[Ppnews] Poitical Prisoner Jack Johnson gets 2011 release date

[Political Prisoner News]

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




Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

www.Freedomarchives.org  
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