Muhammad Ali – RE EXAMINING GREATNESS
By Dr. William Small
South Carolina

On Friday, June 3, 2016, a singularly important African American icon transitioned into the realm of our ancestors. All of the major media outlets were quick to bombard their audiences with words and statements of praise and adulation for the life and the deeds of Muhammad Ali. It is not unusual for individuals who enjoy public celebrity to be more favorably referred to in death than they were in life. Perhaps praise becomes a balm for the conscience of those of us who are temporarily left behind. In this instance, I did not have the sense or the feeling that the media was doing what the media often routinely does. Instead, for me, the words of praise and regret were couched in the comfort and assurance of the words of the spiritual which said: “Oh grave, you can’t hold my body down”. 

As Black people, I suggest that we especially need to become increasingly sensitive to the nature and essence of what and how we celebrate. We must insure that our legitimate emotional expressions are accompanied by a responsible degree of political consciousness. Thus, we will be able to conceptualize and fully appreciate the dimensional significance of what it is that we are, in fact, celebrating. It is through the incorporation of structure and discipline in our celebrations, that we can preserve the integrity of our world view and defend our collective interests, as we express ourselves publicly on all matters of social and political importance. This discipline is also a safe guard against our getting caught up in the rapture of confusing “popular” momentary and limited political acceptance, with the existence of friendships and alliances that translate into political solidarity and collective strength. It was this kind of clarity with respect to the principled engagement of issues that distinguished Muhammad Ali as a leader among leaders and made him a hero to “his people” and to legions of admirers around the world.

Although Muhammad Ali was a professional boxer, arguably, his most important fights and his greatest victories were fought and won outside of the boxing ring. There, outside of the ring, his victories helped a nation to see more clearly the dangers that lurk in the valleys and in the menacing shadows of death cast by an unjust war. It was his politics and moral stances outside of the ring that helped a needy world to see the peace that can be found on the shores of our human experience when touched by life’s still waters.

In spite of the uniqueness and the legitimate claims of “specialness” that are associated with the life of Brother Ali, we must not fail to see the bond that he shared with millions of Black people and others who dared to take a principled stand or to be a drum major for justice. Here I am reminded of a very simple truth that is confirmed by my knowledge and understanding of history. That truth being that Black men in America who gain a measure of celebrity for accepting the responsibility to move the needle of “Black Progress” from tacit acceptance to real empowerment, can expect to encounter the wrath of white supremacy. This holds whether or not the individual is rich or poor, young or old, revolutionary or nonviolent, Christian or other, American or foreign born. It matters not if the name is King, “X”, or Cosby, DuBois, Robeson, Garvey, Robinson, Till, Evers, Barry, or Barack. You may expect to be challenged by a political system containing pit falls and walls of race based injustice which mark the domestic and international landscape. It will do so passively at times and violently at other times, but it will at all times be accompanied by intentionally destructive forces. These negative omnipresent forces seek to diminish the value of any Black individual, institution or body that is courageous enough to unapologetically seek social, political and economic justice for the marginalized.

Muhammad Ali “shook up the world”, by knocking out Sonny Liston. But Muhammad Ali “really shook up the world” by demonstrating to the so called world powers, outside of the boxing ring, that, as a young man with a worldwide following, he understood his responsibility as a black man, and as a global role model. He demonstrated that he was not afraid to sacrifice money and celebrity in order to stand for principle, his ethnic integrity, and as a respecter of humanity and other things sacred.

As we celebrate the life and work of Muhammad Ali, let us think past the “Thriller in Manila” and the “Rumble in the Jungle”. Let us instead remember Muhammad Ali’s greatest fights outside of the boxing ring. Let us remember and celebrate what he gave up to fight those fights, because he valued his integrity and his desire not to see himself, his people, and others compromised by the forces of white supremacy and the attempt to reinforce the effects of its domestic and international agenda.

Let us also think about the responsibility that we must carry as we continue on our journey to preserve our personal and collective integrity; and to secure political, economic and social justice for ourselves and our fellow human beings. Long Live the Champ!

Dr. Small can be contacted at williamsmalljr@gmail.com

A message of the screen during a prayer vigil at the Joy Metropolitan Community Church after a fatal shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida on Sunday, June 12, 2016. (AP Photo – Chris O. Meara)

On Friday, June 10, many Americans were awestruck by the outpouring of affection that was displayed at the funeral of The Greatest, Muhammad Ali, in Louisville, Kentucky.  The inspiring story of a relentless champion of justice, who had sacrificed a career in the name of peace, and who nevertheless returned to triumph, strengthened and guided by his faith in Islam.  The legacy of a child of Louisville who had risen from humble beginnings to global supremacy and international stardom, and who in his later life would demonstrate that the diminishment of physical skills and abilities was no barrier to the will to become an international icon of human rights, global peace and devotion to the Creator.  The example of a nation which had once reviled him, but ultimately had learned to honor the dignity that had made him so much better than the nation that had once tried to destroy him.  The message that, through connection with the Almighty, by whatever name you use, you can overcome all obstacles and become a symbol of justice and love.

By the middle of the weekend, these same Americans were witness to what has gone on record as the worst mass shooting in the nation’s history.  At this writing, 50 dead and 53 seriously wounded.  A community, mostly LGBT, that has found itself under fire throughout history, now having been subjected to personal violence on a scale not seen before.  A single shooter, not previously known for his religious beliefs (for all we know at this time, he had none), but who has now become a handy reference for those who wish to once again stoke fears of “Islamic terrorism”.  And, once again, a spirituality that has been victimized by the blind hatred of a group of cruel zealots and the “terrorist propaganda” of the Right being painted as a spirituality of hate, despite the fact that “Islam” translates into “peace” in English.

The following commentary was written by sports and social-issues columnist Dave Zirin of The Nation, who had just attended the funeral of Muhammad Ali, and whose words of admonishment to an often overly-judgmental nation were shared with the Atlanta-based organization Justice Initiative.  We thank Ms. Heather Gray and Justice Initiative for this commentary.

The Orlando Killings and the Message of Muhammad Ali’s Funeral
The people who witnessed Ali’s interfaith service need to take its lessons  forward in a post-Orlando world.
By Dave Zirin
The Nation

There are no words regarding the emotional whiplash I feel, having attended Muhammad Ali’s funeral on Friday and now, on Sunday, attending a vigil in Washington, DC, for the 50-and counting-slaughtered at the Pulse in Orlando on Saturday. Was this really all the same weekend? The juxtaposition is beyond tragic.

To hear about the remorseless killing of predominantly Latino LGBT people during Pride month is shattering enough. To then see Donald Trump and a collection of the worst anti-gay bigots be boastful, almost gleeful, about it because the shooter was Muslim is all the worse. Muhammad Ali, as eulogist Billy Crystal said, truly devoted the last half of his life to building bridges. These bridges are fragile; that’s what makes them matter. It is so much easier to just burn them down, and that is exactly what one shooter aimed to do, and now in death he is being assisted by an entire right-wing apparatus, which despises bridges about as much as it detests irony.

Never mind that by all accounts, we know that the shooter-whose name I will not write-was an American citizen. Never mind that he bought the automatic weapons legally, or was a violent misogynist, or worked for one of those shadowy global private security firms for almost a decade, or wasn’t even religious. The fact is that powerful people are demanding their villain of choice. So it won’t be the gun nuts, or those poisoned by seeing women as objects of violence, or the internal culture of these private security firms. It will be Muslims. That’s their narrative of choice.

It’s all so awful. And yet I can think of no better response to this cavalcade of hate than the message of Muhammad Ali ‘s funeral. The entire interfaith service was a testament-an act of resistance-against anti-Islamic bigotry, symbolized by the fact that the most powerful voice against this strain of hatred was Rabbi Michael Lerner, although he was hardly alone. The entire day brought together people of all faiths and no faiths from all over the world to celebrate a person who was tough enough to stand up to empire, racism, and the US state, as well as kind enough to care about the future of humanity.

At the painstakingly constructed service, as she said goodbye to her husband of 30 years in front of family, friends, 22,000 people at KFC Yum! Stadium, and the world, Yolanda Ali spoke the following truth. She said, “Muhammad wants us to see the face of his religion, al-Islam, true Islam, as the face of love. It was his religion that caused him to turn away from war and violence. For his religion, he was prepared to sacrifice all that he had and all that he was to protect his soul and follow the teachings of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. So even in death, Muhammad has something to say. He is saying that his faith required that he take the more difficult road. It is far more difficult to sacrifice oneself in the name of peace than to take up arms in pursuit of violence.”

She also said the following, and it is sending a chill down my spine to even transcribe these words: “You know, as I reflect on the life of my husband, it’s easy to see his most obvious talents. His majesty in the ring as he danced under those lights enshrined him as a champion for the ages. Less obvious was his extraordinary sense of timing. His knack for being in the right place at the right time seemed to be ordained by a higher power.”

We need-desperately-to recognize the timing of Ali’s passing, crossing the same weekend as the worst mass shooting in US history. We need to use his death to promote an alternate vision to the competing fundamentalisms that want to turn our world into two warring camps: camps that hold a common agreement of seeing the LGBT community as something to demonize, oppress, and, when opportunity strikes, kill. We need the memory and voice of Muhammad Ali now more than ever. We need to remember the person who understood the importance of using his own funeral as a last act of resistance. We need the example of someone who said, “In war, the intention is to kill, kill, kill, kill and continue killing innocent people!” That war has come home, not just in Orlando but amid the lives of innocent families across the Middle East.

We need, above all else, the example of someone who put it all on the line to resist this mindless violence, because that will be our task in the very immediate future.

One year has passed since the death of Freddie Gray in police custody and the Baltimore Uprising that followed it.  Police Commissioner Anthony Batts has been fired, replaces by Kevin Davis.  The Maryland Legislature passed reforms to the hiring, firing and discipline procedures of the Baltimore Police Department in April, but did not make much-needed changes in the Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights (LEOBR), such as the institution of civilian review boards or the elimination of the ten-day “waiting period” before a police officer must officially answer charges regarding brutality cases. And while the case of Freddie Gray continues its agonizing creep towards what people hope will be some form of justice, the cases of Tyrone West (who was killed by police two years ago) and Keith Davis Jr. (who survived an encounter last summer), two other recent victims of police violence, remain unresolved to the satisfaction  of their families and of community activists, and more instances of police brutality and misconduct have been uncovered over the last year by quick-thinking community members armed with cell phone cameras.

Articles have been written in such publications as the Baltimore Sun, the Baltimore City Paper, Black Enterprise magazine, the Intercept (“After Freddie, We Woke Up”, https://theintercept.com/2016/04/26/a-year-after-the-baltimore-uprising-the-real-work-is-just-beginning/) and others.  Countless radio talk shows have discussed the ongoing and festering situation in Baltimore City – crime, economic depression, continued incidents between citizens and police, and what many see as a mass media that fails, or refuses, to understand the institutional racism that underpins the current system.

Keeping the Fire Lit

While some of us have moved on with our lives in an attempt to “transcend” (read “forget”) what happened last year (despite the constant updates on the trials of the six police officers involved in his death) and the mass media has put its own spin on what led to the Uprising, several local and regional activist organizations refuse to forget and are doing what they can to ensure that we don’t forget either. 

There have been protests and commemorations of Freddie Gray to nark this grim one-tear anniversary.  The Sandtown neighborhood where Freddie lived has seen an increase in community organizing in the last year.  And organizations continue to hold discussion forums and community-organizing events to shake us all awake and, hopefully, keep us there.

On Friday, April 29, Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle (LBS) held A Year After the Uprising: Reflections from the Grassroots, a discussion as part of their Malcolm X Talks series in which they discussed the issues of income inequality, gentrification and police violence and misconduct that still fester in Baltimore City and which, given sufficient provocation, could lead to another Uprising.  Issues of what LBS leaders Dayvon Love and Lawrence Grandpre describe as “Anti-Blackness” in their recent release The Black Book were discussed in the context of the political, social and economic situation in Baltimore City, and several members of the audience shared their thoughts and concerns in what was a lively discussion of institutional and systemic racism in Baltimore.

A Solidarity Statement from Black-Led Organizations

LBS was not the only organization speaking out in observance of the one year that has passed since Freddie Gray’s death and the Baltimore Uprising.  The Public Justice Center (info@publicjustice.org) released the following announcement and then shared a joint statement from nine Black-led organizations:

On April 18th, leaders of nine Black-led organizations working for racial justice and economic development in Baltimore’s Black communities released a Statement of Solidarity to commemorate the first anniversary of the Baltimore Uprising. Their statement offers a counter-narrative to the mainstream media’s framing of last April’s events: making clear that the Uprising was not just about the death of Freddie Gray, and that Black-led as well as other organizations continue to work in those communities the media and policy makers have forgotten.

The Public Justice Center is one of those other organizations, and fully supports this Statement of Solidarity and its commitment to community-led struggle. The PJC is currently a white-led organization. We use legal tools to pursue social justice, economic and race equity, and fundamental human rights.  

Many of our projects target the issues that impact neighborhoods like Mr. Gray’s, neighborhoods that experience historical and current police abuse and racist disinvestment, and the entrenched poverty, lack of economic opportunity, and substandard housing that are its consequences. We represent tenants facing eviction and substandard housing conditions, workers whose earned wages are stolen by their employers, homeless, foster, and unaccompanied youth who are struggling to get their free and appropriate public education, and families who desperately need health care.

One of our projects specifically supports community organizing efforts that are Black-led and whose membership is of the impacted neighborhoods. The Public Justice Center and Right to Housing Alliance (RTHA) released the report Justice Diverted: How Renters Are Processed in Baltimore City’s Rent Court. Now the PJC’s Human Right to Housing Project is working with the 7,000 Families Campaign, whose coalition members include RTHA, Baltimore Bloc, Showing Up for Racial Justice, Jews United for Justice, Bristol House, Chase House, and BALT, and is demanding reforms at the courts, City Hall, and Annapolis.  

The PJC is also a founding member of the Baltimore Housing Roundtable, which released the report Community + Land + Trust: Tools for Development Without Displacement. The Baltimore Housing Roundtable is advocating for community-controlled land trusts to wrest control of our housing from developers and governments, and to create affordable housing and good paying jobs for low-income residents.

The media and policy makers may have moved on from the people who live in neighborhoods like Freddie Gray’s, but the Movement has only grown stronger in the last year, and the Public Justice Center is committed to being a supportive ally in solidarity with community-led and Black-led organizations.

We’ve decided to share that Statement of Solidarity here:

Statement of  Solidarity from Black-led Organizations
Commemorating 1 Year Anniversary of Baltimore Uprising

On April 18th — one day before the death of Freddie Gray — concerned Baltimoreans protested in front of the Western District Building: an initial and powerful symbol of community coming together to protest police abuses in African American communities. For a little over 2 weeks, “mainstream” media developed as its primary narrative one of “violent rioters” with little historical context or analysis.

On this one-year Anniversary of the Baltimore Uprising, we the undersigned — leaders of Black-led organizations working for racial justice and Black economic development — offer the following narrative: one in which “mainstream” media has shown no interest, and one that is happening every day in communities of color like the one in which Freddie Gray lived and died:

• The Baltimore Uprising was not just about the death of Freddie Gray. The Uprising was the birth of a social movement that is multi-faceted, still developing, and operating as direct service in communities, advocacy efforts regarding policy, philanthropic efforts, and collaborative efforts to promote and support Black empowerment, leadership, and agency.

• Black-led, as well as other, organizations continue to work in those communities the media and policy-makers have forgotten. From the focus on creating more effective philanthropy and equitable policies by an Associated Black Charities or an Equity Matters; to clothing and food drives and policy advocacy by a Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle; to addressing the mental health and healing needs by a Black Mental Health Alliance; to using faith as a social change tool like a KineticsLive or a Muslim Community Cultural Center of Baltimore; to providing world-class data and other analysis from an African American worldview by a Morgan State University Institute of Urban Research; to teaching our children from an African Diasporic perspective by Orita’s Cross Freedom School and Pleasant Hope Baptist Church; to consulting and coaching for institutional transformation toward racial equity by Baltimore Racial Justice Action: the fight for justice for children, families, and communities of color has never stopped.

• We acknowledge the Generational Struggle. Many would say “this is not your granddaddy’s movement.” And it is not. Today, even in the midst of injustice we have more protections than our foremothers and fathers and we give thanks to those upon whose shoulders we stand. We also recognize the differences in today’s Movement and while we honor the past, we understand that each generation forges its own way and re-makes the Movement in the image of the social circumstances and injustices of the day while maintaining its continuous generational cord. And as a multi-generational movement, we are unwavering in our support of each other.

And so this Movement stands.

We stand in the umbrella of what happened to Freddie Gray and a multitude of others across the country, and in the hope that justice will be done for those accused.

We understand that “universalists” policies that perpetuate and then ignore racialized implementations and impacts are inexcusable forms of violence that our children have to face every day; forms of violence that truncate their opportunities and access, and in doing so, kill their futures. We clearly see that this violence is so normal — and color-coded — that it is easy to deny and normal to ignore.

And we stand in the knowledge that – despite the prevailing social narrative — we continue to be committed to saving ourselves.

On this one-year anniversary of the Baltimore Uprising, we recommit: recommit to fighting for a future for our young ones and our Elders, for those disenfranchised, and for those who have economically “made it” but still live in the shadow of America’s “original sin”: racism.

We understand that after 400 years, our story is still being written and told but this time, the narrative will be our own.

We, the undersigned, are still in The Struggle, remembering Freddie Gray and all who have come before – and preparing those who will emerge.

SIGNERS*:

*WE WELCOME ALL OTHER SIGNERS TO THIS STATEMENT

For a brief time between the years 2010 and 2012, I had the privilege to correspond in writing with Omaha, Nebraska Political Prisoner Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa  (born David Rice), also known as Mondo we Langa or simply “Mondo” for short.  Our correspondence led me to write a few articles in KUUMBAReport Newsletter about his case.  During that period, I would occasionally be invited to Political Prisoner events in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and New York City to speak about Marshall “Eddie” Conway, another Veteran of the Black Panther Party as was Mondo, who was also serving a life sentence on what we believe to be trumped-up charges of murdering a police officer, this one in Baltimore, Maryland.  I would make it a point to also discuss Mondo’s case as I talked about Eddie.  Eddie Conway is now free, having been released from prison two years ago.  But Mondo’s freedom would only come through an embrace by the Honored Ancestors.

My communication with Mondo broke off after a few years, an oversight which I had planned to correct later this year as my schedule became less hectic. But time waits for no one, especially not those of us who languish behind the walls of unjust imprisonment.  The harsh reality of incarceration for one’s political organizing, under the guise of a trumped-up charge which any cursory review of the evidence would make clear, certainly makes such imprisonment all the more difficult to bear.  Eventually, the body weakens, even when the spirit remains strong.

My failure to maintain my communication with Baba Mondo is now a sin – yes, a sin – which I will not have an opportunity to correct.  Sadly, Mondo suffered respiratory failure on March 11, 2016 and has transitioned to the Ancestors.  What follows is my feeble attempt to pay homage to his memory, with the aid of perhaps Mondo’s greatest champion in the press over the last several years.

Michael Richardson, journalist for the COINTELPRO Examiner (http://examiner.com) is the most prominent and perhaps the only journalist in the country to have consistently reported on the case of the men who came to be known as The Omaha Two over at least the last several years.  Thus, it is no surprise that the bulk of the current information on the case of Mondo we Langa and Ed Poindexter has come from his articles, and there is much more on the Examiner web site than we could relate here.  Mr. Richardson is to be saluted for his commitment to uncover the truth about the unjust prosecution of The Omaha Two, especially in light of recent revelations concerning admissions of former president Richard Nixon’s aide John Ehrlichman (http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie/index.html) about the use of the “drug war” and other fictitious or exaggerated crime statistics to unjustly criminalize Black and anti-war activists in the 1970s.

From Michael Richardson’s articles in The Examiner:

Mondo we Langa died on March 11 of respiratory failure at the Nebraska State Penitentiary where he had served forty-five years of a life sentence. Mondo and Edward Poindexter were convicted of the 1970 bombing murder of an Omaha policeman following a controversial April 1971 trial marred by a withheld FBI Laboratory report, tampered dynamite evidence by ATF, and false testimony by Omaha police and Duane Peak, the confessed bomber. The pair, later called the Omaha Two, had been targeted because they were leaders of Omaha’s chapter of the National Committee to Combat Fascism, a Black Panther affiliate group.

The Omaha Two were convicted after a controversial trial marred by a withheld FBI Laboratory report as a part of the infamous COINTELPRO operation. Additionally, the clothing of both Poindexter and Mondo turned up with dynamite particles, after the clothes were in custody of the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Division. ATF was engaged in an intense rivalry with the FBI for jurisdiction of bombing cases. A published photograph in the Omaha World-Herald of Mondo with his hands in his pockets disproves that dynamite particles were there at the time of his surrender. Mondo’s hands tested clean despite an allegedly dirty pocket. At the local police level two different detectives, Jack Swanson and Robert Pfeffer, have both claimed under oath to have found dynamite in Mondo’s basement, each one contradicting the other.

Mondo and Poindexter were leaders of Omaha’s affiliate chapter of the Black Panther Party called the National Committee to Combat Fascism. The two men were also named targets of the clandestine COINTELPRO counterintelligence operation conducted by the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover. The Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Division was in a fierce rivalry with the FBI over the investigation of bombings and had also targeted Mondo and Poindexter under the so-called Midwest 22 investigation.

Agents of both the FBI and ATF joined the Omaha Police Department in making a case against the two Panther leaders for the August 17, 1970 bomb murder of Patrolman Larry Minard, Sr.

Mr. Richardson’s articles laid bare the instances of tampered evidence, withheld testimony and fabricated evidence against The Omaha Two. The Examiner article “Former governor condemned Nebraska justice in Omaha Two case” (http://www.examiner.com/article/former-governor-condemned-nebraska-justice-omaha-two-case) shared the accusations of former Nebraska governor Frank Morrison regarding police and prosecutorial misconduct in the case:

The late Frank Morrison, a former Nebraska governer, was appointed Douglas County Public Defender in Omaha in 1971. Three months into his new job, Morrison defended Edward Poindexter, a Black Panther leader, at a murder trial where Poindexter faced the electric chair. Poindexter and co-defendant Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa, former David Rice, were charged with the bombing death of Patrolman Larry Minard, Sr.

Morrison managed to keep his client out of the electric chair but failed to clear Poindexter of the charge. … However, what neither attorney nor client knew was that the evidence was tampered with in the case and that the two defendants, now known as the Omaha Two, were targets of a clandestine counterintelligence program of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Morrison made a public apology to Ed Poindexter in 1997 for his handling of the case.

“As a citizen, a former prosecutor and Governor of this state, I abhor, detest and condemn the cowardly, cruel and unjustified murder of officer Minard. My heart aches for his family. The guilty parties should pay the penalty. The self-confessed murderer was turned loose after a slap on the wrist.”

“In my opinion, it is just as important for the state to protect the innocent as to prosecute the guilty. As Public Defender of Douglas County, it was my official duty to represent Ed Poindexter. He told me then that he was innocent of this crime, and I still believe him. We did not have the resources in the Public Defender’s office to get all of the facts in this case. … Racial feelings in North Omaha were rampant….It was impossible for them to get a fair trial. … I firmly believe that with adequate funds to investigate the case, I could have cleared both Rice and Poindexter in spite of the poisoned atmosphere created by racially inspired rhetoric. … I had been a prosecuting attorney, Governor, and Chairman of the Board of Pardons and Paroles. I was acquainted with many of our justice system’s shortcomings, but nothing brought it home to me like serving as Public Defender. In practice, there was no such thing as equality before the law.”

Frank Morrison went to his grave believing in the innocence of Ed Poindexter and considered the conviction of the Omaha Two as the lowest point of his professional career.

Mondo we Langa, left, during his arrest.

But Morrison was not the only prominent official whose investigation concluded that Mondo and Ed Poindexter were railroaded. In the article “Forensic expert suspected ATF tampering of evidence in Omaha Two case”  (http://www.examiner.com/article/forensic-expert-suspected-atf-tampering-of-evidence-omaha-two-case), Fred Whitehurst, a retired FBI Laboratory supervisor, makes several shocking allegations:

Retired FBI Laboratory supervisor Fred Whitehurst provided professional consultation to the Nebraskans for Justice beginning in 1999. Whitehurst, a sixteen-year FBI veteran, was for a number of years the FBI Laboratory top explosives expert. Whitehurst turned his forensic investigative skills to the Omaha Two cases of Edward Poindexter and Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa (former David Rice).

Whitehurst ended his career with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1998 as a whistleblower against sloppy science at the FBI Laboratory. Whitehurst’s disclosures uncovered and reported scientific misconduct which forced the Bureau to adopt forty major reforms, including an accreditation process.

Whitehurst’s critique also impugns the involvement and conduct of ATF Agent Thomas Sledge, a former Omaha policeman, who was in charge of the evidence. Part of that evidence included dynamite particles that were allegedly found in the clothing of Mondo and Ed Poindexter, particles that Whitehurst is certain were planted.

Sledge also spearheaded the Midwest 22 investigation, a four-state conspiracy case the United States Attorney later ordered dropped. Seven of the witnesses at the Minard murder trial were also subjects of Sledge’s Midwest 22 investigation. Sledge’s brother, James Sledge, an Omaha patrolman, was injured at the scene of the Minard bombing.

“I am troubled by the fact…Thomas Sledge was allowed to conduct this investigation. It is not even short of outrageous,” wrote Whitehurst.

“There is mention of dynamite particles found. I still find that suspicious. The dynamite is in cartridges that don’t need to be opened ever except to punch a hole in them and stick a blasting cap in them. But there are dynamite particles in many places. This is not right. …Something doesn’t add up here unless that evidence was salted.”

Tributes for Mondo we Langa

Mr. Richardson also included tributes to Mondo from those who knew him. Indeed, his articles are a treasure trove of information on one if the United States’ longest-held Political Prisoners.  A witness for Mondo ay his trial, Rae Ann Schmitz, not only believes in Mondo’s innocence but she also credits him with having been a positive influence on her life and the lives of many others (http://www.examiner.com/article/mondo-s-alibi-witness-wants-exoneration-for-former-black-panther-leader):

Rae Ann Schmitz, the alibi witness for Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa, formerly David Rice, at his April 1971 murder trial, still stands by Mondo’s innocence and credits him with changing her life. Schmitz told the Scottsbuff Star Herald that she is certain that many people have been influenced by Mondo who died March 11 at the Nebraska State Penitentiary. Mondo was serving a life sentence for the 1970 murder of an Omaha policeman.

“He was in a place where he could affect people in a very profound way….I think there were hundreds of people positively affected by his life behind those walls,” Schmitz said.

Schmitz was Mondo we Langa’s alibi witness for a bombing murder that claimed the life of Larry Minard, Sr.  However, Schmitz was also an alibi witness for Mondo when he was supposed to have met with fifteen year-old Duane Peak to give him the bomb.

David Herzog, Mondo’s defense lawyer, failed to question her regarding the alleged meeting between Mondo and Peak, and also failed to adequately question Peak on inconsistencies in his testimony.

Mondo raised the issue of ineffective assistance by counsel in a recent appeal. An Omaha judge tossed out Mondo’s appeal, in part, because Mondo purportedly did not allege his innocence properly in the appeal. The Nebraska Supreme Court then dismissed Mondo’s appeal without bothering to issue a written opinion explaining the decision.

Schmitz told the Scottsbluff newspaper, “People don’t want to believe that our justice system is so [messed] up.”

Pete O’Neal, a veteran of the Black Panther Party in Kanssas City who is now living in self-imposed exile in Tanzania, commented on Mondo’s passing for The Examiner (http://www.examiner.com/article/exiled-black-panther-pete-o-neal-on-waposhitwe-mondo-eyen-we-langa):

“The passing of brother Mondo we Langa was shocking and disturbing, I think most of us imagined and looked forward to the day when he and Poindexter would walk out of the prison in which they have been unjustly held for more than four decades. … When I recall the many visits both brothers made to Kansas City an image comes to mind of two strong young men, totally committed to our struggle, I recall their participating in our community programs and never flinching from the heavy workload that all the members of the Kansas City chapter were required to perform, they were involved in our political education classes and never hesitated to criticize where criticism was needed. Mondo and Poindexter were an inspiration to us all and most importantly they continue to inspire by the manner in which they held fast to their principles and convictions. … I recently saw current photos of these political prisoners and it was obvious the toll these many years of inhuman imprisonment had taken on their physical bodies, but at the same time I noticed with admiration that the fire of righteous conviction was still in their eyes.”

“Mondo is free. He has slipped his bonds and embraced a well deserved freedom, and in doing so I like to believe he left us with a challenge, a challenge to redouble our efforts to free Poindexter and all political prisoners. … What a great testament to his life and struggle it would be if brother Poindexter were to walk free from the gates of confinement into the welcoming arms of his family and comrades. … Mondo we Langa lives! Free all political prisoners. Free them all!”

Amnesty International investigator Claus Walishewski also made statements concerning Mondo’s life and the unjust prosecution of Mondo and Ed Poindexter (http://www.examiner.com/article/amnesty-international-investigator-on-wopashitwe-mondo-eyen-we-langa-s-death).

Amnesty International investigated the case of the Omaha Two in the late 1970’s. …

A German investigator, Claus Walischewski, was assigned the case. Walischewski and his team studied the case for two years before concluding Mondo and Ed Poindeter were political prisoners: “The cooperation with the FBI, the FBI’s own activities, the promise of leniency to Peak, even evidence—all these were kept secret at the trial. The key witnesses disappears after the trial. There is only one conclusion to these peculiarities: Rice and Poindexter were readily implicated with a murder because they were the most prominent political activists in Omaha and had to be silenced.”

“They became victim of a frame-up by the police and the FBI and of the racial and political biases in court. Mr. Kingman Brewster, President of Yale University, stated in 1970 that he was ‘skeptical of the ability of black revolutionaries to achieve a fair trial anywhere in the United States’,” wrote Walischewski.

The Amnesty International work group stated their opinion: “David Rice and Ed Poindexter are political prisoners. They were sentenced for a crime they didn’t commit because of their radical political beliefs. … The murder of patrolman Minard appeared to be a welcome pretext to incriminate the two activists and strike a blow against the NCCF from which it couldn’t recover. The legal system was misused and they were unjustly convicted.”

Forty-five years later, Claus Walischewski still believes in Mondo’s innocence. Walischewski commented on Mondo’s recent death at the Nebraska State Penitentiary: “I just want to express my shock and disbelief when I learned of Mondo’s death….I had heard that Mondo’s health problems had worsened but I had no idea how serious they were, that’s why the news of his death took me by surprise.”

“I deeply deplore the fact that he had to spend most of his life in prison for a crime I believe he didn’t commit. He was born the same year as I and that makes it the more horrendous to me: so many years confined in prison, such injustice, no chance of living a normal life – how could he endure all this? Amnesty International took on his case in 1977 and only one year later I joined AI and started working on this case. In the 1990s I went to Nebraska and Minnesota and had a chance to meet Mondo and Ed in prison and thus developed a more personal commitment to their case. Numerous letters I wrote on their behalf – to no avail,” complained Walischewski.

“It makes me sad to know how harshly the US legal and political system deals with supposed enemies and is rarely willing to make up for injustices and manipulations that victims of racism have suffered. Another precious life spent! Can we hope that one day Mondo will be rehabilitated and cleared of the crime? That is still important, not only for Ed Poindexter, but also for Mondo’s relatives and friends and for all US citizens and people around the world like me who want justice to prevail.”

Mr. Richardson also has transcripts of interviews with Mondo on the Examiner website (http://www.examiner.com/article/prison-interviews-with-wopashitwe-mondo-eyen-we-langa).

Finally, the New York Jericho Movement, along with Mr. Richardson, have shared what is considered the last poem of Mondo we Langa:

The Last Poem of Political Prisoner Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa
Michael Richardson, March 13, 2016

Political prisoner Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa (former David Rice) died March 11 at the maximum-security Nebraska State Penitentiary. Mondo suffered from respiratory failure after forty-five long years in prison for a crime he denied, the murder of an Omaha policeman.

Mondo had been targeted, along with fellow inmate Edward Poindexter, by both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and agents of the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Division, because of affiliation with the Black Panther Party. Convicted after a controversial trial in 1971 that was marred by withheld evidence by the FBI, tampered evidence by ATF, and conflicting police testimony, the men became known as the Omaha Two.

Mondo stayed engaged in the outside world commenting on current events with essays and poetry. Two weeks before his death, Mondo mailed out a poem entitled “When It Gets To This Point” about shootings of unarmed black men around the country. Mondo’s last poem follows:

Michael Brown?
I had never heard of him
had never heard of anything he’d done before
the news of his death came
whoever he might have become
whatever he might have achieved
had he lived longer
not been riddled lifeless by
bullets from Darren Wilson’s gun
and crumpled on the pavement of a ferguson street
for more than four hours in
the heat of that august day
and before
I’d never known of Trayvon Martin
had known nothing of who he was
until I learned of his demise
and cause of death
a bullet to the chest
George Zimmerman, the shooter
a badge-less, pretend police
with a pistol
and fear of the darkness
Trayvon’s darkness
and after a while
the pictures, the names,
the circumstances
run together
like so much colored laundry in the wash
that bleeds on whites
was it Eric Garner or Tamir Rice
who was twelve but seen as twenty
Hulk Hogan or The Hulk
with demonic eyes it was said
who shrank the cop in ferguson
into a five-year-old who
had to shoot
and John Crawford the third
in a walmart store aisle
an air rifle in his hands he’d picked up
from the shelf
and held in the open
in an open-carry state
was it John or someone else
killed supposedly by mistake
in a dark stairwell
I know Akai Gurley fell
I hadn’t heard of him before
nor of Amadou Diallo or Sean Bell
prior to their killings
which of these two took slugs in the greater number
I don’t recall
my memory is too encumbered
with the names
of so many before and since
the frequent news reports of
non-arrests, non-indictments,
non-true bills
and duplicitous presentations by “experts in the field”
the consultants put out front
to explain away
that which is so often plain as day
to coax and convince us that we’re the ones
who can’s see straight and
can’t hear clearly
who are the ones replacing facts with spin
to mislead and mystify
as the beatings and the chokings and shootings
of our boys and men
by these wrong arms of the law
proceed in orderly fashion
before the sometimes sad
sometimes angry faces of
our uncertain
our hesitant
disbelief.

Rest in Power Baba Mondo. I wish I had stayed in closer contact with you over the last several years.  I hope that what I and others do from this time forward can in some small way truly honor your memory and the memory of all those who have unjustly passed on to the Ancestors in the captivity of this oppressive judicial system.

On Friday, January 29, 2016, the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (SRDC) hosted a discussion designed to encourage a more cooperative atmosphere among the Pan-Afrikan organizations in Baltimore, Maryland.  The event was named “Spokes of the Wheel” to describe a pictorial representation of how a variety of organizations with different missions, specialties and personalities might bring those qualities together into a Cooperative Coalition and this help make their work more effective for the community.

The event was held at the downtown Baltimore building of The Real News Network (TRNN), a non-profit, viewer-supported daily video-news and documentary service based in Baltimore, Maryland and Toronto, Canada. The event sponsor who made the venue available to SRDC for the event was Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle (LBS), a Pan-Afrikan grassroots think-tank based in Baltimore which hosts monthly Malcolm X Talks such as this one on Thursday and Friday evenings.

In attendance were representatives of several organizations whose statements are included below: local grassroots organizations, think tanks, revolutionary organizations, arts collectives, organizations with financial plans, spiritual organizations, as well as international organizations such as SRDC. Each organization present introduced itself, described its mission and spoke about the need to develop a Cooperative Coalition such as the one being discussed this day.

“We do need to get past the point where we talk about how we need to come together but we don’t actually do it”, said Bro. Cliff, Maryland State Facilitator of SRDC.  “Too many times, we see that and we hear that, and we say it to each other.  ‘Black people have to come together.’  And yet, the next year, we’re just as fragmented as we were the year before.” The idea is to find ways in which these organizations can function in a spirit of teamwork to achieve the overall goal of freedom and uplift for Afrikan people.

Lady Brianne, resident poet and one of the Cultural Curators of LBS, welcomed the audience to the event: “We are a policy think tank here in Baltimore, and we’re doing a lot of work, particularly now with the legislative session, around reform of the Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights (LEOBR). … One of the things we always need is support, whether it’s phone banking or going out to Annapolis with us, so I’m hoping you all can stay connected with us.  So I just wanted to welcome you all here tonight. …”

Seba Heru-Ka Anu of spiritual organization Ta Nefer Ankh officiated a Libation/Tambiko ceremony.

A brief discussion was held on the definition of the Afrikan Diaspora and the need for people of Afrikan descent in Afrika and the Diaspora to come together and, more importantly, to organize. SRDC’s specific proposal is the establishment of a Pan-Afrikan Cooperative Coalition that would include a broad spectrum of organizations.

Organizational Introductory Statements

Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle (LBS)
Bro. Lawrence Grandpre, Director of Research

LBS is a think tank that does research and develops policies in service to the Pan-Afrikan struggle. Right-wing think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation Cato Institute and Rand Corporation do similar work in service to corporate and right-wing interests, providing talking points to political leaders.

LBS was developed primarily at Towson University with debate teams there along with community activists such as Dayvon Love, Adam Jackson and Debra Murray.  LVS has traveled across the country and introduced a debate style that developed from Afrikan-centered traditions, using that to help direct policy discourse and influenced by such historic intellectuals as Dr. Naim Akbar and Dr. Marimba Ani.  LBS sees itself as “a too, for a larger movement of liberation for Afrikan people”, and notes among its accomplishments several regular programs such as the Summer Debate Camps, held at Morgan State University and Coppin State University, and the Marshall Eddie Conway Liberation Institute.

LBS regularly travels to Annapolis to lobby for changes in Maryland state legislation such as the Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights (LEOBR), which us seen as granting unreasonable levels of protection for police against criminal prosecution for acts of misconduct, harassment, brutality and other forms of corruption and oppressive tactics.  LBS is challenging the structure that “allows them to have no accountability for any of their actions … to force them to respect us.”  LBS uses “the power of the community instead of waiting for the Department of Justice” to come and save us or for “the police to learn to respect us.”

Ujima Peoples Progress Party (UPP)
Bro. Obasi, co-founder and spokesperson

UPP is a political party that is working to obtain ballot status “to challenge the state apparatus in the streets as well as the ballot. … We know that voting doesn’t solve our problems. We know that Afrikan people never got anything from voting.  Everything we got, we got with blood and we got it in the streets.

“We cannot have this conversation without talking about capitalism. We can’t have this conversation without talking about White Power.  And we can’t have this discussion without talking about imperialism.  Because all of it is interconnected.

“How we got started was, myself and a couple of my comrades are Pan Afrikan Internationalists. We believe that Afrika should be free and everybody should know their history.  We believe in a united Afrika, under the leadership of the working class, because it’s the workers that produce the wealth.  Bankers don’t produce the wealth, no stockbrokers, it’s the workers that produce the wealth.  We believe Afrika should be free and all the resources should be kept among Afrikans.

“So we have to ask ourselves: how do we free Afrika when we’re not in Afrika?  How do we fight imperialism?  Organization is our best weapon.  We have to have organization.  At the same time, until we destroy capitalism – because capitalism has to be destroyed – you can’t truly practice your culture, you can’t truly practice your spirituality under the rule of another people.  Let’s just keep it real.  It’s time for all the other discussions that some people want us to have, it’s time to eliminate that.  Because you can’t do these things if you have no power.

“Our job [as UPP] is we have to create liberated territory wherever we find ourselves in the world. Wherever we find ourselves in the world, our job is to control that ground … to reduce the influence of the state … the bureaucracy that’s causing all these atrocities.  We have to directly challenge the state.  We have to have all kinds of organizations.  We have to have these spiritual organizations.  We have to have these cultural and economic organizations. … Kwame Nkrumah said that neocolonialism is the last phase of imperialism. … White Power in Black Face, White Power in Business Face, the people who look like us, but serve the purpose of our enemies. … Barack Obama has us thinking that we’re making some progress, when we’re making no progress.  I think it was Malcolm X who said the Republicans put the knife in six inches, and the Democrats pull it out three and they talk about progress.  Well, Afrikans are free people, so when we talk about progress, we’ve got to talk about our progress in proximity to us getting free. … We’ve got to challenge them as well as in the streets; we’ve got to go to that electoral arena to challenge them.

“It’s cool to get voted in, but our job is to use that electoral process as an organizing and mobilizing tool, because all of us [here at this meeting] might have a little more awareness, but the masses of the people are at the polls. We have to create our own institutions to contend with the ruling class.  Our people’s loyalty to these [established] institutions is fickle.  We only have these institutions because we don’t have our own.

“We’ve got to get 10,000 registered voters to sign a petition so that we can get on the ballot. We want to go into our own communities.  Those people in Lexington Market are our people.  It’s going to be those young folks that are going to make that change.

“We’ve got to get 10,000 registered voters to sign the petition, get on the ballot and make history, and we can go in our own communities, run our own candidates and we can challenge these jokers and ‘shiny Negroes’ … because this is not a theoretical question. They’re murdering us.  We have a right to live just like everybody else.  And we’re not going to get it unless we get off our tails and fight.

“We have to create organizations, and this event right here, this is a real critical question right now. If organization is our best weapon, just imagine a bunch or organizations!

“They say it’s radical. We say it’s common sense to create your own institutions to assert your needs.  Even outside of elections, you’re going to see us in the streets, because politics is more than just voting.  You’ve got to be in the streets.  ‘Uhuru’ means ‘Freedom’.  It’s how we greet each other.  So I say ‘Uhuru Sasa.’  Freedom Now.”

Dr. Ken Morgan
UPP Faculty Advisor, Coppin State University

“Nnamdi Lumumba, State Coordinator for UPP, is running as an Independent in the Seventh Councilmanic District. We can’t affiliate as a Party [until UPP obtains the 10,000 signatures to get ballot access], but he is running as an Independent on the platform of the Ujima Peoples Progress Party. … We meet on Wednesdays.  We do mean business.  We have theory and we have practice, but the bottom line is, we must struggle to make it happen.”

Working, Organizing, Making A Nation (W.O.M.A.N.)
Prepared Statement

The following statement comes from the written literature of W.O.M.A.N.: “On January 15, 2009 W.O.M.A.N. officially began functioning as an organizing body. The plan to unite kindred organizations has been a key component from its inception as well as keying in on the active social engagement of all participating organizations comprising W.O.M.A.N. From inception, W.O.M.A.N. has been on the move to display practical unity for our community and not be content with empty, intellectual sound-bites of unity.

“W.O.M.A.N. views its mission as an economic/social calling to address the economic disunity of Black Nationalist, Pan-Afrikanist, Afrikan-Centered groups and organizations. Being progressive, aggressive and practical, W.O.M.A.N. wills itself to foment a fresh model of economic and social organizing. Thus by leading the way for grassroots efforts into the 21st century we unite theory with practice for high achievement. Our mission includes the pooling of funds and energies designed to (1) Fundraise and solicit funds to carry forth our noble purpose; (2) Illustrate the practice of Ujamaa as the model to learn from; (3) Support or create informational services to schools, community organizations and other non profit entities; and (4) Support or create networking capacities for organizations that serve youth, seniors and those with special needs.”

Ta Nefer Ankh
Seba Heru-Ka Anu, Founder and Director

“Our organization is a national organization founded in 1992. We pattern ourselves after the Honorable Marcus Garvey and the Honorable Malcolm X as a nationalist Pan-Afrikanist organization, but following also, leaders like Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop, Dr. Yosef ben-Jochannon and others who also called for a cultural context in which we organize ourselves, and so our community as we define it in Ta Nefer Ankh is an Afrikan-centered community.  What we focus on is mainly creating community.  One of the things that I recognized over the years is that we have political organizations, and that politics ideology does not necessarily define how we do what we do in a cultural context.  In other words, even though we can be a Pan-Afrikanist and a nationalist it doesn’t define how you eat, how you interact with one another, how you engage in relationships with one another, and as Cheikh Anta Diop pointed out to us, that we really needed to connect with the cultural context.  So we’re an Afrikan-centered organization that expresses itself from the Kemetic perspective.  Why Kemet?  Kemet is the first writing Afrikan civilization.  It’s not the oldest.  It’s the third oldest Afrikan civilization.  But it was the first writing. And as the first writing civilization, we’re able to go to Kemet and actually read from our Ancestors exactly how they defined their society, how their society worked, and for me as a person whose background is in Cultural Anthropology, which I love, because it asks the question, why and how did you do it.  So, when you ask our Ancestors, for example, how did you come together and create the civilization that you did, how did you create community, they actually have a model.  And so, we base ourselves on the Kemetic model.  We’re not exclusive in the sense that we don’t promote anything else – we promote all Afrikan society – but we look at Kemet as the model upon which we build.  So we invite folks to come with us and actually do building.

“You asked this question about folks coming together and reasons to come together. Our primary reason to come together is to improve the way of life, improve our quality of life.  Not only should it improve your quality of life, but it should answer all of the challenges that you have.  So, by coming together as a community, [this] allows us to have unity.  It allows us to generate the kind of infrastructure that we need: organizations, institutions.  Out of these organizations and institutions we can promote programs and practices, protocols that we need, that a community needs in order to operate. …

“Our headquarters is here in Baltimore.  We have the Cultural Center on Liberty Road.  You can get some information on us at taneferankh.com.  I’m the national leader, so I teach our communities across the country.  I also travel across the country, recruiting folks to create community, because it’s important that we have community.  We’re talking about creating Afrika where we are.

“The Black Agenda Organization is similar to the wheel, the spoked wheel that you talk about. We have organizations across the country and around the world that actually espouse the Black Agenda, so that would be a common denominator upon which we can come together and organize with each other.  And therefore we see the Black Agenda as that nexus that will enable us to connect with each other.  So, essentially, we’re saying the same thing.

“Black Forum is a weekly event featuring presenters addressing topics relative to the Black Agenda and the Black Power Movement.”

Teaching Artist Institute (TAI)
Bro. Infinity Excalibur, TAI Fellow

“In the beginning was the Heart-Drum.
With this vibration we gave rhythm to the world.
On this beat we Sing Life.
We are the Rhythm People.”

Bro. Infinity will be teaching poetry and short-writings within the Fellowship. “We are going to travel the Diaspora, teaching various artistries and variations of each of our specialties. … We’re going to go to Black nations across the world, teaching, sharing, learning from them, they learn from us.  It’s going to be collective.  It’s going to be responsible.”

Sis. Kim Poole, Founder, TAI

“In a lot of ways, the Drum is the only thing that we can trust. We’ve been told so many things about who we are, what’s been stolen, what the history says, what it doesn’t, but the one thing that’s undeniable across every people, everywhere, that are melanated, is the beat of that Drum.  I don’t care if you go to the service on Sunday or over to Brazil, they’ve got Rhythm People.  Just start beating that Drum and you’ll see who you are.  You’ll see where your alliances run.  And so, we’ve used that as an opportunity to create a sense of unity that in a lot of ways has been lost through ideology.

“So I’m a Soul-Fusion Teaching Artist, and music is what I trust. Art and culture is what in a lot of ways re-Afrikanized me, even got me interested in what that would mean, what that would look like.  And I know that it’s the first pillar of societal development, culture.  And so we have to ask ourselves, what language are we speaking?  I don’t speak Igbo.  I don’t speak Yoruba.  I don’t speak Kiswahili.  But the one thing that we can speak is the beat of this Drum.  And if we can all use that as a tool to see eye to eye, I think, honestly, that that’s the best chance we have at creating a coalition that works.

“It means coming together on one accord, and being able to communicate in ways that both parties understand. And it’s the Rhythm Resolution.  That’s where the Teaching Artist Institute comes in.  Because we want to teach you how to use art as a way of knowing, as a pedagogy.  How can you be innovative?  How can you be creative?  We want to teach you how to use the traditional media of music, poetry, short-writing that Bro. Infinity talked about, that spoken-word, that call-and-response.  It’s the artist community that needs to be at the core of development.  The reason the artist needs to be at the center of the community is because they have that innovation, and they remember who we are, even if only inherently.

“The Teaching Artist Institute has four goals. The first is to train artists and artisans as educators of socially-engaged art.  So, making sure that you’re conscious of that responsibility and understand your influence.  The second goal is to establish and maintain a Teaching Artist Collective.  We don’t support each other enough. ‘I don’t believe what you believe; you’re not Black enough for me; Oh my God Sis, you look too “hood” for our collective over here, we’re a collective of fine things, we go to Afrika, we do trips and we’re Ambassadors.’ We allow classism, and it’s amazing how many ways we’ve learned to divide each other from each other and perpetuate that lesson.  So we need a Collective; people who say, ‘In spite of my class, in spite of my belief system, one thing I know for certain is that I am vested in the perpetual development of my people, and I am willing to use my way of knowing towards that goal, to support that goal.’

“Our third goal is advocating cross-cultural communication and mutual understanding through art. A lot of my art is the pages of my diary. … We need to find ways to express who we are. … Though I’ll [still occasionally] write those songs that help me to release [any emotional baggage], I know that it’s very important to use my art as a tool for development.

“And last, to create a platform for Teaching Artist expression. The fact is, the people that usually ‘get’ it, they never get a loud enough bullhorn to say what they get. Because they stop before they ever get started.  And it’s time for us to be more strategic about how we get into decision-making rooms.  It’s time for us to realize that art can get into any sector, and you need to use your art, whatever it may be, to bring those artists to the room, to bring them to the mic, to give them an opportunity to spread their message.

“So, what is a Teaching Artist? A Teaching Artist is one that recognizes and understands the influential nature of their art.  They use this to promote a value system or a subject matter as an entity in and of itself or as a tool integrated into another discipline.  So we’ll do that in many ways with all of our fellow Teaching Artists this year, but one way that the Teaching Artist Institute is going to do that this year is to support the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus.”

Organization of All Afrikan Unity-Black Panther Cadre
Statement from Baba Ade Oba Tokunbo, Founder and Chairman

The following statement had been prepared by OAAU-BPC Founder Baba Ade Oba Tokunbo: “As of June of this year, the concept of Pan-Afrikanism will be celebrating its 116th anniversary since Henry Sylvester Williams coined the term.  Many Afrikan people in the Motherland, in the Western Hemisphere, in Asia, in Europe and in the South Pacific have an interest in or identify with each other as Black people, as Afrikan people.  They are paying attention to what is going on not only in Afrika, but also amongst Afrikans around the world and in the United States. They are in the Andaman Islands, they are in Papua New Guinea, they are in Vanuatu, they are in Conakry or New Caledonia, they are in Palau and elsewhere.  The idea and the sentiment of Pan Afrikanism is alive and strong in these communities.

“The African Union has taken the initiative to acknowledge the existence of the Diaspora and the role of the Diaspora in promoting the concept of Pan-Afrikanism. Sisters and Brothers throughout the Continent acknowledge this, and are mindful of us here.  We have to take advantage of this.  This is why the Town Hall initiative gives us the opportunity to build across the Black communities of this nation.  Then we will have the opportunity to be represented at the AU, and we can bring issues that the current generation of activists are concerned about.  This is why we have to come together to mobilize, educate and organize the masses of our people here, so we can have a representative voice.”

Souls of Life Society
Bro. King Obadele, Founder and Chairman

“Energy we are, and energy we shall return, when we depart from this which returns to dust. Each one of you, you’re a vessel.  Each one of you carries a spirit within you.

“We have connected with the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus for several years now, because of the vibration that they hold true, which is to recognize that it’s time for change and for us to take action. The Souls of Life Society as you see here, ‘through the power bestowed by God and man,’ a lot of people have a lot in mind of believing so many different things.  Souls of Life Society has come together so that we can come under the understanding that life and love is the most important thing that there is about our living.  So you can look at this and say ‘through the power bestowed from within to do what must be done.’  Our organization harmonizes the unity needed for Black organizations to thrive so that humanity can survive.  We are the original man and woman of the earth and the founders of civilization.  We are the melanated ones.  Within us [is] the true blueprint of humanity, but that would mean that you are more than human. The plan against your greater good was and is to dehumanize you.  Yet, this is the crux of an amazing truth you have yet to accept collectively, which is, you are more than human. Spirit you all are.

“I have been traveling since 1991 to different organizations throughout Baltimore City, observing organisms and organizations to see what causes them to tick.  What I’ve discovered is that we have common ground, which is life and love, but we have to identify that common ground of life and love through re-communing with spirit.  Living thought speaks to each and every one of us.  Your Ancestors are waiting for you to activate the love that has brought you to now.  Do not let religiosity and dogma continue to separate you from who you are.  Everything vibrates and everything has a frequency.  We must begin collectively to speak the same language.  That is truth, harmony, order, righteousness, reciprocity, balance, justice, compassion, propriety, respect and consideration.

“Malcolm said it best when he said that, and this is what I picked up from him, they do not speak a language that, when you come to them in peace, they understand you. That was his belief.  I understand that.  But the thing is for us to overstand that we are more than anybody could possibly imagine we are. But we have to accept that that is true.  We are the original man and woman of the earth and the founders of civilization which means that we are the leaders.  The blueprint is already within us.  The earth itself is awaiting us to awaken.

“My organization, the Souls of Life Society, the acronym is S-O-L-S. The only thing that’s missing is U.  So, if you would be so kind as to look up the website, soulsoflifesociety.org, click it and hook up with us.  Because it’s time for the change to come strong.  We have to understand that, in speaking the language amongst ourselves of what is known as the virtues of Ma’at, which is an ancient Kemet practice, we will better realign with ourselves and with what needs to be done in order to bring the transformation that is needed amongst us as a community, amongst us as a world.  I’ve been with the Brave Men’s Society, the Egbe. … They speak an Afrikan cosmology that speaks of Iwa Pele, which explains very clearly the issues which have happened with our Black community and why there is so much division amongst us.  Come to the website.  Come check us out at the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus so that we can make things happen.”

Pan Afrikan Liberation Movement (PLM)
Bro. Anani Kulu Fatiu

“I’m a part of the Pan-Afrikan Liberation Movement that’s located here in Baltimore.  My name is Anani Kulu Fatiu. …

“What we have here today, which I embrace, a lot of what was stated was, the Pan-Afrikan Coalition and coming together. This is not new for Afrikan people.  This is how we lived on the Continent.  We were always demonstrating what Pan-Afrikanism was and what it is.  And that’s how we were able to develop such great nations and civilizations that the Baba has mentioned.

“… We’re dealing with the harmful effects of [White Supremacy], and we’re trying to figure out how we can all come together and merge and make a dynamic push, to push us in our natural way of how we lived as Afrikan people, prior to any invasions, prior to anything.

“I also facilitate a study class, every Sunday from 2 to 4:30, which is the Beginning Study Class, which is everything that a lot of people have mentioned about what they know about their Afrikanity; some people have never even heard of this.  This is very new to a lot of people.  That being Black, and being from Baltimore, West Baltimore to be exact, is pretty much the only thing that they identify with, or being from New York, and so forth, all over the place, not knowing how to get to your center.  So I teach the Beginning Study Class, so we start all the way from the base level.  We’re going to start having a dialog, conversations and then we get into the great literature of our scholars to move us along.  We don’t [just] talk it, though.  We become it and we demonstrate it.

“So I love everything that was said. I’m enjoying everything that’s said.  I love it.  It’s good.  I love the energy that I see out here.  I love being part of my organization.”

The Earth Center
Bro. Nehez Meniooh, Director, Healer, Teacher, Initiate of the M’Tam Schools

“The message I’m here to deliver is a lot bigger than the young man you see in front of you. The Earth Center is the unified form of the temples and the norms of the existing Kemetic Culture.  Because like the Brother before me had just mentioned, a lot of people don’t understand about their identity as what we call Black People of the world.  And that’s because our enslaver has given us the education for what our identity is about.  And because of that misunderstanding, because of that miseducation, today we think that the greatness, the education, the profound wisdom that built these empires that we’re calling ancient today, that built the empires that the Elder introduced at the beginning of the lectures, we’re told today that they’re all dead.  We’re told today that the languages are dead, the hieroglyphs are just to be studied in books and for us to try to recover, but the truth of the matter is that those are still alive.  Those are still alive, being kept in secret societies throughout rural Afrika, throughout traditional Afrika.

“Three thousand years ago, when the priesthood and the pharaohnic throne made the decision that they would change the way that they would keep the culture, instead of in its glory and in its greatness that we see in the Nile Valley, they decided, since the invaders were just not going to give up, to take it underground and keep it secret. And that’s when they took it into the huts and they took it into what, for us, with our education, we look at it and say those people need help, those people are hungry, those people are impoverished.  But those people are keeping the greatest knowledge that this world has known.  And the Earth Center is the first mission of those temples that has been sent out to the Diaspora, to the world, to give you a chance to reconnect with the identity that’s coursing through your veins.

“Because the blood in everyone’s veins in here is very, very old. It’s not yours.  You got it from your father, you got it from your mother.  They got it from their father, they got it from their mother.  And it goes all the way back to those same civilizations that we’re looking at and we’re talking about and we’re studying.  It’s all there inside of us, waiting to be awakened.

“The Earth Center represents that movement.  It’s an organization that was started by a Dogon High Priest.  His name is Prophet Master Naba Lamoussa Morodenibig.  He was originally born in the country of Burkina Faso, West Afrika.  I know a lot of our Pan-Afrikan students in the room know the Kingdom of Burkina Faso from Thomas Sankara.  He did a lot of very great work for us trying to reclaim our identity from what the French colonizers did in his country.

“The Prophet Naba started his education in the traditions. He is a Dogon, so he went through the Dogon Mystery Schools.  He is a Kemetic High Priest.  He continued to go through the initiations.  And when he had the chance, he pleaded with his Elders in the initiation and his royalty to come out into the Diaspora and let the Diaspora know we’re still here, that the traditions are still here.

“We have three branches in this organization. We have a publishing branch, which we call Firefly Productions.  We write books, we write magazines, journals; we have slowly been starting to distribute them around the Baltimore area.  You might see our free publication called The Sunnyside floating around.  We also present some of the treasures that have been kept in the Kemetic Culture, such as the Great Book of Divine Ordinances, which is the original set of commandments our Ancestors followed; the original Map of the Sky that you find on the ceiling of the Temple of [Hathor at] Dendera [Egypt]; the original calendar our Ancestors used of thirteen months and ten days; all of that we have available through the publishing company.

“We also have the M’Tam School of Initiation, M’Tam School of Kemetic Philosophy and Spirituality. Because if we are to recover, it’s going to have to start with education.  If we’ve only been educated by our enslavers, then we can’t wonder why we just seem to not be able to organize.  Because it’s values that put people together. … A good idea might get us all to run one way, but as soon as that chain behind us pulls us back, then we won’t be able to stay together.  So it has to start with our education, and it has to start with an education that comes specifically from our Ancestors and not from the ones who are enslaving the world.

“And the third branch of the organization is the Ankhasta Natural Healing. And that is the network of traditional healers and priests throughout Afrika, mainly West Afrika, who are preserving and protecting the traditional medicinal knowledge and making those recipes available to the Diaspora, who are suffering in our hell, because we’ve been educated by the destroyer.

“So, this organization is split into three branches but even beyond that we do a lot of work. … But one of the things we do that I do want to mention is, every year we take a trip home, so that what we teach the students in the class, what we’re telling the Diaspora – that this culture is still existing, that this culture is still your legacy to be reclaimed, your legacy to awaken in yourself – we take you into the culture so that you can see for yourself, because we don’t believe in belief. You have to know. You have to study. Whatever beliefs you have about the way the earth functions, that’s fine, that’s your business … but at some point, if you want to recover, you have to be educated.  You have to hold that belief loose enough that if common sense tells you that just doesn’t fit anymore, you have to be able to evolve.

“So once a year, we take our students, we take friends, we take guests on a spiritual pilgrimage to go into the culture. The last pilgrimage we took, the royalty in the city called Sia, which is in the western part of Burkina Faso, one of the kings there said ‘Please, take this message to the Diaspora.  Let them know, the way that we live, they see us living in huts, they see us living in dirty clothes, they see us living with nature, that’s a choice.  We don’t want to live in the machine.  We don’t want to live and be a part of the destruction.  We’d rather live and stay next to nature and stay next to the Divine.  Let them know that’s a choice.  But also let them know that everything they saw from the past, nothing has been lost, and it’s here if they’re willing to come and get it.’

“So that is what the Earth Center is representing.  We will have a lecture March 19 at Tehuti’s [Wisdom] Bookstore.  We will be opening up the doors of initiation at the end of March.  You can check our website, www.theearthinstitute.org, and I thank everybody for their ears.”

Black Running Organization
Bro. Isa Olufemi

“There’s a lot of talk about coming together but it never really happens, so the Black Running Organization is here to fill that void. The charge to everyone who’s standing is for you to come and join us at our Unity Run every Sunday at Druid Hill Park.  You don’t have to come every Sunday, but we expect to see you this year, before June. … And it’s not just for the Brothers; it’s for the Sisters too.  What we do is not about competition.  Competition is not part of it at all.  It’s for all skill levels and it’s all about unity.  It’s a practical illustration of unity.

“So if you ever come to Druid Hill Park or you ever come to one of our programs, and you see us, you’ll see a whole bunch of Black people together, unified, running.  And it’s very practical, it’s very simple.  That’s what we do.  If we’re all talking about culture, we’re all talking about this war that we’re in with our oppressors, then we must understand that we have to train physically.  Whether you’re a man, woman, child, Elder, whatever.  Baba Ade [founder and chairman of OAAU-BPC], who’s in his sixties, was out running with us.  We’re not about the lecture. … We just want to see you come out and run with us.  So if you do see us and you do have the ability and to run and you don’t come out, then we can’t organize because we’re not doing what we know we must do.  The program I’m inviting you all out to – Black people only – every Sunday, 10:00 in the morning, by the basketball courts in Druid Hill Park.  If you come to that event, then we’ll extend the invitation to our other events.  Our slogan is ‘Let’s Grow’, that means together we develop our natural processes.  Those natural processes are Black people being amongst Black people and using running as a platform to organize.  So, as always, Let’s Grow.”

The Need for a Cooperative Coalition
Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus
Bro. Cliff, Maryland State Facilitator, SRDC

“There’s an old slogan that says, ‘Think globally, act locally.’ And essentially, what our organization is attempting to do is build a means to reach out to and harness the grassroots voice of our Diaspora on the local level, then move that to the national level, and then move that to the global level.  We start off with grassroots local organizations like ours right here.  I’m the Maryland State Facilitator, so the organization that we have here, essentially operates here in the state of Maryland.  We have Facilitators in other states – not every other state – but we want them in every state plus [Washington] DC.  We’ve got a long way to go before we get there.

“What would happen is, the local organizations would call public meetings, much like this, preferably much bigger, in which we ask you two things: What are the key issues that we need to take out of here to the national level and then to the international level, which is the first question; and the second question is Who would you want to have represent our voice from the state of Maryland on the national stage and on the world stage?

“I can explain all the details of that but it will probably have to be in our next event where we give you the details of what SRDC’s plan is. But the ultimate idea is to come up with a delegation of twenty elected representatives to essentially take the voice of 300 million people of Afrikan descent around the entire world to organizations like the African Union, the United Nations, the latest Pan-Afrikan Congress, the World Social Forum, what-have-you.

“How do you elect 20 people out of 300 million? The way we will do it is we will start at the local level.  We would elect two representatives from this state.  Those representatives would get together with the elected representatives from other states in a National Summit.  We hold them every year.  We’ve held them for [more than] the last seven years.  And at that National Summit, those representatives who were elected in their states would get together and they would essentially determine who is the Dream Team of, let’s say, three or four.  The three or four best of that group to take the combined agendas of all the states that sent representatives to the National Summit and to take that to the world stage.  In a nutshell, that’s basically how it works.  So it’s grassroots local organizations, community Town Hall Meetings.  We’re going to have one later this year.  We’ll have more informational sessions, maybe here, maybe a few other places to explain that further, then ultimately we’re going to have that community Town Hall Meeting [in Maryland].  Then we would have the National [Summit].  Then ultimately we’d have a Full Diaspora Summit [of all the National Summits around the world] which would determine what the overall Pan-Afrikan Agenda would be from the United States, from Canada, from Brazil, South America, Europe, Asia, Central America, the Caribbean, on and on and on, and they would take that to the African Union.

“All of these plans [in Afrikan Diaspora communities around the world] aren’t fully developed yet, but then we aren’t fully developed yet.  But you’ve got to start somewhere.  And that’s what we’re doing.

“Now, if the African Union suddenly decided they don’t want to listen to us, we can take it to the United Nations, who are currently recognizing the International Decade for People of African Descent from 2015 to 2024.  So if they want to put some serious teeth into it, eventually we can put pressure on them to listen to us also.  So there are any number of ways that this can be applied; our current objective is to get that voice in the African Union, because, and I’ll explain this the next time we meet, they have invited us to do so. Some of them are trying to [renege] on it, but we’re not going to let them.

“So that’s basically what our organization does. Now, the reason we asked for this gathering is that we’ve recognized that we can’t do this just with our own organization all by itself.  We need to bring in the Earth Center, we need to bring in PLM, we need to bring in W.O.M.A.N., we need to bring in Teaching Artist Institute.  We need to bring in Black Running Organization, so when we’ve got to run from or after somebody, we can do it.  We need to bring in LBS because at some point or another, we’ve got to be able to march up to the halls of power and say, ‘Here’s what our Think Tank has come up with, here’s what our organizations have told us we need to put together, and dammit, we’re gonna get it.’  And we need to bring all of these organizations together in order to do that.

“So we’ve got people dating back hundreds of years [Harriet Tubman, Marcus Garvey, Frederick Douglass, Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King] who have been telling us [that we need to organize]. And we need to find a way that we can finally organize our organizations so we can heed this call.  We need to understand the divisions in our community; [they] don’t need to become walls that we build up against each other.  We’re not all the same.  If we’re going to separate ourselves from each other because we’re not the same, then we’re never going to get organized.”

Eddie Africa Denied Parole New York City Jericho Movement

Ona Move 

When The Move 9 became eligible for parole in 2008 The Pennsylvania Parole Board took on the responsibility of officials of this system in keeping innocent Move Members in prison for the rest of their lives. From 2008 up until as recently as this past week all of The Move 9 have been denied parole. We received a call last night from our brother Eddie Africa who was calling to let us know he was denied yet again by The Pa Parole Board and was given a two year hit where he would not go before the board again until 2018.

The Parole Board has cited the issue of Eddie being a risk to the safety of the community. At Eddie’s parole hearing the parole board was presented with a petition of 300 signatures of members of the community who would welcome him on parole into the community and who in fact felt no threat to their safety with Eddie in the community. It’s obvious that this community that the parole board is talking about is none other than the law enforcement community across the country who have mobilized against parole for Move Members .

This clearly shows that The Parole Board has no regard for the community and their input on anything, as they only value the input of law enforcement officials who they are obviously working in conjunction with to keep our family in prison. Eddie sounded strong as always and he has not been deterred by this and neither are we. The fight continues to win parole for our family as we prepare for our sisters May 2016 parole hearings. There will be more information to follow in the next couple of days on the next steps we are taking.

In the meantime we urge people to sign The Petition we aimed at US Attorney General Loretta Lynch as we demand that The Justice Department investigate the wrongful and ongoing imprisonment of The Move 9 . People can go to https://www.causes.com/campaigns/92454-free-the-move-9.

Also For More Info People Can Go To www.onamove.com.

Justice For The Move 9/Facebook: http://move9parole.blogspot.com/

Ona Move 
The Justice And Accountability Campaign

Sundiata Acoli Denied Parole

The New York City Jericho Movement reported that political prisoner Sundiata Acoli, who has been imprisoned since 1973 as a result of a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike that resulted in the deaths of a New Jersey State Trooper and a member of the Black Liberation Army, was recently denied parole by the New Jersey Supreme Court.  The following comes from an article titled N.J. Supreme Court denies parole for man who killed trooper in 1973 by S.P. Sullivan on February 23 for NJ.com.

Sundiata Acoli has been serving a life sentence for his role in a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike that ended in the death of Trooper Werner Foerster.

An appeals court in 2014 found Acoli was wrongly denied parole and ordered his release, but the state Parole Board and the Attorney General’s Office petitioned the state’s highest court, asking them to throw out the ruling.

Their 4-1 decision means Acoli will have to appear before the Parole Board for a full hearing before he is eligible for release. …

Court documents show that Acoli’s gun went off while he struggled with Foerster after another trooper pulled over a white Pontiac containing [Joanne] Chesimard [Assata Shakur], Acoli, and James Costan in the early hours of May 2, 1973.

The three were associated with black nationalist groups including the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army. 

There were conflicting accounts of who shot whom, but state prosecutors claimed Chesimard shot and wounded the other trooper, James Harper, before executing Foerster with his own gun.

[Testimony by the medical examiner during the trial, however, indicated that Assata Shakur was shot in the back with her hands raised in surrender, and was incapable of having executed Foerster as the prosecution claimed – Editor.]

Costan, also known as Zayd Malik Shakur, was shot and killed at the scene.

Acoli, now in his 70s, has been repeatedly denied parole. In 2011, a two-member parole board panel rejected his latest bid before he could appear before the full board for a formal hearing. 

But the appeals court found that the panel had ignored evidence in Acoli’s favor. Court records show a psychologist testified in 2010 that Acoli had “expressed regret and remorse about his involvement” in the killing and was at “low to moderate risk” of re-offending. 

The appellate panel ordered the board to “expeditiously set conditions for parole,” but the state petitioned the Supreme Court, claiming a convicted murderer could not be released under state law without the approval of the full board. 

In the majority opinion, Justice Jaynee LaVecchia agreed. 

http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/02/sundiata_acoli_supreme_court_decision.html

Freedom and Medical Care for Leonard Peltier!
by Mumia Abu-Jamal, Monday, February 22, 2016

For 40 years, former American Indian Movement (AIM) activist Leonard Peltier has been in the clutches of the U.S. prison system –The Iron House of the whites, as indigenous people call them – on trumped up murder charges. Now, as he suffers poor health and an abdominal aortic aneurism, time is no longer on his side.

The aneurysm, diagnosed just weeks ago, threatens his very life, so supporters of Leonard are demanding his freedom, so he doesn’t perish in the Iron House. Decades ago, when Bill Clinton was president, he visited Pine Ridge, South Dakota – once Peltier’s home – and told people there, “Tell Leonard I won’t forget about him.”

A promise from Clinton proved as empty as any politician’s promise: gas, air, wind. (He musta forgot, huh?)

So Peltier languished in the Iron House as decades passed. He wrote. He painted – and he awaited white justice.

He’s still waiting.

His supporters want people to write to the Bureau of Prisons (BOP), demanding his health care and release. The International Leonard Peltier Defense Committee needs you to write and call on Leonard’s behalf. Contact www.bop.gov/inmates/concerns.jsp.

Refer to Leonard Peltier, 89637-132, and his home jail, USP Coleman I. Warden Tamyra Jarvis USP Coleman I 846 NE 54th Terrace Sumterville, FL 33521 Fax: 352-689-6012

Helen J. Marberry RO Southeast Regional Office 3800 Camp Crk. Pk. SW Bldg 2000 Atlanta, GA 30331 Fax: 678-686-1229

Office of the Director Federal Bureau of Prisons 320 First Street, NW Washington, DC 20534 Fax: 202-514-6620 CONTACT LEONARD Send Cards and Letters:

Leonard Peltier #89637-132 USP-Coleman I U.S. Penitentiary PO Box 1033 Coleman, FL 33521

And while you’re at it, contact the White House and demand Leonard’s executive clemency.

Leonard Peltier needs freedom now; and Native Peoples need him to return home. The Campaign to Bring Mumia Home · 13 N. Bedford St · New York, NY 10010

— Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org

Exclusive Interview: Albert Woodfox of Angola 3, Freed After 43 Years in Solitary Confinement

Longtime political prisoner Albert Woodfox was recently interviewed on DemocracyNow! The interview can be watched at the following web address:

http://www.democracynow.org/2016/2/22/exclusive_interview_albert_woodfox_of_angola

Guests:

Albert Woodfox
longest-standing solitary confinement prisoner in the United States. He was held in isolation in a six-by-nine-foot cell almost continuously for 43 years. On Friday February 19, Woodfox was released from a Louisiana jail. He is a member of the Angola 3.

Robert King
member of the Angola 3 who spent 29 years in solitary confinement for a murder he did not commit. He was released in 2001 after his conviction was overturned. He’s written a book about his experience, From the Bottom of the Heap: The Autobiography of Black Panther Robert Hillary King.

Billy Sothern
one of the trial attorneys representing Albert Woodfox, one of the Angola Three, who was released from prison on Friday. He is the author of Down in New Orleans: Reflections from a Drowned City.

After more than 43 years in solitary confinement, Albert Woodfox is a free man and joins us today for his first broadcast interview. The former Black Panther spent more time in solitary confinement than anyone in the United States, much of it in a six-by-nine cell for 23 hours each day. Albert Woodfox was released Friday, February 19 after he entered a plea of no contest to charges of manslaughter and aggravated burglary of a prison guard more than four decades ago. Prior to Friday’s settlement, his conviction had been overturned three times. Albert Woodfox was serving a five-year sentence for armed robbery at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola when he and fellow prisoner Herman Wallace were accused in 1972 of stabbing prison guard Brent Miller. The two men always maintained their innocence, saying they were targeted because they had organized a chapter of the Black Panther Party to address horrific conditions at the Angola prison, a former cotton plantation. Woodfox, Wallace and a third man, Robert King, became collectively known as the Angola 3. For decades, Amnesty International and other groups campaigned to free the three men. Woodfox was the last remaining member of the group to be released. Today we speak to Woodfox and King, who was freed in 2001 when his conviction for killing a fellow inmate was overturned. Herman Wallace was freed in 2013, just days before he died from cancer.

Pennsylvania Acts to Remove Pro Bono Lawyer for Corey Walker
Report from the Courtroom by Mark Lance
mlance390@gmail.com  

February 24, 2016—Fifteen months after launching legal action to re­move Rachel Wolkenstein as attorney for Corey Walker, the Office of the Pennsylvania Attorney General (OAG) concluded its evidentiary hearing in Harrisburg on February 9 to support its motion to have her pro hac vice admission vacated. Walker, an innocent man serving a sentence of life without parole, has spent the last 19 years behind bars.

Post-hearing legal briefs will be filed by the OAG and Walker’s attorneys 45 days after receiving the transcript of the proceeding. Senior Judge Lawrence Clark will then rule on the OAG motion to remove attorney Wolkenstein as Corey Walker’s pro hac vice, pro bono lawyer.

The OAG’s action to get long-time political activist and attorney Rachel Wolkenstein out of this case is retaliation against the efforts of Corey Walker to overturn his frame-up murder conviction. Since Wolk­enstein began working with Walker pro bono in May 2014, first helping with investigation and his pro se petitions and then as his at­tor­ney pro hac vice, Corey Walker filed three sets of legal papers. Each time yet more evidence was given showing his conviction was the result of extensive police and pro­s­ecution misconduct.

There was no witness to the shooting, no fingerprints or murder weapon, no blood evidence or confession. Instead, witnesses, whose false testimony was ob­tained through coercion and promises of leniency on charges they faced, were knowingly and deliberately put before the predominantly white jury by the Deputy Attorney General. Exonerating  evidence was kept from Walker for close to 20 years.  

The OAG explicitly claims that Wolkenstein’s practicing law in Pennsylvania is “intolerable” due to her public statements that the crim­inal justice system is racially and class-biased. The OAG also specifically cited Wolkenstein’s court­room ar­rest by the notorious Judge Albert Sabo while she represented Mumia Abu-Jamal in the weeks before his scheduled execution date in August 1995. The OAG also falsely claims Wolkenstein violated rules of Professional Conduct.

Two defense motions prevented the OAG from compelling Walker and his trial co-defendant, Lorenzo Johnson, to be witnesses at the hearing. The subpoenas were an attempt to stop the decades of collaboration between the two men in fighting for their innocence and freedom. The sub­poenas were part of a fishing expedition by the pro­s­ecution to undermine their respective pending legal cases.

The OAG presented only one witness, Lorenzo Johnson’s lawyer Michael Wiseman. It was Lorenzo Johnson who urged Wolkenstein to take up Walker’s legal case. It was the OAG who seized on Wiseman’s disagreement with a legal strategy advocated by Wolkenstein, that includes public­ly exposing the facts and details of the frame-ups of Johnson and Walker, to accuse her of violating rules of professional conduct. During two-years working closely with Johnson, Wolkenstein helped bring public attention to the Campaign to Free Lorenzo Johnson and provided legal advice. Wiseman testified that Wolkenstein had informed him she was communicating and working with Johnson from the outset. Wiseman’s tes­timony also confirmed Johnson’s and Walker’s dec­laration of their own and each other’s innocence. Wiseman also strongly asserted the state had suppressed significant favorable evidence at Johnson’s and Walker’s 1997 trial.

Senior Judge Lawrence Clark made repeated comments during the hearing that amounted to denying Corey Walker his First and Sixth Amend­ment rights to have the lawyer of his choice. Clark consistently supported the OAG’s interpretation of the Rules of Professional Conduct.

The OAG’s legal attack on Wolkenstein and her client has effectively stopped any judicial action on the post-conviction legal challenges of Corey Walker on grounds of actual innocence, police and prosecutorial misconduct and ineffective assis­tance of counsel. A full year has gone by with the Judge taking no action. This is state conspiracy to keep this innocent man locked up for the rest of his life.  Free Corey Walker!

Read: Pennsylvania Seeks to Remove Lawyer
Jim Crow Justice–The Frame-up of Corey Walker by Charles Brover

“A SWAT team raided Corey Walker’s home in July 1996, and arrested him on a 1995 frame-up murder charge from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He has been behind bars ever since. Evidence of his innocence was withheld. He is the victim of prosecutorial misconduct and incompetent legal representation. And now the state is trying to deny him the attorney of his choice, Rachel Wolkenstein, who has defended Mumia Abu-Jamal. Corey Walker is flesh and blood, not a statistic. He is son, father, brother and lifelong companion. He cries out for freedom and justice and tries to keep body and soul together under excruciating conditions ….” to continue reading …  

What Can I Do to Help Corey Walker?

Contribute to Corey’s Defense — Make a Contribution Here

Tell the Attorney General — We Stand for Justice: Free Corey Walker!

Write to Corey directly:
Corey Walker DF1014
SCI Dallas
1000 Follies Road
Dallas, PA 18612

If you want to email Corey directly, you may go to jpay.com

Code: Corey Walker DF1014 PA DO www.FreeCoreyWalker.org

NJ Cops Oppose Travel to Cuba Unless Assata Shakur is Returned http://www.eurweb.com/2016/02/nj-officials-oppose-travel-cuba-unless-assata-shakur-returned/

Not only have the Jericho Movement consistently spoken out in support of political prisoners; not only have the Freedom Archives and Prison Radio shared messages of support for political prisoners and from the “Voice of the Voiceless”, Mumia Abu-Jamal; now the Electronic Urban Report, which has primarily covered more “mainstream” entertainment and political news, has gotten into the act. The following post by Qwest7 on February 25 concerns the situation of political exile Assata Shakur, currently living in Cuba and now the target an increased effort by US politicians to force her extradition as a condition of normalization of relations between the US and Cuba:

Assata Shakur’s fugitive status and current residence in Cuba is not sitting well with the State Troopers Fraternal Organization of New Jersey as officials voiced a desire to stop flights to the country until Shakur is returned home.

Vibe notes a troubled history Shakur has with the state, which stems from her being arrested during a traffic stop at a New Jersey Turnpike in 1973. Shakur, who was a member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Party, ended up in a shoot out that left her wounded and the vehicle’s driver, Zayd Shakur, dead. In addition to Zayd Shakur, a state trooper at the scene was also left dead from the shooting.

Ultimately, Assata Shakur was blamed for the shooting and was convicted of first-degree murder in 1977. In 1979, Assata fled to Cuba was granted asylum by Fidel Castro soon after arriving in the country.

In a letter written on Feb. 17, the organization’s president, Christopher Burgos, relayed the opposition to any effort to fly to and from Cuba as he blasted the country for harboring Shakur.

“We strongly oppose any request or approval of United Airlines or any other airline a permit to NJ Port Authority airports to fly back and forth to a country such as Cuba, that has openly slapped all Americans in the face with their policy of keeping U.S. fugitives away and safe from the reach of U.S. justice,” Burgos wrote.

Assata’s involvement in the Black Power movement occurred during the time Martin Luther King Jr. was killed.

It seems that hooliganism has taken over the presidential elections in the United States, and many of us who are “on the outside looking in” are adopting ever more desperate measures to try to stop the total disintegration of the so-called body politic.  White racist organizations now openly call for the election of candidates like Donald Trump (whether the candidates welcome such endorsements or not) to re-establish White Power and “take our country back” (if that’s what they want to do, then they should get on a boat, go back to Europe and do just that, leaving this country to those who will appreciate its natural wonders – its rightful owners from the First Nations and those of us whose Ancestors were brought here in chains), and those who seek to prevent the next race war are increasingly suggesting electoral strategies that seem to border on desperation.  The days of Black Lives Matter activists loudly interrupting the campaign rallies of Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton (something they thankfully still do) now seem downright genteel by comparison.

Here are a few examples from the spectacle we call Electoral PoliTricks 101 from the month of February:

An article titled Ex KKK Grand Wizard David Duke Endorses Donald Trump (http://www.eurweb.com/2016/02/ex-kkk-grand-wizard-david-duke-endorses-donald-trump/), posted February 25 at the Electronic Urban Report (which occasionally reports on politics in relation to the Afrikan-American community but usually concentrates on entertainment and pop culture news), stated the following:

It’s no surprise that Republican candidate Donald Trump has the support of white nationalist and former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard, David Duke, who today encouraged his radio show listeners to volunteer for the mogul’s campaign.

“Call Donald Trump’s headquarters [and] volunteer,” he said on the “David Duke Radio Program.” At Trump campaign offices, he said, “you’re gonna meet people who are going to have the same kind of mindset that you have.”

According to the Huffington Post, white supremacist groups are working to mobilize their followers to get out the vote for Trump. In Minnesota and Vermont, a white supremacist super PAC called the American National Super PAC has begun circulating a robocall in support of Trump.

“The white race is dying out in America and Europe because we are afraid to be called ‘racist,’ says William Johnson, the leader of the white nationalist American Freedom Party. He goes on to lament the “gradual genocide against the white race,” and how few “schools anymore have beautiful white children as the majority.”

He ends by telling recipients, “Don’t vote for a Cuban. Vote for Donald Trump.”

Like Johnson, Duke also pointed out the racial background of Trump’s GOP rivals, Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Ted Cruz (Texas). “Voting for these people, voting against Donald Trump at this point is really treason to your heritage,” Duke said Wednesday. And while he doesn’t agree with everything Trump says, he told listeners, “I do support his candidacy, and I support voting for him as a strategic action. I hope he does everything we hope he will do.”

Meanwhile, Harvard University political theorist Danielle Allen (below left) wrote an opinion piece in the Washington Post on February 21 titled The Moment of Truth: We Must Stop Trump (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/moment-of-truth-we-must-stop-trump/2016/02/21/0172e788-d8a7-11e5-925f-1d10062cc82d_story.html), in which she analyzes Trump’s rise to prominence in the context of a divided, disaffected and often angry but still immobilized electorate:

Like any number of us raised in the late 20th century, I have spent my life perplexed about exactly how Hitler could have come to power in Germany. Watching Donald Trump’s rise, I now understand. Leave aside whether a direct comparison of Trump to Hitler is accurate. That is not my point. My point rather is about how a demagogic opportunist can exploit a divided country.

To understand the rise of Hitler and the spread of Nazism, I have generally relied on the German-Jewish émigré philosopher Hannah Arendt and her arguments about the banality of evil. Somehow people can understand themselves as “just doing their job,” yet act as cogs in the wheel of a murderous machine. Arendt also offered a second answer in a small but powerful book called “Men in Dark Times.” In this book, she described all those who thought that Hitler’s rise was a terrible thing but chose “internal exile,” or staying invisible and out of the way as their strategy for coping with the situation. They knew evil was evil, but they too facilitated it, by departing from the battlefield out of a sense of hopelessness.

… [W]hen someone asks what is to be done, silence falls. Very many of us, too many of us, are starting to contemplate accepting internal exile. Or we joke about moving to Canada more seriously than usually. …

Trump is rising by taking advantage of a divided country. The truth is that the vast majority of voting Americans think that Trump is unacceptable as a presidential candidate, but we are split by strong partisan ideologies and cannot coordinate a solution to stop him. …

She then follows this analysis by first congratulating Jeb Bush for suspending his campaign and calling on John Kasich, Ben Carson and Ted Cruz to do the same, after which she seems to urge voters to register as Republicans during primary season and cast votes for Trump’s remaining competitor, Marco Rubio, to prevent Trump from securing the Republican nomination.

The only way to stop him, then, is to achieve just that kind of coordination across party lines and across divisions within parties. We have reached that moment of truth. …

Republicans, you cannot count on the Democrats to stop Trump. I believe that Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic nomination, and I intend to vote for her, but it is also the case that she is a candidate with significant weaknesses, as your party knows quite well. The result of a head-to-head contest between Clinton and Trump would be unpredictable. Trump has to be blocked in your primary.

… If your deadline for changing your party affiliation has not yet come, re-register and vote for Rubio, even if, like me, you cannot stomach his opposition to marriage equality. …

Finally, to all of you Republicans who have already dropped out, one more, great act of public service awaits you. … Be bold, stand up and shout that you will not support Trump if he is your party’s nominee. … Endorse Rubio, together. …

Donald Trump has no respect for the basic rights that are the foundation of constitutional democracy, nor for the requirements of decency necessary to sustain democratic citizenship. Nor can any democracy survive without an expectation that the people require reasonable arguments that bring the truth to light, and Trump has nothing but contempt for our intelligence.

We, the people, need to find somewhere, buried in the recesses of our fading memories, the capacity to make common cause against this formidable threat to our equally shared liberties. The time is now.

Ms. Allen does not go into detail about what strategy she would recommend in the event that Rubio’s political platform, which in many ways is even more xenophobic and dangerous, if less bombastic, than Trump’s, catches fire with the right-wing electorate and poses a real threat to take the White House in 2017. Perhaps that is a subject for a future opinion piece from her.

Ms. Allen, of course, is not the only columnist sounding warning bells about Trump and his involvement in race-infused controversy. A February 17 article in The Guardian titled Donald Trump and the Central Park Five: The Racially Charged Rise of a Demagogue (http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/17/central-park-five-donald-trump-jogger-rape-case-new-york) by Oliver Laughland (below left) discusses Trump’s role in inciting the racist fervor around the case of the Central Park Jogger, who was brutally raped and left for dead in 1989.  Five youths, four Afrikan-American and one Latino, were charged in the rape and assault and were tortured into false confessions.  When the real rapist confessed to the crime and the city of New York released the five after nearly 15 years, Trump expressed outrage at the monetary settlement the city awarded to the now-adult wrongly-accused men, calling it “the heist of the century”.  A few excerpts from the article:

… The miscarriage of justice is widely remembered as a definitive moment in New York’s fractured race relations. But Trump’s intervention – he signed full-page newspaper advertisements implicitly calling for the boys to die – has been gradually overlooked as the businessman’s chances of winning the Republican nomination have rapidly increased. Now those involved in the case of the so-called Central Park Five and its aftermath say Trump’s rhetoric served as an unlikely precursor to a unique brand of divisive populism that has powered his rise to political prominence in 2016. … Michael Warren, the veteran New York civil rights lawyer who would later come to represent the Central Park Five, is certain that Trump’s advertisements played a role in securing conviction. “He poisoned the minds of many people who lived in New York and who, rightfully, had a natural affinity for the victim,” said Warren. “Notwithstanding the jurors’ assertions that they could be fair and impartial, some of them or their families, who naturally have influence, had to be affected by the inflammatory rhetoric in the ads.” … For many who have studied Trump’s rise to prominence, the Central Park case provided an early glimpse into how his racially charged views entered his political and tactical mindset.

“He has this penchant for what you might call otherising,” said Michael D’Antonio, the author of Never Enough, a recently published Trump biography. “I think he knew what he was doing by taking a side, and I think he knew he was aligning himself with law and order, especially white law and order. I don’t think that he was consciously saying ‘I’d like to whip up racial animosity’, but his impulse is to run into conflict and controversy rather than try to help people understand what might be going on in a reasoned way.” …

After declaring in his [2015] campaign announcement that Mexico was “bringing crime” and “rapists” to the US [3], Trump quickly seized on the murder case of a 32-year-old white woman in San Francisco [8] in which an undocumented Mexican migrant is the chief suspect. He has since frequently condoned and incited violence against protesters at his rallies [9], and has vowed to bring back waterboarding of terror suspects [10]. In referencing a promise to issue [11] an executive order to mandatorily execute anyone in the US who kills a police officer, he said: “We just can’t afford any more to be so politically correct.”

Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, activists are putting steady pressure on both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders to speak out more forcefully on issues of concern to the Afrikan American electorate, from support for Historically Black Colleges and Universities to steps their administrations would take to stop police brutality. According to a February 25 article by Antonio Moore for the Electronic Urban Report, Black Lives Matter Activist Interrupts Hillary Clinton, Demands Apology for Mass Incarceration (http://www.eurweb.com/2016/02/black-lives-matter-activist-interrupts-hillary-clinton-demands-apology-mass-incarceration/):

A #BlackLivesMatter activist, Ashley Williams … held up a sign stating “We have to bring them to Heel”, a statement used by Hillary Clinton in support of the criminal justice bill during the mid 1990’s. The activist also demanded an apology for Clinton’s role in the incarceration of black American youth during her husband’s time in the White House.

The Clinton campaign has a number of questions to answer on this issue, as well as her connections to Wall Street, which Sanders has highlighted over the past few months, and her role in the 2012 attack on Libya in which Libya’s President, Moammar Gaddafi, was killed.  That assault by NATO, which was supposedly done in support of United Nations Resolutions 1973 and 1976, designed to prevent violence against Libyan citizens, went far beyond simply “protecting civilians” and amounted to a series of direct missile attacks on Gaddafi’s headquarters in Tripoli, his home town if Sirte and his fleeing convoy, which left him defenseless against the angry mob that essentially hacked him to death.  This was seen as a curious decision since Gaddafi at the time had renounced terrorism, had awarded monetary settlements to victims of terrorist acts by Libyan agents and had offered to assist NATO in preventing the spread of terrorist groups in North Afrika. 

Meanwhile, Sanders faces a degree of alienation from Afrikan-American voters, and as he works to close that gap, he will ultimately need to deal with a couple of burning (“Feel The Bern”) questions regarding a statement he had made that he did not support Reparations (not that any of the presidential candidates do), though he has made the establishment of comprehensive programs for jobs in the Afrikan-American community, free college education for all, truly affordable health care for all and support for Historically Black Colleges and Universities regular planks in he recent campaign speeches. And his image with the more-progressive Afrikan-American and activist communities was damaged by recent accusations concerning a 1998 vote for a Congressional Resolution that included an attached “rider” calling for the extradition of Political Exile Assata Shakur from Cuba.  That Resolution was also voted on by the cast majority of the Congressional Black Caucus, which Congress Member Maxine Waters (D-California) apologized for days afterward, stating that she had not realized the rider was attached to the Resolution until after the vote.  It is not clear to us at this time whether or not Sanders was similarly bamboozled into voting for the Resolution.

Thus, even as the picture of the presidential race seems to be clarifying itself in terms of thinning the herd of candidates, the issues continue to promote confusion among the voters. A divided country once again further splits itself along racial lines as the Afrikan-American electorate is once again caught between the bombast and xenophobia of the right-wingers and the sometimes-shaky commitment to truth and justice from those on the left.