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Tag: Marilyn Buck

California Coalition for Women Prisoners celebrates 25+ years

Twenty-five years uplifting and working alongside criminalized and incarcerated women is celebrated by CCWP. 

Wanda’s Picks for August 2020

We are losing so many loved ones this year. Beloved heroes like Rep. John Lewis and his friend and mentor Rev. C.T. Vivian and Rev. Joseph Lowery, dean of the Civil Rights Movement. Here in Oakland, we lost Wonder Woman Denise Adele Gums (Oct. 26, 1953-July 22, 2020).

Veronza, don’t die in prison!

His name is Veronza Bowers Jr., a former member and captain of the original Black Panther Party. After more than 44 years in prison, 14 years beyond his mandatory release date, Veronza has faith that with his Freedom Team of top lawyers and the love of multitudes of supporters around the world, he will win his freedom soon. Political prisoners are kept in prison when the “law enforcers” they opposed decades ago carry grudges they pass down the generations, vowing those prisoners will die in prison. But the words of little Pharoah Dawson, who wrote, “Veronza, don’t die in prison!” are more powerful.

Prison Panthers and awakening the Black radical

I have always said that if you want to understand the nature of a thing, you must research its origin. I would venture to say that the iconic freedom fighter and servant of the people Malcolm X was the first “Prison Panther,” although he was not known officially as such. However, when Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self Defense in 1966 at Merritt College in Oakland, California, the legacy of their hero, OUR HERO, Malcolm X was on their mind.

Millions for Prisoners Human Rights March in Washington, D.C.

Saturday morning, Aug. 19, the day dawned bright and sunny, not a hint of the rain that drenched us the evening before. At 10:30 a.m. when I arrived at Freedom Plaza, there were people with posters and event T-shirts and a brother with a bullhorn. Robert King and Albert Woodfox were there in Amend the 13th T-shirts. King was passing out information about the law – the constitutional amendment – that legalizes slavery. Later on, at the rally, he would conclude the event, which lasted about five hours.

A warrior bends her knee in prayer

I am at Lighthouse Mosque for El Hajjah Dhameera Ahmad’s Janazah or prayer service Wednesday afternoon, July 26. I will miss her. Dameera Ahmad (née Carlotta Basseau Simon) was a huge presence in a world that is shrinking. I am happy our paths were one at some point and shared many subsequent intersections. Her burial was on Oya’s day – Oya, guardian of the cemetery, spirit of the winds or transformation and change.

Reparationists take the power, and da funk, to Parliament in London!

On 1 Mosiah (August), thousands of Pan Afrikanists from around England, Europe, the Afrikan continent, the Caribbean, Australia and other former colonies like West Papua – accompanied by billions of our Afrikan forbearers! – assembled in London for major mass actions. In this, the Annual Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March, the themes of “Stop the Maangamizi: We charge genocide and ecocide” and “Demand reparatory justice and reparations” united all.

Revolutionary eulogy by Texas Chicano POW-political prisoner Alvaro Luna Hernandez for...

We were saddened by the news that Yogi was murdered during an alleged “prison riot” at a Sacramento maximum security prison, after Yogi’s release from decades in solitary confinement in the California prison system. Our prison movement grieves at the loss of one of its most respected and beloved foot soldiers within the belly of this fascist beast in our mutual struggles against the common enemy of the human species.

The other death sentence: Deliberate indifference at Corcoran SHU

“Deliberate indifference” is defined as “the act(s) or omissions of a prison official who knows that the prisoner faces a substantial risk of serious harm or significant pain and disregards that risk by not taking reasonable measures to abate it.” But what happens when deliberate indifference is longstanding, pervasive, well documented and expressly noted by officials over the course of time. Yet the state does nothing to correct it?

Prison refuses Mumia medical care as his 61st birthday is celebrated...

Political prisoner and revolutionary journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal has been the victim of criminal neglect by the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections for months, and his life is in grave danger. He is weak, in the infirmary, and continues to need a wheelchair to come out to visits. Mumia needs all of us to help now! Sign the petition to help save – and free – Mumia. Also, we need to keep up the pressure with phone calls. No execution by medical neglect! Save Mumia’s life!

Free performance of ‘Every Five Minutes’ at Laney College Saturday

The play “Every Five Minutes” by Scottish writer Linda McLean is an unique look into the effects of solitary confinement on a man named Mo – recently released after 13 years behind bars. Captured by insurgents, he was tortured, denied contact with family or others outside of his captors. The effects of this deprivation are one disorientated man whom we meet at his coming out dinner.

True soldiers needed

Through the years women have played important roles in the revolutionary movement. Today it seems that women have lost interest in being a revolutionary, but it is time for that to change. Women, we have some big shoes to fill, but we can do it if we just step up. It is time to make a lifetime commitment to fighting to end oppression, injustice and inequality. It is time to join forces with our men and be true soldiers for the betterment of the world.

‘Help bring me home for the holidays,’ a life and death...

I need to ask once again for your assistance in forcing the Bureau of Prisons to grant my compassionate release. They have been stonewalling since August and my life expectancy, as per my cancer doctor, is down to 12 months. They know that I am fully qualified and that over 40,000 people have signed on to force them to do the right thing, which is to let me go home to my family and to receive advanced care in New York City. Yet they refuse to act.

Political prisoners, mass incarceration and what’s possible for social movements

Since America’s MASS INCARCERATION is driven by unjust racial/class policies, then the real solution to MASS INCARCERATION is MASS “DECARCERATION.” In other words, drastic cuts to ALL prisoner’s TIME, since TIME is the currency, the legal tender, the great equalizer and righter of wrongs in prison.

The People’s Lawyer: an interview wit’ Lynne Stewart

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.

Locked far too long behind the walls

I’ve been corresponding with prisoners since 1970, shortly after joining the Black Panther Party in 1969. There were fierce arguments being waged regarding individual leaders, strategies and tactics, and ideology.

Marilyn Buck on September 11, 2001: ‘Incommunicado’

“This poem by Marilyn Buck was written in the wake of 9/11 when Marilyn and other political prisoners on mainlines were put into lockup (solitary confinement) in prisons across the country. It’s very moving and so pertinent and timely.” – Kiilu Nyasha, friend and supporter of Marilyn Buck and all political prisoners

‘Black August’ by Marilyn Buck, whose passing is mourned

Marilyn Buck was a former political prisoner and prisoner of war. Along with Mutulu Shakur, she was responsible for the liberation of Assata Shakur from prison in 1979. She later went underground and spent 25 years in prison. She was released July 15, 2010. Then suddenly, only 19 days later, she was gone.

SF 8 victory dance: Prosecution admits evidence is insufficient

What was amazing about the hearing Monday was the prosecution’s admission that it didn’t have enough evidence to convict these men. As attorney Daro Inouye said of Jalil Muntaqim, who pled no contest to the prosecution’s charge of conspiracy, his client picked up a loaded grenade to save his brothers, his friends, his fellow defendants, and he didn’t plead guilty. That language did not pass his lips.