Court Decision on Baltimore PP Jack Johnson!

[nattyreb]

via: NY Jericho

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: Yesterday, in a downtown Baltimore courtroom, more than sixty people showed up as part of the Campaign to Free Jack Johnson from political imprisonment. Some of these supporters were homeless. Two were disabled, one using a wheelchair and the other using crutches for a partially amputated leg. One, a professor, came to Baltimore from Lincoln University (from outside Philadelphia), and at least four of Jack Johnson's supporters were comrades from the Black Panther Party. While the overwhelming majority of these people were black and of African descent, a few were poor or working class white people. At the end of the day, all of these people, whether male or female, whether old or young, gave their time or rather their firm support to liberate Jack Johnson from prison. And their effort succeeded.

After a great deal of work by the Nat Turner Rebellion and by former Black Panther Rev. Annie Chambers, the people filled Courtroom 236 in downtown Baltimore and, with the political and disciplined threat of their presence, the Campaign to Free Jack Johnson pressured a judge to set Brother Jack totally free from prison in eighteen months (albeit, after the police state has imprisoned Jack Johnson on a life plus fifteen year prison sentence for more than thirty-nine years). In other words, while the Fraternal Order of Police wanted Jack Johnson to live out the rest of his natural life in prison and die there, and after Jack Johnson survived torture, a racially-bigoted and rigged trial in 1971, and more than thirty-nine years in prison, he will finally leave prison and rejoin the modern-day struggles of his people.

As some of you may know, the Campaign to Free Jack Johnson sought help from a few of Maryland's famous, wealthy, and influential black preachers, black politicians, black lawyers, and other highly regarded black celebrities. In earlier years, we even approached liberal white Democrats like Governor Glendening for help. None of these people came out. None of these blessed and privileged individuals offered their material support. They were too busy. Quite frankly, they didn't care. On the other hand, the poor, the disenfranchised, the disabled, and the homeless joined working class black people and students and filled Courtroom 236 in downtown Baltimore. This coalition of the poor and the working class empowered itself when it came together. For example, one or two people with jobs gave money. College students signed petitions and participated in educational symposiums about the case. The homeless took the lead and recruited other poor people to join the campaign. Therefore, at the end of the day, while the rich and the famous ignored the case of Jack Johnson, the working class and the starving poor showed up in court and demanded that their soldier and brother be set free.

Because the Campaign to Free Jack Johnson received meaningful support from working class and poor people, Jack Johnson will not die some day in one of Maryland's wretched detention centers. Rather, after literally surviving torture and more than thirty-nine years in prison, he will be liberated from the American police state in eighteen months. However, since for now he remains a political prisoner, the struggle continues. As a result, we must fight to ensure his unrestricted liberty. We must fight to see that, after sacrificing so much for our people, he will see his aging mother at her home in Chicago, and this must happen before she dies; not at her funeral. We build today from our hard-fought success. In fact, yesterday, we obtained a substantially reduced prison sentence for Jack Johnson. Tomorrow, we free Black Panther Marshall Eddie Conway and the MOVE 9. Indeed, tomorrow, we free all of our political prisoners of war. And, in the course of that struggle, we work assiduously to liberate wrongly convicted Georgia death row inmate Troy Anthony Davis. This we do now. This we do forever. This we do until -- and as a material realization of -- our full and unfettered liberation.

On the MOVE! Power to the people! Free the land!

Thomas Ruffin
The Nat Turner Rebellion

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Free All Political Prisoners!
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