Recovering, Amplifying,and Network?

?
ing the Voices of the Disappeared
Political Prisoners on InternetMedia

Claude Marks and Rob McBride

POLITICAL PRISONERS HELD BY THE U.S. HAVE MUCH TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE ENTIRE

range of our progressive movements. This includes their personal ex?

amples of resistance to state violence and oppression, themilitant history
of political movements from the 1960s to today, analyses of thosemovements'
strengths and weaknesses, and eloquent visions of a more humanitarian world.
Although theyhave much to say, their messages are not heard bymany. The state's
considerable power is used to deny them theirvoices and towall them in, to the
point of nearly disappearing them.Marilyn Buck's poem, "Incommunicado,"
included in this issue, details the extreme isolation imposed on a number of them
following theSeptember 11 attacks.1Routine and daily restrictions are placed on
visiting and phone calls, legalmail is interferedwith, and interviews are denied.
Support movements tend to idealize a few political prisoners (preferably charis?
matic and obviously framed, such as Mumia Abu-Jamal and Leonard Peltier),
objectify them,and ignore theothers. IfMumia's supporterswere to takehiswords
seriously, theywould also be supporting Ruchell Magee, Sundiata Acoli, and
Sekou Odinga (among others).2 It isnecessary to take them seriously as leaders and
participants in political struggle.3
This essay describes attempts to use alternativemedia tomake the voices of
political prisonersmore accessible and immediate. The heart of these efforts is to

Claude Marks is theProject Director of The Freedom Archives (522 Valencia Street, San Francisco,
CA 94110; e-mail: Claude @ freedomarchives.org), a political and cultural oral history project. A fellow
of theViolence Prevention Initiative of theCalifornia Wellness Foundation, he does media training
with youth activists and serves as a university media and curriculum consultant. Marks is a long-term
activist and former political prisoner, who was accused of conspiring to liberate political prisoners from
Leavenworth. While incarcerated, he taught ESL, literacy, writing, and history. His Prisons on Fire
CD contains his documentaries on the 1971 murder of George Jackson and theAttica prison rebellion.
Rob McBride became politically active with theNorthern Student Movement, which supported the
Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and theMississippi Freedom Democratic
Party. He became an organizer forVietnam Summer, the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), and
theMother Jones Revolutionary League inMadison, Wisconsin. McBride also taught political
economy at the San Francisco Liberation School. As a cyberspace activist, he works on the Prison
Activist Resource Center and Jericho websites. For his day job, he works as a web developer.

Social Justice Vol. 30, No. 2 (2003) 135

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 136 Marks and McBride

let theprisoners speak for themselves. This is an essential step in opposing their
demonization (as "common criminals" and,more recently, as "terrorists") by the
state and supporting efforts to obtain theirrelease. More widely, our movements
are strengthenedby theirparticipation, by building communication and commu?
nity in support of human rightsacross the razorwire. The Freedom Archives4 and
thewebsites of thePrison Activist Resource Center5 and the JerichoMovement6
are examples of projects that serve thispurpose.

Audiovisual Media and Alternative Distribution

Though writing remains theprimarymedium available topolitical prisoners,

audiovisual media can add significant dimensions. The Freedom Archives, for
example, has access inmany cases to thepersonal histories and the social contexts
out ofwhich thepolitical prisoners arose, struggled, and were captured. On their
Prisons on Fire CD, for example, contemporary interviews are combined with
historical sound to reflect upon and deepen the listener's understanding of the
events and theirongoing relevance. The widespread availability of digital technol?
ogy and the rise of an "indy media" network allowed the two radio programs
comprising theCD tobe distributed at low cost by satellite, cassette, and Internet
to stations in several states, as well as inAfrica and Europe.
At times, the voices of political prisoners have been recorded on videotape, a
powerful tool forhumanizing the stories and communicating thepolitics of these
locked-down activists. For example, The Freedom Archives produced a video of
Albert "Nuh" Washington shortly before his death in the New York prison
system.7As Mumia Abu-Jamal has written, "Nuh (theArabic formofNoah) was
a committedmember of theBlack Panther Party and later,after thenotorious FBI
engineered East Coast-West Coast split,worked with theBlack Liberation Army
(BLA), in defending the lives and dignity of black folk.... For over 28 years Nuh
[was] held inCalifornia and New York gulags, and repeatedly punished for his
political ideas" (Abu-Jamal, 2000). As a veteran of this crucial era of Black
history,Nuh's insights are invaluable:

To theoppressed I am theangel of deliverance

To theoppressor I am theangel of destruction
So who I am
on who you are...
Depends

The state has conceded that I have committed no act but that I taught
political education classes. For that I have been sentenced to life
imprisonment and subjected to the tightestsecurity,not only in the states
of California and New York, but in the country as well.

I am a political prisoner because I spoke out against racism and oppression.

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Recovering and Networking theVoices of theDisappeared 137

Another excellent example is the video interview conducted with David

Gilbert inComstock Prison.8 This interviewcommunicates thehistory of struggle
and shares Gilbert's reflections on thathistory in lightof thepresent:

In response to themurderous government assault on theBlackLiberation

Movement and theunending,massive bombing ofVietnam, the Weather
Underground formed in theearly 1970s. I spent 10 years inunderground
resistance. On October 20,1981,1 was captured when a unit of theBlack
Liberation Army and allied white revolutionaries attempted to take funds
from a Brinks truck,with the unfortunate result of a shoot-out inwhich
a guard and two policemen were killed. Myatari Shabaka Sundiata was
subsequently killed by police, while numerous other comrades were
captured and given long sentences.

David is serving a sentence of 75 years to life? a life sentence without

possibility of parole. Along with others, he was convicted on a conspiracy charge
forhis role in a 1981 Brink's truckholdup aiming to raise funds for theBLA.
In prison formore than 20 years, David has continued his work for social
justice. Very early, he called attention to theAIDS epidemic inAfrica and in
oppressed communities in the U.S., and organized prisoner peer education
programs on AIDS. He is an advocate forprisoners. David is a prolific writer and
is now compiling a book of his writings.

Using the Internet

The Internet as a medium for political communication is best known for

facilitating the planning of demonstrations and other actions rapidly and on a
global scale. It is also widely used as an alternative news channel. Prison activism
has made good use of these capacities, with PARC's "prison-act" e-mail list
perhaps the leading example. In addition to e-mail lists and websites, e-zines are
an important Internetpublishing medium. One thatfrequently carries reports on
political prisoners isAntifa InfoBulletin (see web addresses forAntifa and PARC
below).
The Internetcan be a key medium forprisoners' voices. There one can find
Mumia Abu-Jamal's written and spoken essays, Leonard Peltier's writings and
art,Marilyn Buck's poems and essays, Herman Bell's reports on the Victory
Garden project, Sundiata Acoli's indispensable History of theNewAfrikan Prison
Struggle, the radio programs fromThe Freedom Archives, and much more.
Political prisoners are highly aware of cyberspace and its importance as an
arena of political debate. This might seem surprising, since thewardens hardly let
cyberspace intoprison. Of all the groups on the down side of the digital divide,
prisoners have the least access to the Internet. It is totallybanned. Nevertheless,
hardly a week goes by inwhich PARC does not get requests from inside to put

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 138 Marks and McBride

something on theweb or for something on the Internettobe printed and sent inside.
Many more requests are received than can be fulfilled.
Characteristics thatdistinguish the Internetfromother communications media
and make it particularly relevant to the prison movement include the fact that
barriers to entry are low. Thus, it can be used for inexpensive publishing
(communicating fromone tomany). Indymedia is a great example of the Internet's
ability to publish news. See, for example, the report on a demonstration against
holding theGuant?namo prisoners and immigrantdetainees incommunicado (RM
of Jericho,2002). Anyone with Internetaccess can publish news to an Indymedia
site. Similarly, anyone with access can create a freewebsite at ad-sponsored sites
likeGeoCities. Barriers exist, although there are fewer than in othermedia:
? The World Wide Web is believed to be almost worldwide, but it is far
from it.Yet ithas a wider reach than any othermedia. For example, it is
much easier for us here to find Italian web publications on Silvia
Baraldini than Italian newspapers or books. As a realitycheck, only about
? a soberingly
eight percent of the globe has access to Internetmedia
small number. Phone lines are not the limiting factor. In theU.S., there
are 100 million at-home users, of whom 55% are women. Also in the
U.S., 50% ofHispanics 18 and older have used the Internet.By compari?
son, 58% ofwhite adults have been online and 43% ofAfrican-American
adults (Pew, 2002; Mclver, 1999).
? E-mail and Internet faxes provide quick and efficient communication
frommany points to one? for example, the campaign directed toward
theBureau ofPrisons to release Sundiata Acoli from thehole afterhe was
sent there following the September 11 attacks.
? It is also a relatively democratic medium forannouncements, discussion,
and debate? communication frommany tomany, as happens on the e
mail listsmentioned above.
In these respects? low cost, accessibility, international reach, and a demo?
cratic spirit? the Internet is the antithesis of prison. No wonder prisoners are
drawn to it.

Repression by Gag

The strengthsof Internetmedia are not lost on the forces of repression. The
state, through itsvarious agencies, has expressed deep fear of itsuse to promote
democratic communication, human rights,and community.We will mention only
a few important repressive initiatives here.
Pelican Bay Prison inCalifornia issued regulations prohibiting prisoners from
receiving printouts of e-mail,which theCalifornia courts upheld inFebruary 2001.
Prisoners inPelican Bay have never had access to the Internet itself. In practice,
these restrictionsmean thatfamily and friends cannot print outmaterial from the

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Recovering and Networking theVoices of theDisappeared 139

Internet and mail it in? not because of the content, but because itwas on the
Internet.Moreover, the ability of prisoners to conduct interviews has been
increasingly circumscribed throughoutCalifornia and the nation.
The USA PATRIOT Act places great emphasis on the total surveillance of all
Internet activity. Announcements concerning changes in the FBI and CIA to
increase and sanction political spyingunder theguise of "antiterrorism" are likely
togreatly expand this surveillance. These threatsto repress communication on the
Internethave not gone unchallenged. Organizations like theElectronic Frontier
Foundation and theAmerican Civil Liberties Union are opposing thePATRIOT
Act's harshmeasures throughpublicity, education, lobbying, and legal challenges
(Electronic Frontier Foundation, 2001; ACLU, 2001).

Communication as a Human Right

In making theirvoices ? written, spoken, painted, and drawn? available

through the Internet,political prisoners are documenting, criticizing, and analyz?
ing society; theyare inspiring,educating, and debating. They are participating in
our progressive movements with us. In so doing, theyare exercising a fundamental
human right: to communicate. Let us not forget how deep a human need
communication is, and that ithas been enshrined in theUniversal Declaration of
Human Rights as Article 19:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression: this right
includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek,
receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and
regardless of frontiers (United Nations, 1948).

Conclusion

We are men, we are not beasts, andwe do not intendtobe beaten or driven
as such....? L.D. Barkley, reading theAttica manifesto, murdered in
Attica 1971.

From theAttica Manifesto:

"To thepeople ofAmerica...assist us in putting an end to this situation

thatthreatensthe lives of not only us, but each and everyone of us [inside
and outside] as well." And they set forthpractical demands "thatwill
bring closer to reality thedemise of theseprison institutionsthatserve no
useful purpose to thePeople ofAmerica, but to thosewho would enslave
and exploit thepeople ofAmerica" (Melville, 1971).

The Attica Brothers closed theirmanifesto with thesewords: "We inviteall the
people tocome here andwitness thisdegradation, so thattheycan betterknow how
to bring thisdegradation to an end."

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 140 Marks and McBride

NOTES

1. See also Elijah (2002) and Cusack (2001) for details on this unprecedented denial of all
communication.
2. See Abu-Jamai (1997).
3. Rashad Shabazz(2002) makes this argument in detail.
4. The Freedom Archives contains over5,000hours of audiotapes from the late 1960s to themid
1990s. They chronicle the progressive history of the Bay Area, theUnited States, and international
solidarity movements. These materials document the diverse protests, demonstrations, organizations,
activists, strikes, and rebellions of oppressed peoples here and around theworld. A key aspect of the
work has been the preservation and cataloging of these materials, but this is inextricably tied to the
creation of new programs in a variety of forms and formats. The goal is towork with others to help to
build an authentic history of political prisoners of the recent past and present and of themovements of
which they are a part. In the past year, The Freedom Archives has produced two radio programs (on
the life, assassination, and legacy of George Jackson and on the 1971 Attica prison rebellion), one CD
with the same material, and another that includes recordings of Fred Hampton, Angela Davis, Ruchell

Magee, Assata Shakur, Lolita Lebron, and Don Pedro Albizu Campos, as well as highlights from
historic recordings ofmany of the political movements of the 1960s and 1970s. The Archives has also

produced two videos with political prisoners and has contributed to numerous radio programs,
curricula, and library collections.
5. The Prison Activist Resource Center (PARC) maintains a heavily visited website with a wide
range of material on all aspects of the prison-industrial complex and opposition to it.A substantial
section of the site lists U.S.-held political prisoners and their addresses (93 as of thiswriting), plus

writings by and about them and related materials.

6. The Jericho Amnesty Movement focuses entirely on political prisoners in theU.S. and its
website (www.thejerichomovement.com) publishes material by and about the prisoners. The PARC
and Jericho sites complement each other, with only a littleduplication (and there is farmore material
than either has the resources to publish).
7. "Nun" Washington passed away April 28,2000, at theRegional Medical Unit at Coxsackie
Correctional Facility. In 1971, Nuh Washington was shot and captured with another Black Panther,
JalilMuntaqim, and was later charged and convicted of murder along with Jalil and Herman Bell.
Evidence has since surfaced that strongly suggests the threemen were unjustly convicted in this case.
8. The interview was recorded in 1998. He has since been transferred toAttica.

REFERENCES

Abu-Jamal, Mumia
2000 "Nun Washington: No Death in a Cage!'* www.prisonactivist.org/pps+pows/
nuh-washington/nuh-mumia.html (February 5).
1997 "Ruchell Cinque Magee: Sole Survivor Still." At www.flashpoints.net/
mRuchell.html (May 27).
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
2001 "USA Patriot Act Boosts Government Powers While Cutting Back on
Traditional Checks and Balances." At www.aclu.org/congress/U10101a.html
(November 1).
AntifaInfoBulletin(AFIB)
1999- E-zine. Hosted at www.topica.com/lists/afib@igc.topica.com.
Bergman, Lincoln, Barbara Lubinski, and Claude Marks (Producers)
2002 The Roots of Resistance: Selected Highlights from The Freedom Archives
Volume 1,Audio CD, 72 minutes. San Francisco: The Freedom Archives
(April).

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Recovering and Networking theVoices of theDisappeared 141

Cusac, Anne-Marie
2001 "You're in theHole: A Crackdown on Dissident Prisoners." The Progressive.
Online at www.progressive.org/0901/amcl201.html (December).
Electronic Frontier Foundation
2001 "EFF Analysis of the Provisions of theUSA PATRIOT Act." At
www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/Terrorism_militias/
20011031_eff_usa_patriot_analysis.html (October 31).
Elijah, JillSoffiyah
2002 "The Reality of Political Prisoners in theUnited States: What September 11
Taught Us About Defending Them." Harvard BlackLetter Law Journal.
The Freedom Archives
1999- Website. At www.freedomarchives.org.
The JerichoMovement
1998- Website. At www.thejerichomovement.com. New York, NY: The Jericho
Movement.
The JerichoMovement, San Francisco Bay Area Chapter
1998- Website. At www.prisonactivist.org/jericho_sfbay. San Francisco and
Oakland: The JerichoMovement.
Marks, Claude (Producer)
2000 "Nun Washington." VHS videotape, 30 minutes. San Francisco: The Freedom
Archives.
2001a "30 Years After theMurder of George Jackson." Audiorecording, 29 minutes.
InMarks, Prisons on Fire [CD]. Also available as an MP3 computer file at
freedomarchives.org/struggleinsideAug.html. San Francisco: The Freedom
Archives. (July).
2001b "30 Years After theAttica Rebellion." Audiorecording, 29 minutes. InMarks,
Prisons on Fire [CD]. Also available as anMP3 computer file at
freedomarchives.org/struggleinsideSept.html. San Francisco: The Freedom
Archives (August).
2001c Prisons on Fire. Audio CD. San Francisco: The Freedom Archives. (Septem?
ber).
Marks, Claude and Lisa Rudman (Producers and Editors)
2002 "David Gilbert: A Lifetime of Struggle." VHS videotape, 30 minutes. San
Francisco: The Freedom Archives. (March).
Mclver, William J., Jr.
1999 "African Americans inCyberspace." Paper presented at the "Stanford
Conference on Race," Stanford University, Stanford, CA. November 11 to 13.
At www.stg.brown.edu/%7Emciver/Publications/paper-McIver
SCOR1999.pdf.
Melville, Samuel (ed.)
1971 "The Attica Liberation Faction Manifesto of Demands and Anti-Depression
Platform." Letters from Attica. New York: William Morrow and Company:
175-181.
Pew Internet Project
2002 "Internet and American Life." At www.pewinternet.org.
Prison Activist Resource Center
1982-"prisonact-list." E-mail distribution list,www.prisonactivist.org/mailman/
listinfo/prisonact-list. Oakland, CA: Prison Activist Resource Center.
Website.
n.d. At www.prisonactivist.org.
RM of Jericho
2002 "Torture inGuantanamo? Senator Condones, Protestors Condemn." Friday
February 15, 2002, at 11: 24 PM at sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/02/
116357.php (February 15).
Shabazz, Rashad
2002 "The Obscure Vanguard: Prison Intellectuals, Internationalism, and Mumia
Abu-Jamal." Paper presented at "Imprisoned Intellectuals: A Dialogue with

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 142 Marks and McBride

Scholars, Activists and (Former) U.S. Political Prisoners onWar, Dissent, and
Social Justice"; conference held at Brown University (Providence, Rhode
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United Nations
1948 Universal Declaration ofHuman Rights. At www.un.org/Overview/
rights.html.

Additional political prisoner support Internet sites

American Gulag: News and Resources on Prisoners, Prisons, and Prison Abolition. Website.
www.infoshop.org/gulag/.
Anarchist Black Cross Network. Website, www.anarchistblackcross.org.
Black Radical Congress, (n.d.) "BRC-NEWS." www.blackradicalcongress.org/comm/voices/
lists.html.
Kupendua, Marpessa. E-mail distribution list,mailto: nattyreb@comcast.net.
National Boricua Human Rights Network. Website, www.geocities.com/chiboriken/index.html.
Nuclear Resisters. Website, www.nonviolence.org/nukeresister/insideandout.html.

Political prisoner websites

Mumia Abu-Jamal: International Concerned Family and Friends ofMumia Abu-Jamal. Website.
www.mumia.org; Pacifica Radio. Website. (Mumia Abu-Jamal's radio commentaries).
www.savepacifica.net/strike/news/audio/mumia; Free Mumia NYC. Website.
www.freemumia.com.
Leonard Peltier: Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, www.freepeltier.org.
Sundiata Acoli: Acoli, Sundiata, and the Sundiata Acoli Freedom Campaign. (1997?). Website.
afrikan.i-dentity.com/sundiata; Acoli, Sundiata. (1992). www.prisonactivist.org/pubs/brief-hist
naps.html.
Angola Three (Herman Wallace, Robert King Wilkerson, Albert Woodfox): National Coalition to
Free theAngola 3. (1997?). Website, prisonactivist.org/angola.
New York Three (Herman Bell, JalilMuntaqim, Nuh Washington):
Bell, Herman, and PARC. (1996?). Website, prisonactivist.org/pps+pows/bell.html.
? New Season Begins."
Bell, Herman, and JerichoMovement. (2001). "Victory Gardens Project
www.thejerichomovement.com/victorygardens.html.
Muntaqim, Jalil, and PARC. (2002). "Jalil Abdul Muntaqim: Black Liberation Army Political
Prisoner." prisonactivist.org/pps+pows/jalilmuntaqim.
Washington, Nuh, and PARC. "Nuh Washington." (2000). prisonactivist.org/pps+pows/nuh
washington.
Marilyn Buck: PARC, with Marilyn Buck. (1998?). "Marilyn Buck." www.prisonactivist.org/
pps+pows/marilynbuck.
David Gilbert: Gilbert, David, and PARC. (1999?). "David Gilbert." www.prisonactivist.org/
pps+pows/davidgilbert.
Silvia Baraidini: "Liberia per Silvia." (In Italian; n.d.). Website, silvia.malcolmx.it.
Jamil Al-Amin: Civil Rights Ad Committee. "Free Jamil Al-Amin." (2002). Website,
www .freejamilal-amin. net.
Assata Shakur: Afro-Cuba Web. (n.d.) "Assata Shakur." afrocubaweb.com/assata.htm.
Alvaro Luna Hernandez: Alvaro Luna Hernandez Freedom Campaign, (n.d.) Website,
www .freealvaro. org.
Mondo we Langa and Ed Poindexter: Anonymous, (n.d.) "The Case ofMondo we Langa & Ed
Poindexter." www.freemondo.org.

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