence and lawlessness as a legitimate means to address societal problems.”
Excerpts—Postings on L.A. Indymedia:
“ ‘Y they’re Killin Took’ by Son of O.G. Monday, Dec. 12, 2005 at 2:38 PM
Look there is one reason and one reason only they're killin' Took....If he played their game - just wrote kidz books, he'd be alive at 12:05...But he dedicated his book to Angela Davis, Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abu Jamal, Dhoruba, George Jackson, John Africa and Ramona Africa... And the Terminator sez that's why Took's goin t die - said it straight out in his statement why he was goin t kill him.... Took's not dyin because he failed to so-called reform.... He's dyin because he WOKE UP spiritually and politically.... There is nothin more dangerous to the white than someone like that. They'd rather Took stayed asleep. They want you asleep, too....What Took is - who he is, what he became is what the oppessor fears the most.... That's why they're killin him – because he stood for his people and awoke his spirit.... You understand? They are killin him BECAUSE he reformed - not because he didn't.”
“ ‘True’ by johnk Monday, Dec. 12, 2005 at 4:42 PM
It's true. I just read the governor's document, and it's right in there. They specifically single out George Jackson, too.... They like it when the prisoner finds Jesus and reforms him or herself. They like it when the prisoner kills himself. They're even okay if the prisoner turns servile. But if he gets political and starts thinking of revolution or world peace, it's a different story.... They went after Alex Sanchez for the same reason.”
Excerpts—Biographical data/Revolutionary lives:
Nelson Mandela,
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela joined the African National Congress in 1944 and was engaged in resistance against the ruling National Party's apartheid policies after 1948. He went on trial for treason in 1956-1961 and was acquitted in 1961.
After the banning of the ANC in 1960, Nelson Mandela argued for the setting up of a military wing within the ANC. In June 1961, the ANC executive considered his proposal on the use of violent tactics and agreed that those members who wished to involve themselves in Mandela's campaign would not be stopped from doing so by the ANC. This led to the formation of Umkhonto we Sizwe. Mandela was arrested in 1962 and sentenced to five years' imprisonment with hard labor. In 1963, when many fellow leaders of the ANC and the Umkhonto we Sizwe were arrested, Mandela was brought to stand trial with them for plotting to overthrow the government by violence. His statement from the dock received considerable international publicity. On June 12, 1964, eight of the accused, including Mandela, were sentenced to life imprisonment. From 1964 to 1982, he was incarcerated at Robben Island Prison, off Cape Town; thereafter, he was at Pollsmoor Prison, nearby on the mainland.
During his years in prison, Nelson Mandela's reputation grew steadily. He was widely accepted as the most significant black leader in South Africa and became a potent symbol of resistance as the anti-apartheid movement gathered strength. He consistently refused to compromise his political position to obtain his freedom.
In 1993, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work “for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa.”
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Angela Davis
Davis worked as a philosophy lecturer at the University of California, Los Angeles , during the 1960s , during which time she also was a radical feminist and activist, a member of the Communist Party USA and associated with the Black Panther Party . In a controversial decision, the University of California fired her from her job in 1969 because of her membership in the Communist Party. She was later rehired after community uproar over the decision. Davis ran for Vice President on the Communist ticket in 1980 and 1984 along with Gus Hall .
In 1970, Davis became the third woman to appear on the FBI 's Most Wanted List when she was charged with conspiracy ,kidnapping , and homicide , due to her alleged participation in an escape attempt from Marin County Hall of Justice. She evaded the police for two months before being captured, tried, and acquitted of all charges eighteen months later.
She has continued a career of activism, and has written several books. A principal focus of her current activism is the state of prisons within the United States . She considers herself an abolitionist, not a "prison reformer," and refers to the United States prison system as the " prison-industrial complex." Her solutions include abolishing prisons and addressing the class, race, and gender factors that have led to large numbers of blacks and Latinos being incarcerated. She has lectured at San Francisco State University ,Stanford University and other schools. She is currently the Presidential Chair and Professor with the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz and director of the Women's studies department. She states that in her teaching, which is mostly at the graduate level, she concentrates more on posing questions which encourage development of critical thinking than on imparting knowledge.
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Malcolm X
In 1946 Malcolm was sentenced to 10 years for burglary. In prison he began to transform his life. His family visited and wrote to him about the Black Muslim religious movement. (The Black Muslims' official name was the Lost-Found Nation of Islam, and the spiritual leader was Elijah Muhammad , with national headquarters in Chicago.) Malcolm began to study Muhammad's teachings and to practice the religion faithfully. In addition, he enlarged his vocabulary by copying words from the dictionary, beginning with "A" and going through to "Z." He began to assimilate the racial teachings of his new religion; that the white man is evil, doomed by Allah to destruction, and that the best course for black people is to separate themselves from Western, white civilization - culturally, politically, physically, psychologically.
In 1952 Malcolm was released from prison and went to Chicago to meet Elijah Muhammad. Accepted into the movement and given the name of Malcolm X, he became assistant minister of the Detroit Mosque. Malcolm X became the most prominent national spokesman for the Black Muslims. He was widely sought as a speaker, and his debating talents against white and black opponents helped spread the movement's message. At this time in the United States there was a major thrust for racial integration; however, Malcolm X and the Black Muslims were calling for racial separation. He believed that the civil rights gains made in America were only tokenism. He castigated those African Americans who used the tactic of nonviolence in order to achieve integration and advocated self-defense in the face of white violence. He urged black people to give up the Christian religion, reject integration, and understand that the high crime rate in black communities was essentially a result of African Americans following the decadent mores of Western, white society.
In the early 1960’s, Malcolm X made several trips to Africa and Europe and one to Mecca. Based on these, he wrote that he no longer believed that all white people were evil and that he had found the true meaning of the Islamic religion. He changed his name to El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. He announced that he planned to internationalize the black struggle by taking black people's complaints against the United States before the United Nations. For this purpose he sought aid from several African countries through the Organization of Afro-American Unity. At the same time he stated that his organizations were willing to work with other black organizations and with progressive white groups in the United States on voter registration, on black control of community public institutions such as schools and the police, and on other civil and political rights for black people. He began holding meetings in Harlem at which he enunciated the policies and programs of his new organizations. On a Sunday afternoon, February 21, 1965, as he began to address one such meeting, Malcolm X was assassinated.
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Assata Shakur
On May 2 1973, Black Panther activist Assata Shakur (fsn) JoAnne Chesimard, was pulled over by the New Jersey State Police, shot twice and then charged with murder of a police officer. Assata spent six and a half years in prison under brutal circumstances before escaping out of the maximum security wing of the Clinton Correctional Facility for Women in New Jersey in 1979 and moving to Cuba.
Assata: In her own words
“My name is Assata ("she who struggles") Shakur ("the thankful one"), and I am a 20th century escaped slave. Because of government persecution, I was left with no other choice than to flee from the political repression, racism and violence that dominate the US government's policy towards people of color. I am an ex political prisoner, and I have been living in exile in Cuba since 1984. I have been a political activist most of my life, and although the U.S. government has done everything in its power to criminalize me, I am not a criminal, nor have I ever been one. In the 1960s, I participated in various struggles: the black liberation movement, the student rights movement, and the movement to end the war in Vietnam. I joined the Black Panther Party. By 1969 the Black Panther Party had become the number one organization targeted by the FBI's COINTELPRO program. Because the Black Panther Party demanded the total liberation of black people, J. Edgar Hoover called it "greatest threat to the internal security of the country" and vowed to destroy it and its leaders and activists.”
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Geronimo Ji Jaga Pratt
On June 10th 1997, after over 27 years in California prisons, Geronimo ji Jaga (born Elmer Pratt) was released after a judge ruled that the main testimony against him had been supplied by an informant for J. Edgar Hoover's FBI - a fact not revealed at the time of the original trial.
ji Jaga, 49, was a highly decorated Vietnam soldier and head of the Los Angeles branch of the Black Panther Party in the late 1960's. In 1972, he was convicted of the so-called Tennis Court Murder of school teacher Caroline Olsen in Santa Monica, California. The main testimony against ji Jaga at his trial was provided by Julius "Julio" Butler, now 64, a former L.A. Deputy Sheriff who infiltrated the Black Panthers. Butler denied on the stand ever having been a paid informant for law enforcement. But FBI records made public in 1979 indicated the Bureau - as well as the Los Angeles Police Department and District Attorney's Office - had been paying Butler for information on the Panthers for over two years before ji Jaga's trial.
While serving his seven-year-to-life sentence, ji Jaga spent more time in solitary confinement - over eight years - than any other U.S. prisoner. His parole was denied 16 times over the years, with an L.A. District Attorney stating in 1987 that ji Jaga should not be released because he is "still a revolutionary man." ji Jaga has always maintained his innocence, claiming that on the night of the murder he was some 400 miles away, attending a Black Panther Party national leadership meeting in Oakland. At ji Jaga's trial, FBI agents testified that the meeting had not been monitored. But later, when confronted by proof uncovered by ji Jaga's defense team, the Bureau admitted to the electronic surveillance - yet claimed to have lost the logs, which could establish definitively whether ji Jaga was present or not.
At the time of his arrest, ji Jaga was listed in the FBI's National Security Index and his picture was displayed in their Black Nationalist Photo Album, featuring persons the Bureau considered prime targets for what they termed "neutralisation." He was a principal target of Cointelpro, the FBI's Counter Intelligence Programme (CONITELPRO), which aimed to undermine the Black Panthers during the late 1960's and early 1970's.
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Ramona Africa
Ramona Africa is the sole adult survivor of the May 13, 1985 massacre of 11 members of the MOVE organization. The FBI and the City of Philadelphia dropped a C4 bomb on MOVE’s 6221 Osage Avenue home in West Philadelphia. Carrying the young Birdie Africa (the only other survivor) with her, Ramona dodged gunfire and escaped from the fire with permanent scarring from the burns.
After surviving the bombing, she was charged with conspiracy, riot, and multiple counts of simple and aggravated assault. Subsequently Ramona served 7 years in prison. If she had chosen to sever her ties with MOVE, she could have been released far earlier. In the face of this she held true to her revolutionary beliefs and was uncompromising in the face of state terror. Since her release from prison, Ramona has tirelessly worked as the MOVE Minister of Communication on behalf of the MOVE 9, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and all political prisoners and prisoners of war.
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John Africa
The MOVE Organization surfaced in Philadelphia during the early 1970's. Characterized by dreadlock hair, the adopted surname "Africa", a principled unity, and an uncompromising commitment to their belief, members practiced the teachings of MOVE founder JOHN AFRICA.
Move's work is to stop industry from poisoning the air, the water, the soil, and to put an end to the enslavement of life. The purpose of John Africa's revolution is to show people through John Africa's teaching, the truth that this system is the cause of all their problems (alcholism, drug addiction, unemployment, wife abuse, child pornography, every problem in the world) and to set the example of revolution for people to set the example of revolution for people to follow when they realize how they've been oppressed, repressed, duped, tricked by this system, this government and see the need to rid themselves of this cancerious system as move does.
During the early 1970's MOVE was based in the Powelton Village section of West Philadelphia (309 N. 33rd St.). Members had a preference for hard physical work and were constantly chopping firewood, running dogs, shoveling snow or sweeping the street. MOVE ran a popular car wash at this location, helped homeless people find places to live, assisted the elderly with home repairs, intervened in violence between local gangs and college fraternities, and helped incarcerated offenders meet parole requirements through a rehabilitation program. After adopting MOVE's way of natural living, many individuals overcame past problems of drug addiction, physical disabilities, infertility and alcoholism.
MOVE launched demonstration after demonstration aimed at focusing attention on police abuses. Community groups across the City sought MOVE's help in setting up demonstrations in their own neighborhoods. As a result of this activism, the police began a concerted campaign of harassment against MOVE, breaking up demonstrations by arresting MOVE members on disorderly conduct charges or violations of whatever local ordinance could be made to apply. On May 18, 1974, Leesing and Janet Africa, both pregnant at the time, were so brutally beaten by Rizzo's police that they both had miscarriages. By 1975, clashes between MOVE and the police reached increasingly brutal proportions, with frequent beatings, arrests and jail stays. On April 29, 1975, Alberta Africa, pregnant at the time, was held spread-eagle by four officers and repeatedly kicked in the stomach and vagina by a matron named Robinson, suffering a miscarriage as a result.
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Leonard Peltier
Leonard Peltier, a citizen of the Anishinabe and Lakota Nations, is a father, a grandfather, an artist, a writer, and an Indigenous rights activist. He has spent more than twenty-seven years in prison for a crime he did not commit. Amnesty International considers him a “political prisoner” who should be “immediately and unconditionally released.” To the international community, the case of Leonard Peltier is a stain on America's Human Rights record. Nelson Mandela, Rigoberta Menchu, the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights, the Dalai Lama, the European Parliament, the Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, and Rev. Jesse Jackson are only a few who have called for his freedom. To many Indigenous Peoples, Leonard Peltier is a symbol of the long history of abuse and repression they have endured. The National Congress of American Indians and the Assembly of First Nations, representing the majority of First Nations in the U.S. and Canada, have repeatedly called for Leonard Peltier's freedom.
Leonard Peltier was born on the Anishinabe (Chippewa) Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota. He came from a large family. He grew up in poverty, and survived many traumatic experiences resulting from U.S. government policies aimed to assimilate Native Peoples. At the age of eight he was taken from his family and sent to a residential boarding school for Native people run by the US Government. There, the students were forbidden to speak their languages and they suffered both physical and psychological abuses. As he grew older, he began traveling with his father as a migrant farm worker. While following the harvests, they stayed at different reservations. During this time, he came to learn that policies of relocation, poverty, and racism were endemic issues affecting tribes across the U.S.
In 1965, Leonard Peltier moved to Seattle, Washington, where he was active in the founding of a Native halfway house for ex-prisoners. His community volunteer work included Native Land Claim issues, alcohol counseling, and participation in protests concerning the preservation of Native land within the city of Seattle.
In the late 1960's and early 1970's Leonard Peltier began traveling to different Native communities. He became involved with the American Indian Movement (AIM) and eventually joined the Denver Colorado chapter. In Denver, he worked as a community counselor confronting unemployment, alcohol problems and poor housing. He became strongly involved in the spiritual and traditional programs of AIM. His participation in AIM led to his involvement in the 1972 Trail of broken Treaties which took him to Washington D.C., in the occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs building. Eventually his AIM involvement would bring him to assist the Oglala Lakota People of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota in the mid 1970's. On Pine Ridge he participated in the planning of community activities, religious ceremonies, programs for self-sufficiency, and improved living conditions. He also helped to organize security for the traditional people who were being targeted for violence by the pro-assimilation tribal chairman and his vigilantes. It was here that the tragic shoot-out of June 26, 1975 occurred, leading to his wrongful conviction. Despite the harsh conditions of imprisonment, Leonard Peltier has continued to lead an active life.
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Dhoruba Al-Mujahid
Dhoruba al-Mujahid bin Wahad, a former Black Panther leader, says a government conspiracy framed him for the machine-gunning of two police officers in 1971. He was freed in 1990 after his conviction was reversed. He claims that the authorities wrongly convicted him for the attempted murder of two New York City police officers, then stuck him in a cell for nearly 19 years.
Mr. Wahad filed a federal lawsuit against the F.B.I. and the city, arguing that he was a victim of the smear campaign and that the F.B.I. and the New York police had worked together to spread dissension within the Black Power movement. The suit said that the authorities had dipped into a bag of dirty tricks that included illegal wiretaps, office burglaries and the dissemination of inflammatory lies by agents who infiltrated the movement. As a result of Mr. Wahad's suit, the F.B.I. slowly released more than 300,000 pages of secret documents about Cointelpro.
Mr. Wahad was known as Richard Moore when he was a field lieutenant for the Black Panthers and a circulation manager for the party's daily newspaper during the Vietnam War era. He now lives in Ghana, where he runs cultural programs for West African youth, managing a pair of hip-hop groups and working with a local dance troupe.
Excerpt of Wahad's writings---“Toward Rethinking Self-Defense in a Racist Culture: Black Survival in a United States In Transition”:
http://users.rcn.com/beecee.interport/dhoruba1.htm
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George Jackson
George Jackson, like Malcolm X before him, educated himself painfully behind prison bars to the point where his clear vision of historical and contemporary reality and his ability to communicate his perspective frightened the U.S. power structure into physically liquidating him. Jackson’s survival for so many years in vicious jails, his self-education, and his publication of “Soledad Brother” were tremendous personal achievements, and in addition they offer on interesting insight into the revolutionary potential of the black mass in the U.S.A.
The author of "Soledad Brother" and "Blood in My Eye" and a charismatic leader among prisoners and the oppressed generally, Jackson combined 10 years of participation in the prison struggle with the study and spreading of scientific socialism. In no small way, Jackson's persistent injection of anti-capitalist class consciousness into the movement was responsible for the emergence of a huge wave of prison struggles and uprisings across the country. His assassination is said to have helped touch off the September 9-13, 1971 rebellion at Attica State Prison in New York, prompting the bloodiest suppression of an inmate uprising in U.S. history.
Today, as record numbers of Americans languish behind bars, as the political contours of America more and more resemble those he predicted with great foresight, George Jackson re-emerges as a towering figure in America's revolutionary legacy.
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Mumia Abu-Jamal
Mumia Abu-Jamal (born Wesley Cook April 24 ,1954 ) is a journalist and political activist , most famous for his 1982 conviction and death sentence for the December 9th murder of officer Daniel Faulkner , and for the subsequent mass campaigns for and against him. Jamal had been awaiting execution in Pennsylvania from 1982 until December 2001 when Federal District Court judge William Yohn overturned his death sentence. However, Yohn reaffirmed Jamal's conviction, ruling that he will remain in custody indefinitely, even though organizations ranging from Amnesty International , the European Parliament, and the Japanese Diet to several national U.S. trade union federations (ILWU, AFSCME, SEIU, the national postal union) and the 1.8 million member California Labor Federation have declared the original trial unfair and either demand a new trial or Abu-Jamal's immediate release.
Human Rights Watch noted serious concerns about the fairness of his trial, particularly the heavy reliance during the sentencing phase on information regarding his political beliefs and associations. According to Amnesty International 's website, while they are "not in a position to say whether Mumia Abu-Jamal is innocent or guilty", they have concluded that the proceedings used to convict and sentence Mumia Abu-Jamal to death were in violation of minimum international standards that govern fair trial procedures and the use of the death penalty."
Jamal's supporters say that since Jamal had taken a high profile position with the Black Panther Party as a teenager, he could have been a target of the FBI's COINTELPRO program, whose purpose was to harass, disrupt and destroy popular political groups such as the BPP. Several other Black Panthers who were convicted of various crimes, including murder, have been released when it was learned that the FBI withheld evidence which would have acquitted them, such as Geronimo Pratt.
Since his imprisonment, Abu-Jamal has continued his political activism, publishing “Live from Death Row”, a book on life inside prisons, as well as making frequent commentaries on radio shows. While in prison, Abu-Jamal completed his Bachelor of Arts from Goddard College , and earned an Master of Arts from California State University, Dominguez Hills , both by distance education .
Mumia Abu-Jamal’s Freedom Journal:
http://www.mumia.org/freedom.now/
