Ro Deezy: Political Prisoners

There are over 150 political prisoners and prisoners of war in the United States at this time as well as countless politicized individuals and social prisoners resisting their captors. Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War are men and women who, as a consequence of their political work and/or organizational affiliations were given criminal charges, arrested or captured, tried in criminal courts and sent to prison. While trying them as criminals, the government maintained files on them referencing their political activities, designed to insure they remain in prison. These are women and men who, while on the streets, made a conscious decision to organize for our freedom and liberation. Then, after making this decision, joined or became affiliated with organizations, parties, etc. that advocated and organized for these aims. Then, as a consequence of their work on the streets, and/or involvement in military actions, they were targeted, captured or framed and tried in criminal courts and sentenced to prison. Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War are men and women who, as a consequence of their political work and/or organizational affiliations were given criminal charges, arrested or captured, tried in criminal courts and sent to prison.
Many more political prisoners will be eventually added to Ro Deezy-Dot-Com. In the meantime, please access the links provided for current info and info on how you can help!

The brother of Assata Shakur and father of Tupac (2 PAC) Shakur, Dr. Mutulu Shakur is a New Afrikan (Black) man whose primary work has been in the area of health. He is a doctor of acupuncture and was a co-founder and director of two institutions devoted to improving health care in the Black community. Mutulu Shakur was born on August 8, 1950, in Baltimore, Maryland as Jeral Wayne Williams. During the late sixties Dr. Shakur was also politically active and worked with the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), a Black Nationalist group which struggled for Black self-determination and socialist change in America. He was also a member of the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika which endorsed the founding of an independent New Afrikan (Black) Republic and the establishment of an independent Black state in the southern U.S. Dr Shakur also worked very closely with the Black Panther Party supporting his brother Lumumba Shakur and Zayd. In March 1982, Dr. Shakur and 10 others were indicted by a federal grand jury under a set of U.S. conspiracy laws called "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization" (RICO) laws. These conspiracy laws were ostensibly developed to aid the government in its prosecution of organized crime figures; however, they have been used with varying degrees of success against revolutionary organizations. Dr. Shakur was charged with conspiracy and participation in a clandestine paramilitary unit that carried out actual and attempted expropriations from several banks. Eight incidents were alleged to have occurred between December 1976 to October 1981. After five years underground, Dr. Shakur was arrested on February 12, 1986.

Marilyn Buck began her anti-racist activism as a teen in Texas, organized against the war in Vietnam, and joined SDS and S. F. Newsreel. She fought for self-determination for all people, and she aligned herself with the Black Liberation Movement. In 1973 she was convicted of purchasing two boxes of handgun ammunition and was given a ten year sentence. After serving four years in Federal prison in Alderson, West Virginia, she was granted a furlough and did not return. The following eight years she was underground. In 1985 Marilyn was recaptured and tried for breaching another wall - she was convicted of conspiracy for the successful escape of Assata Shakur from her New Jersey prison. (Assata remains active from her exile in Cuba). Marilyn and her codefendents Dr. Mutulu Shakur and Sekou Odinga were also convicted of conspiracy to commit "armed bank robbery" in support of the New Afrikan Independence struggle. In 1988 she was given another ten years in the Resistance Conspiracy case, for "conspiracy to protest and alter government policies (the invasion of Grenada, intervention in Central America) through use of violence" against government and military property. She has been in prison for 18 years, with a total sentence of 80 years. Marilyn continues her activism inside the Federal women's prison in Dublin, California. Joining with other political prisoners internationally, she issued one of the early calls to organize for Mumia Abu-Jamal's life. She is deeply involved in cultural and educational activities for all prisoners, and translates for Spanish-speaking women inside. She has lifted her own voice through poetry for the whole time she has been incarcerated, and has participated in Poetry for the People workshops inside. In 2001 she won the PEN Prison Writing Program poetry prize and published a collection of poems, Rescue the Word. Marilyn has recently completed her work for a bachelor's degree in psychology.

Herman Bell was born and raised in the rural South by a large, loving family. At the age of 7, his father came to take him to live in New York City, where he could have a better education. He spent the rest of his youth in the city, then came West via a college football scholarship. It was in the Bay Area that Herman was introduced to and became a member of the Black Panther Party. He participated in the Party’s successful, self-sustaining community programs. Having been initially inspired by Malcolm X, like so many others, he went on to study the philosophies of national liberation movements that were coming to fruition around the world during the 1960s. It was in the context of the onward march of human history and the rising tide of global Black consciousness that Herman began his organizing and activism in the Black liberation movement. In response to the growing strength of this movement, the FBI targeted the Black Panther Party and community leaders for neutralization and elimination. Herman, like so many others, was driven underground and became part of the Black Liberation Army. He felt that it was his duty to serve his community, as well as to maintain and uplift its dignity and life force, given that Black people have been so grievously abused and disrespected since they were forced to these shores as an inexhaustible supply of slave labor. Herman’s affiliation led to his capture in 1973 and conviction in 1975 for the killing of two policemen in New York City in 1971. Herman’s two co-defendants, Jalil Muntaqim (Anthony Bottom) and Albert Nuh Washington, were also convicted. All received twenty- five years to life sentences. Herman, Jalil, and Nuh (known as the New York 3 (NY3)) received a hung jury at the end of their first trial. So the government ramped up its efforts during the second trial by forcing one of the NY3’s comrades, whom the government had brutally tortured, to turn state’s evidence and offering to drop charges against another witness for her testimony. Year later during an appeal hearing, a federal judge found that a New York City detective perjured himself when he testified falsely about ballistics evidence at their trial. (The government illegally destroyed all ballistics evidence in the case during the course of the NY3’s appellate process to gain their release.) Also, despite the secret involvement of the FBI and Nixon’s White House in efforts to secure a conviction, the trial judge refused to allow testimony about the infamous COINTELPRO program.

Jalil Muntaqim (Anthony Bottom), 55, of San Francisco, a political prisoner in New York since 1978. “The United States does not recognize the existence of political prisoners. To do so would give credence to the fact of the level of repression and oppression, and have to recognize the fact that people resist racist oppression in the United States, and therefore, legitimize the existence of not only the individuals who are incarcerated or have been captured, but also legitimize those movements of which they are a part.” Write to him: #77A4283, Auburn Correctional Facility, 135 State Street, P.O. Box 618, Auburn, NY 13024.

Get more information on many more political prisoners and how you can help at the Prison Activist Resource Center (PARC). PARC is a prison abolitionist group committed to exposing and challenging the institutionalized racism of the prison industrial complex. We are also committed to developing and practicing anti-oppression as individuals and in our organization. PARC believes in strategies and tactics that build safety in oppressed communities without reliance on the police or the PIC. We produce a directory that is free to prisoners upon request, and seek to work in solidarity with prisoners, formerly incarcerated people, their friends and families. We also work with teachers and activists on prison issues. This work includes building action networks and materials that expose human rights violations.