[Ppnews] Political Prisoner Richard Williams close to passing

[Political Prisoner News]

Dear friends,
long-time political prisoner Richard Williams is 
in failing health. From a letter from Sonja, a friend and supporter:

Richard is off all treatment.
His doctors have told him he has a matter of 
weeks to live. His son Netdahe is trying to 
arrange to be with him in his last hours, and he 
is basically saying goodbye to folks. What he 
needs right away would be cards and letters from 
folks....he cant do anything but lay in bed, 
and  it would mean a lot to him to know he's not 
forgotten. But the letters need to come soon as 
he has very little coherent time left and he is 
in a lot of pain and on an increasing amount of 
pain meds. He has had Hep C for a long time, but 
he has a number of other complications that 
surfaced after his cancer treatment last year ( 
posibly in part because of the treatment) .........love to all sonja

Richard Williams # 10377-106
Federal Medical Center
PO Box 1600
Old North Carolina Hwy 75
Butner, NC 27509-1600


Richard Williams in his own words

I am a single father and grandfather. I was born 
on November 4, 1947, in Beverly, Massachusetts, 
which is a small coastal city 25 miles north of 
Boston. My mother was a factory worker and 
seamstress and my father was a machine operator. 
I have one sister younger than me by six years. 
Just when the draft was getting heavy for Vietnam 
I turned 18 years old and promptly received my 
notice. Like most working class kids, white or 
Black, there was no easy way out of it. Either 
get drafted, join, or hide. I chose not to go. At 
20 years old I was arrested for having marijuana, 
which in Massachusetts was a felony. Given the 
choice of six months in jail or joining the army, 
I went to jail in 1967 and became ineligible for the draft.

I continued to have brushes with the law when in 
1971 I was arrested for robbery in New Hampshire 
and received a seven-to-15-year sentence. I was 
23 and faced five solid years in jail, at the 
least. I ealized at that time that I was going 
nowhere fast, that I needed to change 
something­so I started with myself. I became 
involved with trying to better the prison 
conditions I was in, which were deplorable. It 
was 1971, the year George Jackson was murdered, 
the year of the Attica Rebellion. There was 
unrest in most prisons, because overall the 
prisons were brutal and inhumane. I was elected 
chairperson of the New England Prisoner 
Association. Inside, I met with legislators, and 
participated in food and work strikes and 
protests for better conditions. I read a lot of 
history and worked in political study groups. I 
was locked up, beaten, and shipped out for my 
activities. I learned through study and my 
efforts that the struggle was much larger than my 
then surroundings. I became a communist.

Upon my release I worked briefly with the Prairie 
Fire Organizing Committee. I went to work for the 
New England Free Press­a radical, collective 
print shop­for almost 2 years. Along with 
Barbara, Jaan, and Kazi, I was part of The 
Amandla Concert in Harvard Stadium in 1979. 
Featuring Bob Marley, Amandla was a benefit 
concert to provide aid to liberation forces in 
Southern Africa. My role was as part of a 
People’s Security Force which provided security 
for the concert. We also did security work for 
the community­such as house sitting with people 
who were under attack by racists. We went to 
Greensboro, North Carolina in 1979 to protest the 
killings of SWP (Socialist Workers Party) members by the KKK.

I went underground to join the armed clandestine 
movement in 1981 and was captured in Cleveland on 
November 4th, 1984, my 37th birthday.

I was convicted for five of the United Freedom 
Front (UFF) bombings in 1986 in Brooklyn Federal 
Court. In 1987 I got a hung jury at the 
Somerville, N.J. trial in the death of a state 
trooper during a shoot-out with Tom Manning. Next 
I went through a two-year long trial in 
Springfield, Mass., along with Pat and Ray 
Levasseur, in 1988 and 1989 for seditious 
conspiracy and RICO. The jury refused to convict 
us. In December 1991, I was convicted of killing 
state trooper Lomonco in 1981 after my second 
trial on these charges in Somerville, N.J. I am 
to serve 45 years for the UFF actions when I 
finish serving my N.J. sentence of 35 years to 
life. As with all dedicated revolutionaries the 
government has caught they have tried to bury my 
body away in prison, while being unable to crush my spirit.

I welcome correspondence from anyone who would like to write.

Long Live Revolutionary Resistance to Imperialism and Capitalism!




The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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