Daily Archives: September 9, 2012

Far from bringing “discredit to the Panthers,” as Rosenfeld contends, the Black Panthers’ armed street patrols dramatically reduced the level of violence visited by Oakland’s white cops upon the city’s Black residents, earning the admiration of 62 percent of inner city Blacks, according to a 1969 Wall Street Journal poll. Rosenfeld’s portrayal of the Panthers, including Richard Aoki’s role in the organization, is grossly inaccurate. His analysis of the violence surrounding the party’s challenge to racial inequality and injustice is simplistic and racist.

Mumia Abu-Jamal writes that on Sept. 9, 1971, prisoners at Attica state prison in upstate New York rebelled, took hostages and demanded to be treated as men. And the state, under orders of then-Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, unleashed a hail of bullets that killed dozens of men – prisoners and prison guards alike – and then lied about it. The Correctional Association has called for Attica to be shut down, as it remains a grim symbol of expensive, brutal failure. If it does, it’ll be 41 years too late. [Watch the excellent video on Attica by Freedom Archives posted with this story.]