SOLEDAD BROTHER: MEMORIES OF COMRADE GEORGE (updated 9/23/11)
By Kiilu Nyasha
It’s hard to believe that our beloved Comrade, George Lester Jackson, would be 70 years old this date, September 23, 2011.
On reading his first book, a 1970 bestseller, “Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson,’ I felt a kindred spirit with George’s rage and resistance, but thought he contradicted himself on women. So I began a correspondence with him from New Haven, Connecticut, where I was a member of the Black Panther Party, and working for the lawyers defending Chairman Bobby Seale, Ericka Huggins, and Lonnie McLucas, as well as organizing community and national support for their freedom.
(ABOVE: Painting of George Jackson by Sundiata Acoli)
The SF Bay View Newspaper has published Kiilu's new article reflecting on the 40-year anniversary of George Jackson's assassination. An excerpt is featured below, but you can read the full article here.
This Black August, let us honor our martyred freedom fighter, Comrade George, as well as those who recently joined the ancestors: Donald Cox, Michael Cetawayo Tabor and geronimo ji Jaga. And let us not forget all those who remain captive after many decades: Mumia Abu-Jamal, Sundiata Acoli, Herman Bell, Romaine “Chip” Fitzgerald, Ruchell Cinque Magee − sole survivor of the Marin Courthouse Rebellion of Aug. 7, 1970 − Jalil Muntaqim, Albert Woodfox, Herman Wallace, Leonard Peltier, Oscar Lopez-Rivera and exiled freedom fighter Assata Shakur, to name just a few.
“Settle your quarrels, come together, understand the reality of our situation, understand that fascism is already here, that people are dying who could be saved, that generations more will live poor butchered half-lives if you fail to act. Do what must be done; discover your humanity and your love in revolution.”
Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, November 28, 2008.
Our guest, Robert Hillary King, (aka Robert King Wilkerson), one of the "Angola Three" (members of a prison chapter of the Black Panther Party), along with Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace, was serving a life sentence at Angola State Penitentiary. In February 2001, after 31 years of imprisonment and 29 continuous years of solitary confinement, King walked out of the gates of Angola a free man. King continues to struggle for the release of his comrades and all political prisoners. He has also written a book, From the Bottom of the Heap: The Autobiography of Black Panther Robert Hillary King, with an introduction by Terry Kupers, M.D., M.S.P. (PM Press).
For more information, visit www.kingsfreelines.com, www.angola3.org, and www.angola3news.com
(This show begins with commentary by Mumia Abu-Jamal)
Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, November 21, 2008.
Pierre Labossiere, a Haitian national, co-founder of the Haiti Action Committee, has been a long-time social-justice activist and advocate for the Lavalas Party of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, currently exiled in South Africa. Pierre has also been active in the campaigns to free political prisoners in Haiti and the U.S.
Learn more at: www.haitisolidarity.net and www.haitiemergencyrelief.org
(This show begins with commentary by Mumia Abu-Jamal)
Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, September 26, 2008.
Pam Africa is the Minister of Confrontation for the MOVE Organization and the Coordinator of the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Ramona Africa is the Minister of Communication for the MOVE Organization and the sole adult survivor of the May 13, 1985 massacre. On that day, a State Police helicopter dropped a C-4 bomb, illegally supplied by the FBI, on the roof of the MOVE Organization’s house at 6221 Osage Avenue in West Philadelphia. The bomb started a fire that was allowed to burn, and eventually destroyed 61 homes, leaving 250 people homeless: the entire block of a middle-class black community.
The Philadelphia Special Investigation Commission (The MOVE Commission), appointed by Mayor Wilson Goode, documented that when the occupants of the house tried to escape the fire, police shot at them, blocking their escape. In the end, six MOVE adults and five children died. Ramona Africa and 13 year-old Birdie Africa were the only survivors, after successfully dodging the police gunfire.
For more information about death row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, visit www.freemumia.com and www.abu-jamal-news.com and read/listen to his essays at www.prisonradio.org
For more about MOVE and the struggle to free the MOVE 9, visit www.onamove.com and move9parole.blogspot.com
Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, September 12, 2008.
Our guest, Attorney Dennis Cunningham, established the People's Law Office in Chicago, from which he and young Attorney Jeffrey Haas conducted a landmark civil rights lawsuit, "Hampton v. Hanrahan," on behalf of the families of slain Black Panther Party (BPP) leaders Mark Clark and Fred Hampton, and the survivors of the Dec. 4, 1969 police raid on the apartment of Illinois BPP Chairman Fred Hampton, at 2337 West Monroe Street in Chicago. The civil rights lawsuit lasted for almost 13 years, but ended with a $1.85 million settlement paid equally by the city, county, and federal governments--although Chicago's killer cops were never criminally charged.
Dennis continued doing civil rights cases over these 40 years, during which he also worked on the long-running class action for the prisoners who rebelled and survived the massacre at New York's Attica State Prison in 1971, and the Earth First case resulting from the 1990 bombing of Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney in Oakland, among many other defenses of protesters and victims of police misconduct, brutality and/or murder.
Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, September 19, 2008.
Pierre Labossiere, a Haitian national, co-founder of the Haiti Action Committee, has been a long-time social-justice activist and advocate for the Lavalas Party of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, currently exiled in South Africa. Pierre has also been active in the campaigns to free political prisoners in Haiti and the U.S.
Learn more at: www.haitiaction.net and www.haitisolidarity.net
Dylcia and Cisco on Panthers and Independistas
--SF8 Hearing on March 2
By Kiilu Nyasha and Angola 3 News
This February 26, 2011 episode of Freedom is a Constant Struggle features Dylcia Pagan and Francisco Torres.
Dylcia Pagan is a Puerto Rican freedom fighter and Independista, who spent nearly 20 years in Federal prisons on charges of seditious conspiracy for her role in the underground wing of the Puerto Rican independence movement.One of 11 Puerto Rican political prisoners granted clemency in 1999 by President Clinton, she was paroled to Puerto Rico, where she has continued to struggle against U.S. colonialism nonviolently.Born and raised in New York City, Dylcia studied psychology, political science, and Puerto Rican studies at BrooklynCollege where she founded the Puerto Rican Students Union.Her culture and politics are expressed through painting, ceramics, poetry, writings, and film.
She has participated in the production of a video about her life and compañeros in the struggle; and while in prison, she helped direct a documentary about Puerto Rican Women Prisoners of War.Her biography has been published in Puerto Rican Women: A History of Oppression and Resistance and she appears in the new film Machetero (view a clip with Dylciahere).
Francisco Torres (Cisco), 58, of New York City, was born in Puerto Rico and raised in New York City. He is a Vietnam Veteran who fought for the grievances of Black and Latino soldiers upon his return to the states. A former Black Panther, he has been a community activist since his discharge from the military in 1969. Cisco continues to work with troubled youth in his Queens community.
Cisco is the last of the San Francisco Eight to still be facing charges. As Cisco discusses in this interview, he had an evidentiary hearing scheduled for March 2, 2011. However, three days after the interview, on February 28, this hearing was canceled. A short update published on the SF8 website states: "An evidentiary hearing had been planned to take up the question of wiretaps, whose existence had long been denied by the prosecution. It now appears that the question may be settled without a hearing. Details to be posted here as soon as available...Stay tuned for future court dates." For the latest developments in the case and what you can do to help, please go to www.freethesf8.org.
--This episode of Freedom is a Constant Struggle is a collaborative project by Kiilu Nyasha and Angola 3 News, which is a project of the International Coalition to Free the Angola 3. Our website is www.angola3news.com where we provide the latest news about the Angola 3. We are also creating our own media projects, which spotlight the issues central to the story of the Angola 3, like racism, repression, prisons, human rights, solitary confinement as torture, and more.
Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, Black August 22, 2008.
Luis Bato Talamantez and Willie Sundiata Tate were in the so-called Adjustment Center (lockup!) in San Quentin on Black August 21, 1971, the day their/our comrade George Lester Jackson was assassinated by prison guards in what we believe was a set-up by the Administration.
Bato and Sundi were comrades who became known as The San Quentin Six, and are currently members of All of Us or None. They both did time in California juvenile and adult prisons where they got to know Comrade George, became politicized, and turned their lives around. Bato also works with the ANSWER Coalition and California Prison Focus. They continue to advocate for equal justice, freedom for political prisoners, and equal opportunities for ex-prisoners upon release.
Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, September 5, 2008.
(NOTE: Kiilu regrets having to go solo, much preferring to have in studio guests. However, Richard was unable to make it to the studio on that date, so we opted for a phone interview since the interview was timely--immediately prior to a SF8 court hearing in 2008.)
Richard Brown is a former Panther and long-time community activist. He was employed for 20 years as a program coordinator at the Ella Hill Hutch Community Center. For the past nine years, Richard has been a Community Court Judge Arbitrator working with the San Francisco District Attorney's office. Brown says: "We place a lot of emphasis on restorative justice, so most of the community service done will be done in our own community where the offender can give back to the community."
Brown is one of the San Francisco Eight. Since this show was filmed, the charges against him have been dismissed and Cisco Torres is the only one still facing charges. Torres has an evidentiary hearing on March 2, 2011, and an 8 AM rally prior to the hearing, where supporters are urged to attend. For the latest developments in the case and what you can do to help, please go to www.freethesf8.org.
I’m so glad to be alive! This people’s victory in North Africa, first in Tunisia and now in Egypt, is OUR VICTORY TOO. We are all North Africans, i.e., human beings struggling to be free.
Clearly, the Egyptian people have been engaged in a decades-long struggle for liberation from an extremely oppressive regime backed up by the U.S. and Israeli imperialists – to the tune of billions in support of the military machine. This victory didn’t fall out of the sky or just up and happen one fine day. It’s the culmination of hard struggle, countless martyrs and political prisoners, strikes and demonstrations previously defeated, an unwillingness to give up and faith in the power of the people...
This people’s victory in North Africa, first in Tunisia and now in Egypt, is OUR VICTORY TOO. We, the people of the world, must move forward toward global revolution that will liberate the entire global community....
-Read the full article, published Feb. 11 by the SF Bay View Newspaper, here.
-See also the previous, Jan. 31 SF Bay View article entitled Revolution Has Come!
In this segment of Freedom Is A Constant Struggle, Kiilu’s guest is S’bu Zikode, leader of Abahlali baseMjondolo, the shack dwellers’ movement of South Africa, who visited the Bay Area last November (2010).
Thanks to Raj Patel and Oriana Bolden, Kiilu got to have S’bu visit her to discuss on camera the disastrous living conditions and economic disparities that currently exist in the post-Apartheid nation governed by the African National Congress (ANC).
S’bu comes from the shanty town of Kennedy Road in Durban, South Africa, where Abahlali was formed in 2005 in protest of the ANC policies denying land and housing to the poor. Life threatening conditions (no water, electricity, security) pushed the people to demand the Government abide by its new Constitution, stop evictions and brutal attacks by the police, and make good on its promises.
Abahlali has grown to include some 30,000 people, and a coalition with other organizations has formed a Poor Peoples Alliance of at least 50,000 activists. A slogan adopted by Abahlali is NO LAND, NO HOUSE, NO JOB, NO VOTE!
