Marilyn Buck

[XXPANTHAXX]

Marilyn Buck is an Anti-Imperialist political prisoner. She is imprisoned for her anti-imperialist actions carried out in support of national liberation, women's liberation, social and economic justice.

In the 60's Marilyn participated in protests against racism and the Vietnam war. In 1967 she became part of Students for a Democratic Society. Marilyn became part of a radical filmmaking and propaganda collective, showing the films as an organizing aid at community meetings, high school groups, workers' committees and in the streets. She also participated in international solidarity groups supporting the Vietnamese, Palestinians, and the Iranian struggle against the Shah. She worked in solidarity with Native Americans, Mexicano and Black liberation struggles.

As a direct result of all of this activity, she became a target of COINTELPRO. In 1973, she was arrested and convicted of buying two boxes of bullets. Accused of being a member of the BLA, she sentenced to 10 years, the longest sentence ever given for such an offense at the time. In 1977 she was granted a furlough and never returned, joining the revolutionary clandestine movement. In 1985 she was captured and and faced 4 separate court trials. She was charged with conspiracy to support and free PP/POWs and to support the New Afrikan Independence struggle through expropriations. In 1988 she was indicted for conspiracy to protest and alter government policies through use of violence against government and military buildings and received an additional 10 years for conspiracy to bomb the Capitol. She is serving a total of 80 years.

Along with political prisoners David Gilbert and Laura Whitehorn, Marilyn Buck was interviewed by comrades from the Resistance in Brooklyn group. These interviews were all published in the booklet Enemies of the State , available from Kersplebedeb for $4. Click here for more information.

Marilyn has also won the poetry prize from the PEN Prison Writing program, and a booklet of her poems entitled Rescue the Word was published in 2001. This is also available from the Kersplebedeb Literature Rack .


In her own words: "I am also a strong advocate to free political prisoners/POWs and also to take on the U.S. prison plantation system. Being a political prisoner is not my only work. I think it is wasteful and short-sighted to relegate political prisoners to only working around themselves. Just because we are prisoners does not mean that we have lost our reasoning, analytical powers. We still have a world views based on long years of experience. Too many, even in our political movements would prefer to relegate us to museum pieces, objects of campaigns perhaps, but not political subjects and comrades in an ongoing political struggle against imperialism, oppression, and exploitation. The state tries to isolate us, true; that makes it all the more important not to let it succeed in its proposition. We fight for political identity and association from here; it is important that political forces on the outside not lose sight of why the state wants to isolate and destroy us, and therefore fight to include us in political life — ideological struggle, etc. In many struggles many militants have been exiled yet they have still been considered part of their struggles, not merely objects. We, we here, could be considered internally exiled. Don’t lock us into roles as objects or symbols."

In 2004 a CD of Marilyn's poetry - Wild Poppies - a poetry jam across prison walls - was released by the San Francisco-based Freedom Archives. It contains forty six poems (32 of which are written by Marilyn) read by over twenty different poets, and provides a wonderful testimony to her politics and her spirit. This CD can be ordered from Kersplebedeb for $12 plus shipping - just email me at info@kersplebedeb.com for details.