prairie fire organizing committee

Evaluation of Honoring New Afrikan & Black political prisoners Program

On November 12, 2000, Prairie Fire, the DePaul Activist Student Network, and Crossroad Support Network held a program entitled "Honoring New Afrikan and Black Political Prisoners." We organized the program in order to educate ourselves and others about the New Afrikan/Black political prisoners held in U.S. jails and to build solidarity with them. The program was also a tribute to Albert Nuh Washington.

Albert Nuh Washington dedicated his life to the liberation of Black people, and to all oppressed people. He had been a member of the Black Panther Party, the Black Liberation Army, and a political prisoner for close to three decades. He died in jail earlier last year (2000) of cancer. Despite the gravity of his illness, the prison authorities refused to release him so that he could spend his last days with his family and loved ones. We honored Albert Nuh Washington, because he was a dedicated freedom fighter and a teacher who has inspired and helped many people, in the prisons and outside, to change their lives for the better. He dedicated his life towards struggling to uphold the right of his people to self-determination. He always kept his sense of humor even in prison, and his love for his people was reflected in his life. He was a Black Liberation Army soldier who read Harry Potter books in prison! He was a devout Muslim who supported AIDS education in prison. He led by example.

We began the program by everyone introducing themselves. benjamin evans, of Prairie Fire, opened the program with a brief background on the Black and New Afrikan political prisoners. To see his comments, please go to http://www.prairie-fire.org/nabpp_program.shtml. He then dedicated a moment of silence to Albert Nuh Washington. Karen Williams, of Insight Arts, gave a very moving performance about women on Death Row. Through a series of expressive gestures, she clearly communicated the anger and anguish that women on death row frequently experience.

We then turned the program into an open discussion about the prisoners.

We talked about who they were, what they did and thought, why so few people knew about them, how we could educate people about them, and what we could do to get them out of jail. The crowd felt very positive about the very open and intelligent discussion about the Black political prisoners, and all the political prisoners held in U.S. jails. We acknowledged that it is rare that a group of some forty people get together to discuss the history, politics, and struggle of political prisoners in this country. The exchange of ideas increased all of our knowledge of and support for the prisoners.

Stan Willis gave a great presentation about the history of the Black liberation movement to explain why there are Black political prisoners. He began by talking about the Black Panther Party and its work to end the oppression and exploitation of Black people and continued with a discussion of these activists' work against the U.S. government, and their subsequent arrest and imprisonment. Questions and discussion followed his speech.

Since communicating with the prisoners is one concrete and important way to demonstrate our support, we encouraged everyone to write letters to the prisoners. In order to facilitate this activity, we handed everyone a her or his own envelope which contained information on a different prisoner and his or her name and address in it. We hope that everyone who got an envelope did indeed write to the prisoner whose name they received. As always, there were delicious bake goods to eat and much interesting literature to read. Special thanks go to Ashley, age eight, who took charge of the bake goods, made new signs for them, told some people they were eating too much, encouraged others to buy more, and generally brightened up the table.

Our evaluation:

In the weeks leading up to the program, members of Prairie Fire met to plan the program and discuss our goals.

We felt it was important that we and the people who came to the program learned more about the prisoners, the movements they were part of, and the attacks against them. Specifically, we wanted people to know who the Black political prisoners are; why they went to jail and how long they've been imprisoned; the history of COINTELPRO and how severe the government's attacks on revolutionary movements are in the US. We also felt that it was important to put the prisoners in the context of the civil rights and Black liberation struggles of the 1960s and 1970s. It is also important to understand these revolutionaries as part of the historical struggle for Black liberation. The uprisings that they engaged in are part of continual struggle for freedom that Afrikans have been involved in throughout the Americas since the 1500s. Despite everything, the decimation of their culture, the forced breakup of families, etc., we recognize and applaud their determined sense of being a people engaged in a continual struggle. In clear reflection of this sentiment, the 1993-94 National Black Political Study (http://social-sciences.uchicago.edu/ucrpc/Resources/papers/working-paper.html) showed that "half of all Blacks characterize their status as that of a nation within a nation." This sense of identity persists through these many centuries.

We especially wanted people to understand that these prisoners are revolutionaries who are in jail because they fought for the liberation of their people.

Many times we feel the power of the state and our inability to build a movement capable of achieving our goals for a more just society. This belief can produce cynicism and apathy. To counter this, we pointed out that there have been successful campaigns to release political prisoners. Some of the clearest examples of these successes are geronimo ji Jaga, Dhoruba Bin Wahad, and the eleven Puerto Rican political prisoners.

We also recognize that there are limitations to Amnesty International's definition of political prisoners, given all the powerful prisoners they've never even identified. One of the main limitations is the idea that those who engage in armed struggle and are capture and convicted as a result of their actions are not political prisoners. We do not agree with this. We recognize that many of the political prisoners in the U.S. and around the world, do engage in armed struggle. Equally, we do not believe that political prisoners need to be "innocent" to be supported. We do not recognize the right of the U.S. government to try those whom it oppresses and who choose to fight for their people's liberation.

We wished more people had been there, but we recognize that not much awareness of or support for these prisoners exists in this country. We think we could have worked harder to get more people there by talking the program up, calling our friends, and putting out more publicity. The program pointed out to us how much more work needs to be done in order to generate the kind of pressure that is necessary to get these people out of jail.

One of our strengths, that we always appreciate about ourselves, is that we work well together. We do what we say we are going to do, are good humored, and really like working together.

If you came to the program, we'd love to hear from you and know what you thought about it.