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Where’s the evidence Aoki was FBI informant?
August 24, 2012
Seth Rosenfeld’s dramatic announcement that Richard Aoki was an FBI informant provoked an enormous response from Chronicle readers. Could it be true? Or was this a “snitch-jacketing,” a classic FBI tactic used to cast suspicion on a legitimate activist by spreading rumors and manufacturing evidence?
Political prisoner news briefs
August 10, 2012
Black August is a time to remember and recommit to freeing our political prisoners who were targeted by COINTELPRO and similar schemes and have been imprisoned ever since – many for more than 30 years.
Jonathan Jackson Jr.’s foreword to his Uncle George Jackson’s ‘Soledad Brother’ (1994)
August 7, 2012
Nothing is more dangerous to a system that depends on misinformation than a voice that obeys its own dictates and has the courage to speak out. George Jackson’s imprisonment and further isolation within the prison system were clearly a function of the state’s response to his outspoken opposition to the capitalist structure. George was one of the brilliant minds of the 20th century, passionately involved with liberating not only himself, but all of us.
Monster Kody: an interview wit’ author Sanyika Shakur
June 20, 2012
The first book I read after I decided to consciously educate myself to be a part of the movement was Sanyika Shakur’s “Monster” in the mid-‘90s. I was inspired by the sharpness of his ideas, his vocabulary and his grasp on history. I respected him in the same way I respected Tupac Shakur. I knew that one day I wanted to be able express myself as articulately as the two of them.
Solitary confinement on trial: an interview with law professor Angela A. Allen-Bell
June 18, 2012
On the morning of Tuesday, June 19, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights is having an important public hearing on “Reassessing Solitary Confinement.” This Senate hearing comes on the heels of widespread prisoner hunger strikes that have made the use of solitary confinement a central issue.
Protesting police murder of Alan Blueford and war on Afrikans
May 23, 2012
On Tuesday, May 15, the bereaved family members of Alan Dwayne Blueford eloquently addressed those members of the Oakland City Council who were present, seeking justice in a case that is looking suspiciously like a criminal assassination of the 18-year-old student in his senior year at Skyline High School. He was due to graduate in June.
Sundiata Acoli, political prisoner for 39 years, wins appeal and is up for parole again
April 13, 2012
Sundiata Acoli is preparing to go before the parole board again for his newly won 2012 parole hearing. He is now the longest held prisoner in New Jersey’s history of similar convictions. He sends his warmest shout out of solidarity and strength to all those participating in or supporting the California Prisoners’ Hunger Strike.
Imam Jamil Al-Amin on El Hajj Malik El Shabazz (Malcolm X) – Rally Monday to bring him home
March 17, 2012
Imam Jamil Al-Amin (H. Rap Brown) is one of the most revered Black revolutionary leaders from the ‘60s who is alive today. He was a legendary organizer with SNCC and briefly with the Black Panther Party, then later in an Islamic community in the West End of Atlanta, Georgia. This is one of the true fathers of rap music. Atlanta will rally Monday, March 19, 3-5 p.m., at the Georgia Capitol, 206 Washington St., to bring Imam Jamil back to Georgia from federal prison in Florence, Colo.
Spying on San Franciscans: End FBI control of SFPD Joint Terrorism Task Force
February 29, 2012
Who should control the San Francisco Police Department’s counter-terrorism activities – the FBI or San Franciscans? At SF City Hall Room 250 on Thursday, March 1, 10:30 a.m., stop FBI targeting of ‘Black separatist extremists’ who advocate reparations under the banner of preventing terrorism!
Georgia: Eyewitness report on isolation, prison rebellion and work strike
February 20, 2012
What is wrong with prisoners asking for better living conditions and pay for work? What is wrong with prisoners requesting better educational programs, better religious programs, better rehabilitative programs or any useful programs at all instead of the current ones in place, which we hardly are even allowed to attend?
Political persecution at Pelikkkan Bay State Prison
January 29, 2012
In 2007, after serving 24 years in the Security Housing Unit (SHU), I became eligible for release, but the Office of Correctional Safety (OCS) and the Institutional Gang Investigation Unit (IGI) denied my release solely based on my political writings and activities. I am now going on my 30th year in solitary confinement.
Persecution for our political beliefs
November 6, 2011
I was validated as a prison gang member on one source of false information, even though CDCR regulations require “three (3) independent sources of information that is proven to be reliable.” Being falsely accused of prison gang membership and consequently being housed in SHU/CMU indefinitely amounts to state sponsored persecution for our political beliefs.
The 40th anniversary of the assassination of George Jackson
October 17, 2011
Comrade was an exceptional individual and driven by his passion for revolution. The immense amount of knowledge he had acquired prior to our meeting he had honed to be as sharp as a samurai sword. While in prison, he studied economics, history and philosophy, transforming himself into a political theoretician and strategist.
Why prisons and prisoners must matter to the Occupy movement
October 11, 2011
Prisons and the millions who are imprisoned are a critical issue in this society for the 1 percent and for the 99 percent – and certainly for the Occupy Wall Street movement. At Occupy LA – and everywhere – we have a moral responsibility to expose and demand an end to prison torture and especially the high-tech torture chambers called SHUs. On Thursday, Oct. 13, 5-7 p.m., at Occupy LA at LA City Hall, family members of those locked up in the SHUs and others will give VOICE to the prisoners on hunger strike. As their medical condition deteriorates, a strong turnout is critical.
The road from Attica
September 9, 2011
Sept. 9 marks 40 years since the uprising at Attica State Prison in upstate New York and the deadly and sadistic retaking of the prison – and mass torture of hundreds of prisoners all the rest of the day and night and beyond – by state police and prison guards on the morning of Sept. 13, 1971. Attica and its aftermath exposed the powder kegs ready to explode inside the U.S. prisons.
Kenneth Harding police murder aftermath: Victory for Kilo G
September 3, 2011
Kilo G. Perry is an Afrikan man and a man of his word. He is such a trusted man of his word that he has been dubbed “the voice of Bayview Hunters Point” by poor Black and Brown people of San Francisco. Comrade Kilo G is the producer of Cameras Not Guns, a youth educator and peacemaker, and a single father of a 3-year-old baby boy.
The People’s Lawyer: an interview wit’ Lynne Stewart
August 16, 2011
Lynne Stewart is one of the legendary activist lawyers of our time and also one of the many political prisoners of our time, who was incarcerated because her style of lawyering was called aiding and abetting a terrorist organization, by one of the biggest terrorist organizations ever known to humanity: the United States government.
When is a riot a rebellion?
August 10, 2011
Several days of unprecedented revolt by the most impoverished minority-populated neighborhoods of London have shaken the normally staid and reserved British aristocracy. Prime Minister David Cameron cut short his Italian vacation in sunny Tuscany to return to the red-orange glare of a burning city.
Wanda’s Picks for July 2011
June 29, 2011
A number of trees have fallen in the forest this past month and we want to acknowledge the huge spaces their absence brings: Geronimo ji jaga Pratt, Black Panther, decorated veteran of multiple wars …
The story of the Omaha Two
June 25, 2011
Third-party presidential candidate George Wallace, the former governor of Alabama, was in Omaha in March 1968 to qualify his American party in Nebraska. Wallace had arrived in Omaha on Sunday, the day before, and held an angry news conference to provoke a large turnout at his rally.