Eugene Debs

I was an American union leader, one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or the
Wobblies), and created unions to protect the rights of workers against inhumane treatment and unfair wages. I was
a five time candidate of the Socialist Party of America for President of the United States.
I fought for the nations working class trying to secure an 8 hour work day, living wages, and other improvements. I
led the Pullman Strike of the American Railway Union in 1919 and was jailed as a result of this for 6 months. During
the First World War I made speeches against President Wilsons administration and the war. My activities got the
government watching me, and I was later called a "traitor to my country." On June 16, 1918, I gave a speech urging
resistance to the military draft of World War I. Because of this speech I was arrested on June 30 and charged with
ten counts of sedition or trying to incite a rebellion against the government. I was sentenced to ten years in prison
and was also disenfranchised or restricted from voting for the rest of my life.
I ran for president in the 1920 election while in prison and received 919,799 write-in votes (3.4%), slightly less than I
won in 1912, when I received 6%, the highest number of votes for a Socialist Party presidential candidate in the
U.S. During my time in prison, I wrote a series of columns deeply critical of the prison system. I was eventually
pardoned and released from jail by President Harding in December of 1921.

I have always raised my voice in defense of the common man.

Alice Paul
During the early 1900s I fought for womens rights, which means I was a suffragette. I led 12 women to the
gates of the White House. We were the first people ever to picket the White House. I carried banners that
demanded answers: MR. PRESIDENT HOW LONG MUST WOMEN WAIT FOR LIBERTY? MR.
PRESIDENT WHAT WILL YOU DO FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE?I led a protest outside of the White House to
call attention to President Woodrow Wilsons hypocrisy. He called for world democracy, while ignoring womens
rights in the United States. We didnt have the right to vote, we were paid less for our work, and we lacked
many civil rights that men had. Angered by our protest, a mob attacked us, but we were the ones arrested.
They jailed us and force-fed us when we went on hunger strikes. I was singled out and seized, sentenced to
solitary confinement in a psychiatric ward. The government pressured the press to hide news of the protests
and arrests, but reports of brutal treatment leaked out. I continued hunger strikes and rebellious activities while
imprisoned to keep pressure on the President to do something. In January 1918, Wilson announced that
women's suffrage was urgently needed as a "war measure," and strongly urged Congress to pass legislation.
By 1919, because of the work of the suffragettes the 19th amendment to the constitution was passed which
gave women the right to vote.
Leonard Peltier
Today, I have been sitting in a federal prison for 50 years for a crime I did not commit. Amnesty International
and Archbishop Desmond Tutu consider me a political prisoner, and I am. The government needed to convict
someone for the killing of two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1976. They needed it to be a
member of the American Indian Movement. And thats why Im in prison. I never killed anybody. The only
crime I committed was trying to help Indian people survive on the reservation. Key witnesses like Myrtle Poor
Bear were not allowed to testify and evidence regarding violence on Pine Ridge was severely restricted. There

is substantial evidence that you were not the shooter of the two agents, but that has never been brought back
to court. I am currently serving out two life sentences for the murders and will not, as it stands, a possibility of
parole until 2040, at which time I will be 96 years old.
Charles Weems
I am one of the Scottsboro Boys. On March 25, 1931, I hopped on a freight train traveling between
Chattanooga and Memphis, Tennessee searching for work. I am black. A fight broke out between a group of
black and white riding the train, and the whites were thrown off the train. They reported the incident to a
stationmaster, who wired ahead for officials to stop the train at a town called Paint Rock. A posse was formed
and a group of armed men rounded me and eight other blacks up and took us to jail.
We were all about to be charged with assault when two white women, dressed in boys clothing, were
discovered hiding I and others were charged with raping the women. As I was being held, a lynch mob
gathered outside the jail. The local sheriff stood in front of the jail and addressed the mob. He said he would kill
the first person to come through the door. He removed his belt and handed his gun to one of his deputies. He
walked through the mob and the crowd parted to let him through. He was not touched by anyone.
The women -- who had had sexual relations with some of the white men thrown off the train and fearing
prosecution for their sexual activity with the white men -- agreed to testify against us. The trial was held in the
town of Scottsboro, Alabama. The all-white jury convicted all nine of us except the youngest, who was 12 years
old. We were sentenced to death. Later the women would admit they had lied.

Assata Shakur
I have been a political activist most of my life, and although the U.S. government has done everything in its
power to criminalize me, I am not a criminal, nor have I ever been one. In the 1960s, I participated in various
struggles: the black liberation movement, the student rights movement, and the movement to end the war in
Vietnam. I joined the Black Panther Party. By 1969, the Black Panther Party had become the number one
organization targeted by the FBIs war on the Civil Rights Movement known as COINTELPRO program. The
Black Panther Party, which demanded the total liberation of black people, was called by J. Edgar Hoover,
Director of the FBI, the greatest threat to the internal security of the country and vowed to neutralize it and
its leaders and activists. I have been living as an exile in Cuba since 1984. It all started with a 1973 shootout
that left two dead - white New Jersey State trooper, and fellow Black Panther, Zayd Shakur. I was also
seriously injured in that incident. I was then imprisoned and charged with multiple unrelated crimes. I
successfully escaped from prison in 1979 and left the United States in 1984. I have always maintained my
innocence. In 2013 the FBI, placed me on their Most Wanted Terrorist list. I was the first woman in history to
be placed on that list. I have said: "It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love
each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains."
Muhammad Ali
I am considered to be one of if not the greatest boxers of all time. The world knows me as the boxer who
floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee. I was born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr., in Louisville Kentucky,
on January 14, 1942. I changed my name to Muhammad Ali in 1964 after converting to Islam. By 1967 I was
the reigning heavyweight champion of the world and an Olympic gold medalist.On April 28, 1967, I was drafted
into the Vietnam War, but refused to be inducted into the U.S. Army to fight. When asked why, I told the media,
I aint got no quarrel with those Vietcong. No Vietcong ever called me Nigger. On June 20, 1967, I was

convicted of draft evasion, sentenced to five years in prison, fined $10,000 and banned from boxing for three
years. I wasnt in prison long, leaving on an appeal, but my conscientious objection got in the way of my boxing
career. I was systematically denied a boxing license in every state and stripped of my US passport. As a
result, I did not fight from March 1967 to October 1970from ages 25 to almost 29. In 1971, the US Supreme
Court overturned my conviction in a unanimous 8-0 ruling.

Mumia Abu-Jamal
I took the name Mumia (Prince) in high school while taking a class on African cultures. I am now a political
activist and journalist. I am serving a life sentence in prison for a crime I did not commit. following encounters
with and beatings by the police,I joined the Philadelphia chapter of the Black Panther Party in the later 1960s
and focused my energy on media relations. I began working for a series of radio stations, using my
commentary on issues of the day to advocate for social change. My activism placed me on the radar for
surveillance by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). On December 9, 1981 I was arrested for the murder
of Philadelphia policeman Daniel Faulkner, who was shot and killed during a traffic stop involving my brother,
William Cook. During the incident between Faulkner and Cook, I was shot, treated and then arrested and
charged with first-degree murder. Despite conflicting testimony from key witnesses, I was found guilty and
sentenced to death. This did not stop me from continuing to take action while in prision. In 1994, from Prison I
returned to radio as a commentator for Prison Radio and for National Public Radio. In 1999, another man
admitted that he and an unnamed assailant, not me, had shot Faulkner as part of a contracted killing. Soon
other witnesses from the trial came forward and admitted that they lied under oath. In spite of all the evidence
that I am innocent, I continue to sit in jail, now ailing with diabetes. I have been here for over 30 years.
Clarence Brandly
In 1980 when I was 30 years old and working as a janitor at a high school in Conroe, Texas, I found the body of
16-year-old Cheryl Dee Ferguson in a loft above the auditorium of Conroe High School. I was one of five
school custodians, the only African-American; apparently, the other four all made statements implicating me in
the murder. There was no physical evidence linking me to the crime. At the police station I was questioned,
along with another janitor from the school who was white. During this interrogation, Texas Ranger Wesley
Styles said, "One of you is going to have to hang for this" and then, turning to me, added, "Since youre the
nigger, you're elected." At trial, I faced an all-white jury. I was convicted and sentenced to death. Eleven
months after my conviction, sympathetic lawyers discovered that evidence had disappeared while in the
custody of the prosecution including physical evidence that suggested my innocence. After a lengthy
appeals process, I was proved innocent and freed in 1990. I have never been compensated for my time behind
bars.

Afeni Shakur
I joined the new Black Panther movement in 1964. I was committed to working tirelessly for civil rights and a
better way of life for African Americans. In 1969, I, along with twenty fellow-Panthers were wrongfully arrested
and charged with several counts of conspiracy to bomb police stations, department stores, and other public
places in New York City. In the trial that followed, I defended myself and defeated the prosecution's case by
performing like a seasoned attorney. On June 16, 1971, Tupac Amaru Shakur was born. I was not the best

mom, Ill admit, spending a lot of time on my activism and later because of my addiction to crack cocaine.
Finally, I enrolled in a 12-step program at a drug and alcohol treatment center. When I was reconciled with my
son, he had already become a successful artist, writing a song called Dear Mama with the lines: "And even
as a crack fiend, mama, you always was a black queen, mama". I never returned to the Black Panthers, but I
am proud of my participation in the group. They taught me to always believe in myself and that my opinion is
worth more or as much as anybody elses.
Erma Faye Stewart
I am one of the over 50% of felons who spent time in prison for non-violent offenses. I am one of over 20% of
nonviolent felons who have served time for drug offenses. My name is Erma Faye Stewart. I am a thirty yearold, single, African American mother of two. I was arrested in a massive drug sweep in Texas, but I am
innocent. My court-appointed attorney told me to plead guilty to a drug distribution charge, saying the
prosecutor has offered probation, and it was my best chance to get back to my two children quickly. I said no -I cant plead guilty to something I didnt do! But, after almost a month in jail, I finally did plead guilty so I could
go home and take care of my kids. I was sentenced to ten years probation and ordered to pay $1,000 in fines
and probation costs. But now I am branded a felon which makes me ineligible for food stamps; most employers
wont even consider my application because I have to check the box that says I have a prior criminal offense; I
cannot vote for at least twelve years; and I am about to be evicted from public housing. My biggest worry is
that if I cannot find a way to make a living, my children will be taken from me. Even though a judge eventually
found that the entire drug sweep was based on the testimony of a single informant who lied to the prosecution,
I am still officially a drug felon and cant seem to find any way to escape that label.

Clifford Runoald
I am an African American man who was swept up in a major drug sting. I plead not guilty and released. I went
home to Bryan, Texas, to attend the funeral of my eighteen-month-old daughter. Before the funeral services
began, the police showed up and handcuffed me. I begged the officers to let me take one last look at my
daughter before she was buried. The police refused. When I was taken into custody, I was told by prosecutors
that I needed to testify against one of the defendants in a recent drug bust. I had not witnessed any drug
transaction and didnt know what they were talking about. Because I refused to cooperate, I was indicted on
felony charges. After a month of being held in jail, the charges against me were dropped. I am technically free,
but as a result of my arrest and the time I was forced to be in jail, I lost my job, my apartment, furniture and car.
I still cant believe they wouldnt let me say goodbye to my baby girl.

Adolph Lyons
I am a twenty-four-year-old black man living in Los Angeles, California. One morning, I was driving my car
when I was pulled over by four police officers, supposedly for driving with a burned-out taillight. With guns
drawn, police ordered me out of the car. I obeyed and they told me to face the car, spread my legs, and put my
hands on my head. I did as I was told, but I also complained that the car keys I was holding were causing
pain. All of a sudden, the officer forced me into a chokehold. I lost consciousness and collapsed. When I
awoke, I was spitting up blood and dirt, had urinated and defecated, and had suffered permanent damage to
my larynx. If you can believe it, after all that, the officers issued a traffic ticket for the burned-out taillight and
released me. I sued the City of Los Angeles for violation of my constitutional rights and sought, as a remedy, a
ban against future use of chokeholds. By the time my case reached the Supreme Court, sixteen people had
been killed by police use of the chokehold, twelve of them black men. The Supreme Court dismissed the case,
however, ruling that I lacked standing to seek an end to the deadly practice. According to them, in order to

have legal standing I would have had to show (1) that all police officers in Los Angeles always choke any
citizen with whom they have an encounter, whether for the purpose of arrest, issuing a citation or for
questioning, or (2) that the City ordered or authorized the police to act in such a manner. The Courts ruling in
my case makes it extremely difficult to challenge systemic race discrimination in law enforcement and obtain
meaningful policy reform.
Sandra Bland
At Age 28 I decided to quit my job working in for a company that supplied correctional facilities in Illinois
because I felt uncomfortable being part of the system that incarcerates so many African-American males.
Thinking about social injustice and how I could pursue work that makes a difference, I took a job with my alma
mater, the historically black Prairie View A&M University in Prairie View, Texas. I was going to be working with
students who have limited financial resources. I was excited to begin work that mattered. Recently, I joined
Black Lives Matter and was vocal about the mistreatment of blacks in the criminal justice system. In July of
2015, I was pulled over by a Texas State Trooper for allegedly failing to use my turn signal. I explained that I
hadnt signaled because I saw the officers vehicle coming up and thought I should move into the other lane
quickly. The officer asked me to put out my cigarette and when I refused, claiming it was my car and surely I
should be able to smoke if I wanted to, he became agitated and ordered me to get out of the car. After cuffing
me, physically accosting me, and taking me into custody, without ever telling me what I had done wrong, I was
arrested and taken to jail; bail was set at $5,000. I was unable to reach my family and so had to spend the
night in jail. Two days later, I was found dead in my jail cell. The authorities said that it was a suicide but my
family believes this cannot be true. They pressed for an investigation. Whether or not I committed suicide, I
never would have died in jail if I had not been unfairly profiled, unfairly arrested, and held in jail for nothing
more than a failure to signal.
Demetria Duncan
I am 14 years old. My mother, father, brothers, cousins have all been locked up. I have been locked up by
juvenile authorities four times. I take medication for anxiety. I admit that I have a short temper and lash out at
my family more than I should, but sending me to jail doesnt help. In fact, it only makes me angrier. I live in a
housing project of Louisville, Kentucky called Beecher Terrace. Even though I am young, I already have 11
charges against me, ranging from truancy (skipping school) to assault. My most recent stint in juvenile
detention was for assaulting my aunt, who is my legal guardian. See, my mother is dead. It was officially
declared a suicide but my family believes it was murder. On my mothers birthday, my aunt refused to pick me
up to visit my moms grave and I decided to escape from the detention facility. I just had to see my moms
grave -- it was her birthday. Eventually I was picked up at Beecher Terrace and I was sentenced to a year in a
state detention. I feel like I am trapped in a cycle of incarceration, but feel I cant find a way out. The more they
lock me up, the harder it is to do the things I know I need to do.

Charles McDuffie
I am a former Vietnam veteran now on probation after serving 5 years in prison for burglary in Kentucky. I have
had a drug problem for a while. I turn to drugs to ease my mind, but it only works for a little bit, and then I end
up right back where I started. Forty-five years ago I served with the 11th cavalry in Vietnam where I first started
using drugs, like Marijuana and alcohol, in order to get through and deal with the horrors I witnessed. It has not
been easy after coming home from the war. I had no treatment for my mental health even though I suffer from
post-traumatic-stress-disorder (PTSD.) I cant seem to forget this one moment when I killed a Vietnamese man
in front of his family while he was begging me not to kill him. It was murder. I regret that moment and will for the

rest of my life. That is what made me smoke crack, I thought it might help me forget that. Today, I am on
probation, I am clean and sober and I hope to stay that way.
Mark Bolton
I am the Director of the Louisville Departments of Correction where I am in charge of more than four hundred
Metro Corrections inmates each day. The war on drugs has unnecessarily filled jails and prisons. The U.S.
incarcerates more people in absolute numbers and per capita than any other nation in the world, including
the far more populous China (2nd) and Russia (3rd). Since the 1970s, the number of people locked up in the
United States has grown from 300,000 to 2.3 million. Kentucky, the state where I live and work, has been at the
center of this prison and jail expansion. Most of the inmates under my care are repeat offenders locked up for
nonviolent drug offenses. The amount of money spent on these inmates troubles me deeply.
So many of the inmates under my care have drug and mental health issues, which are often intertwined. We
do a pretty good job of cleaning them up and getting them back on their medication, only to release them back
out into the streets with a limited supply of medication, and back into way of life that just starts them on this
cycle all over again. It is said that, the true definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again
and expecting the results to be different and thats what I feel we are doing. On top of this there is
overcrowding, and on several occasions I have ordered an old jail be opened out of necessity even though it
posed a safety threat for officers and employees. I know that opening the old jail was not a "safe solution", but
it was preferable to keeping too many inmates crowded in the primary facilities, which was a safety risk. The
system is broken. It MUST change.

Shaka
I am an intellectually hungry young man who, due to a first-time arrest on a nonviolent drug charge, have
spent the past twelve years struggling to maintain my sanity in a medium-security prison in Indiana. One of my
chief dilemmas -- among the daily prospects of rape, gang violence, harassment by guards, and the deafening
anomie of boredom -- is that the prison I am in has instituted a policy offering prisoners a choice: fester in your
cell with few opportunities for life-improving activities or (as a means of escaping the drudgery of confinement)
work in a prison-administered factory. Despite the welcome opportunities for physical activity and conversation
with fellow prisoners offered by the prison labor program, I am adamant that I will not labor for the prison.
This is my form of direct action. I said, During slavery, work was understood to be a punishment, and became
despised as any punishment is despised. Work became hated as does any activity which accomplishes no
reward for the doer. Work became identified with slavery, and slavery with punishing work, thus work came to
be a most hated activity ... This is why I adamantly refuse to work within the prison system: I unequivocally
refuse to be a slave.

Kalief Browder
I was a sixteen year old walking down the streets of the Bronx one night with my friends when I was stopped
by police in 2010. Stop-question-and-frisk--a policy that allows police officers stop and question a pedestrian,
then frisk them for weapons and other contraband--was a regular occurrence in my daily life but this one
seemed strange. The police kept on saying they were looking for a backpack that I allegedly stole. It was
especially confusing because the police kept on changing their story: first they said that they thought I had the
backpack in my possession and then they said I only attempted to steal it. Regardless, I had no idea what they
were talking about. Still, they took me to the precinct insisting that they were sure this would clear up and Id be
home by the next day. That never happened. I spent the next three years in Rikers Island Jail for a crime I

didnt commit. At Rikers, I suffered horrible conditions. There were videos released of me being pummeled by
prison guards and other inmates and I spent almost two years in solitary confinement where I attempted to
end my life several times. When I was released in 2013, I thought I had a second chance at a life that was
taken from me. Celebrities donated money for me to go to college and I started to pick up the pieces but I was
truly changed by my time in jail and never recovered. I took my own life on June 13, 2015.
Maurice Haltwinger
I didnt have the easiest of childhoods. I grew up with a mom that was a crack addict and I never knew my
father. He died when I was just three years old. I grew up with death, drug dealers, and gangs all around me:
these were my role models. I am 28 now and Im paying for what Ive done. Im being charged with conspiracy
to distribute 50 grams of crack cocaine. Despite the fact that crack cocaine is just powder cocaine with baking
soda, water, and heat; the law states that judges must use the 1:100 ratio rule with crack cocaine sentences.
Judges would be required to consider one unit of crack cocaine as equal to 100 units of powder cocaine for
sentencing purposes. In other words, someone convicted of trafficking one gram of crack cocaine would
receive the same minimum sentence as someone convicted of trafficking 100 grams of powder cocaine. My
court judge decided that this was unfair and he was the first district court judge in US history that charged me
with a 1:1 ratio. Unfortunately, because of the mandatory minimum laws, this was mostly symbolic. The
mandatory minimum sentence for conspiring to sell is 10 years and the minimum sentence if you have a prior
drug offense is 20 years. I will now serve 20 years in prison. I will join the 90% of crack cocaine defendants
in the criminal system that are African American despite the fact that African Americans comprise of
13% of the American population and 13% of crack cocaine users in the United States.
Tyrone Tomlin-Guy
I am a 52 year old black man who has lived in Crown Heights Brooklyn my whole life. Last week I saw some
friend I hadnt seen in a while outside of a Brooklyn store. We all began catching up when a group of cops
from New York Police Departments Brooklyn North narcotics squad paused outside the store and began to
watch us. I went inside the store to buy a soda. The clerk wrapped it in a paper bag and handed me a straw.
Back outside, one of the officers called us over. The officer asked me if I had anything on me. I said, No, you
can check me, I dont have nothing on me. He checked. The next thing I know, the cop is handcuffing me. I
say, Officer, what am I getting locked up for? He says, Drug paraphernalia. I says, Drug paraphernalia? He
opens up his hand and shows me the straw. The documentation submitted by the arresting officer explained
that his training and experience told him that plastic straws are a commonly used method of packaging heroin
residue. I have a pretty thick file containing my criminal history, which is made up of 41 convictions, all of
them, except the two decades old felonies, are for low-level nonviolent things called misdemeanors or crimes
of poverty like shoplifting food from a corner store. With my record, the public defender tells me, the judge will
most likely set bail. But, he tells me, if you cant come up with the money, you will go to jail until the case is
resolved.The judge agrees, setting bail trap at $1,500. But I am living paycheck to paycheck and have
nothing like that kind of money. If it had been $100, I might have been able to get that but now I am on a bus
to Rikers Island, New Yorks notorious jail complex. All because I saw some friends and bought a soda.
Zhang Wei
I am an Asian American man living in San Francisco in the 1880s. Back then, there was only one
neighborhood where Asian immigrants were allowed to live. People in my neighborhood were often
shopkeepers, restaurant owners and hired help and many of us travelled to work on railroad construction. I
worked in my uncles restaurant.. At night, our family would get together and sometimes my uncle would smoke
a mixture of opium and tobacco. This practice has been in my family for centuries and is seen as medicinal
where I am from in China. The United States law did not see it this way. San Francisco passed a number of

anti-opium laws and started a media campaign saying that Chinese men lure white women into opium dens to
take advantage of them. I would never do that! Last year, the police raided my uncles restaurant and arrested
my uncle and I for smoking opium. We are now serving time in prison for our culture. The United States had a
history of racist laws towards us. It was the typical story, there was job panic in the 1870s and, of course, they
thought we were taking what was rightfully theirs. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first
immigration restriction law aimed at a single ethnic group. This law, along with other immigration restriction
laws such as the anti-opium laws greatly reduced the numbers of Chinese people allowed into the country,
detained and deported many Chinese migrants, and attempted to limit Chinese immigration to single males
only.
Cipriano Rios-Alegria
I am an undocumented immigrant awaiting immigration proceedings in the Northwest Detention Center in
Tacoma, WA. I participated in a hunger strike that started on March 7th, 2014 to protest the conditions of the
center that is owned by the GEO Group under the authority of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). I
am calling for an end to deportations. At its height, the hunger strike included 1200 detainees. Among the
strikes most important victories was an end to the silence surrounding the conditions of detention and
deportation in this corner of the country. Among these are serious workplace injuries suffered by detainees
laboring for $1/day; possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars of unaccounted telephone funds held back by
the facility upon detainees deportations; and the use of solitary confinement and prison transfers in response
to detainees peaceful protest. Also spotlighted were organizations that profit from the detention center.
Adyhl Polanco
I am a police officer in New York City and it seems like the culture here is that you are not working unless you
are arresting people. No one likes to talk about it but there are quotas. I joined the force in 2005 and it became
clear that my supervisors only cared about two things: tickets and arrests. I can tell my supervisors that I took
three people to the hospital and I saved their lives; that the child that I helped deliver is healthy. I can tell them
that. But that's not going to cut it. There is an unwritten rule that officers are expected to bring in 20 and one:
20 tickets and one arrest per month. These requirements are illegal in several states including New York. n
order to make more arrests and write more tickets I have to do something called stop-question-and-frisk.
This is when police officers stop and question a pedestrian, then frisk them for weapons and other contraband.
We normally only practice stop-question-and-frisk in low income neighborhoods and I see officers profiling
young black and brown men every day when they do it. Determined to expose this system, I took direct action.
In 2008, I secretly recorded conversations inside the police precinct and released it to the public. Now I am
considered a whistleblower and am on paid leave. NYPD officials would always deny there were any quotas.
They still do.
Fred Hampton
I am Fred Hampton. As a teenager in the 1960s, I became a youth organizer for the National Association
Advancement Colored People in Chicago. I worked hard and inspired community members to demand
recreational facilities and quality education in Chicagos poorest black neighborhoods. Later, I became the
chairman of the local chapter of the Black Panther Party where I provided free political education classes, a
free breakfast for children program, and helped to launch a successful police watch program to stop police
brutality and misconduct in Chicagos inner city neighborhood. I only went to jail once, when I was arrested for
shoplifting $71 worth of ice cream bars. I maintained that these were false charges (after all, how DO you
shoplift that many ice cream bars? That would be about 280 ice cream bars!) and that it was part of a pattern
of legal harassment carried out by the FBI and local law called COINTELPRO. I was released after a couple of
weeks, with all charges dropped against me. Unfortunately, the harassment only escalated and I was
assassinated in my bed during a police raid in 1969. My family (and the families of other victims of the raid)
were eventually awarded $1.8 million at the end of 13 years of civil rights litigation. This legal action also help
reveal to the nation the extent of COINTELPROs war on the civil rights movement and organizations like

Martin Luther Kings Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Malcolm Xs Nation of Islam, the Black
Panthers and many others.

Incarceration Mixer: Questions

1. Find someone who was imprisoned because of their political beliefs. Who were they?
What were their beliefs? How did the government justify their arrest or incarceration?
2. Find someone who died while incarcerated. Who were they? How did they end up in
jail or in prison? How did they die? How did the government justify this?
3. Find someone who took took direct action while in prison? Who where they? What
action did they take and why? What was the result?
4. Find someone who believes that they were wrongfully convicted? What were the
circumstances of their conviction?
5. Find someone who was incarcerated because of their race. Who was it? What were the
circumstances of their incarceration?
6. Find a woman who was in prison? Who is she? Why was she imprisoned? What is
unique about her experience?
7. Find someone who worked inside or outside of prison to change the system? Who are
they? What are they trying to change and how?
8. Find someone who was imprisoned due to a drug conviction? Who are they? What
were the circumstances of their conviction?
9. Find someone who could not afford to post bail? Who were they? What choices did
they have to make because of this? what happened to them?
10. Find someone whose life and/or family on the outside was negatively impacted due to
their time in prison? Who were they? What was the impact?