From [email protected] Dec  5 16:47:17 1994
Date: Wed, 7 Sep 94 10:49 CDT
From: James Davis <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: People's Tribune: Special Prison Edition

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                People's Tribune (Online Edition)
               Vol. 21 No. 37 / September 12, 1994
                   SPECIAL PRISON EDITION

                P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654
                       Email: [email protected]

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INDEX to the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE (Online Edition)
Vol. 21 No. 37 / September 12, 1994

FRONT PAGE STORY FOLLOWS INDEX

Special Prison Edition

1. FROM AN INSIDE POINT OF VIEW
2. 'I FEEL THE POISON RUNNING NOW': THE DEATH PENALTY AS A
   POLITICAL WEAPON
3. WHO PROFITS FROM PRISONS?
4. GOD DID NOT BUILD PRISONS
5. THE RICH GET RICHER, THE POOR GET PRISON
6. MAYBE THREE STRIKES IS OK... UNLESS THE UMPIRE IS MANAGER OF
   THE OPPOSING TEAM
7. SON-OF-A-PRISONER
8. ISOLATION AT IONIA MAX
9. MOTHER HITS 'WAREHOUSING' OF MENTALLY ILL PEOPLE
10. DRUGS, PRISON AND PROFIT


Women Take Lead in Prison Justice Battle
11. JUDY CHANCELLOR: HER SON'S DEATH DREW HER INTO STRUGGLE
12. MOTHER OF PELICAN BAY INMATE FIGHTS FOR VISITS
13. WE SAY THERE'S _NO_ JUSTICE': WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT
   IT?

Our Spirit is Free: The Prison Culture of Liberation
14. INTRODUCTION BY LUIS RODRIGUEZ
15. POEM: EULOGY FOR A NEIGHBOR
16. POEM: LUNCH TIME IN AMERIKKKA
17. POEM: TRINA MARIE

Letters
18. 'STAND UNIFIED AS A SOLID WALL': MICHIGAN PRISONERS REFUSE TO
   BE SILENT
19. LETTERS FROM PRISONERS

Announcements, Events, etc.
20. 'PRISONS, POLICE AND POWER': SPEAKERS FROM THE PEOPLE'S
   TRIBUNE
21. JOIN THE NOC


22. ABOUT THE PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE

+----------------------------------------------------------------+
FRONT PAGE:

'It is no longer a racial minority thing. It is now becoming a
class thing (economic status), that the inner-city minorities, and
poor whites, rural as well as urban, are being attacked by the
powers that be. The program is the haves are using the have-nots
for monetary gain. The haves have become the keepers and the have-
nots have become the inventory, the "KEPT." '

-- M.B.Y. Is-Ra-El
Muskegon [Michigan] Correctional Facility


AMERICAN LOCKDOWN:

THE PRISON STRUGGLE AND REVOLUTION

The letters came from men in the deep-segregation dungeons of the
infamous Pelican Bay State Prison in Crescent City, California.
They came from the sweltering Death Row tiers of Huntsville Prison
in Texas. They came from inmates chained and shackled in Indiana's
Maximum Control Complex. They came from mothers robbed of their
children and who now are in the women's prisons of central
Illinois.

In the prose of young convicts, with the skill of jailhouse
lawyers, they spoke of injustice and resistance. In handwritten
notes and in formal legal documents, they denounced brutal guards
and judicial corruption.

And from the cramped offices of prisoners' rights organizations,
from the modest homes of relatives and loved ones, the cards,
letters, appeals and protests arrived daily in our editorial
offices.

They became the inspiration for the Special Prison Edition of the
People's Tribune.

Clearly, the "American lockdown" is about a system that imprisons
those who have lost their jobs and homes and have been pushed into
desperation just to survive.

No wonder that in states like Michigan and California, where tens
of thousands of workers have been tossed onto the scrap heap,
prisons are the fastest-growing industry. At the present rate,
half the population of this country will be behind bars by the
year 2053.

It doesn't have to be this way.

We have the technology to eliminate completely and permanently the
hopelessness, poverty and inequity of the capitalist system in
which crime and violence is rooted.

Assembly-line technology can build a home in 45 minutes. Computer-
driven greenhouses can grow food 24 hours a day. No one should be
forced to go without.

A class of selfish billionaires now holds this technology. The
struggle of our class to capture this technology is the content of
the revolutionary times we live in.

A new class of poor and permanently jobless people is in survival
battle with capitalism. These combatants are filling the jails and
penitentiaries. The prison struggle is entering a dramatic new
stage.

This is for the courageous women of the Dwight (Illinois)
Correctional Center; for the locked-down warriors of the federal
pen in Marion, Illinois; for the tortured Pelican Bay inmates; and
for the freedom fighters imprisoned in Carson City, Michigan.

To these leaders of the fight, and to all others, we dedicate this
Special Edition of the People's Tribune.

+----------------------------------------------------------------+
What you helped to make possible:

A SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR SUPPORTERS

To those who answered the call to help us produce this Special
Edition we offer our deepest appreciation. Your contribution has
been used to finance the publication of almost double the number
of People's Tribunes normally printed.

Additionally, through your efforts, we have been able to expand
the scope of the distribution of the paper to almost 30 prisons
and numerous organizations devoted to the struggle of prisoners
and their families.

Thanks again!

To order extra copies and bundles of this Special Edition, call
312-486-3551 or write P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, Illinois 60654.

Free to prisoners.

+----------------------------------------------------------------+



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1. FROM AN INSIDE POINT OF VIEW

By Dewayne Holmes
Wasco State Prison

WASCO, California -- I, as a convicted felon presently serving
time in the California correctional system, feel compelled to
provide you with an accurate depiction of prison life from an
inside point of view ...

First of all, it is essential that you understand that there is no
amount of laws, prisons, or law enforcement that can or will
decrease the crime problem in society.

The recidivism rate among convicted criminals continues to rise
yearly, not because people enjoy committing crimes, or that
prisons have no deterrent effect upon them, but rather because the
social-economic conditions of the environment from which these
so-called criminals evolved still exist.

The biggest misconception that has been spread by the government
through the media is that the prison system is too lenient and
therefore in need of a tougher policy. However, I am inclined to
disagree.

Any individual entering into a correctional institution is
immediately subjected to verbal, mental and physical abuse, not to
mention the many other slave-master tactics often used by the paid
overseers of these concrete plantations.

This type of behavior alone generates anger and frustration
amongst the inmates which all too often is relieved through an act
of violence upon one another or some poor misfortunate individual
in the outside world.

Although I in no way wish to make an excuse for any crime that may
or may not have been committed, I think it is hypocritical in
itself for the government to promote crime prevention yet continue
to perpetuate the criminal mentality.

For instance, over the past two years I've seen the situation in
here (prison) escalate from bad to worse without the slightest
indication of any kind of prison reform that will be beneficial to
society at large now or in the future.

In fact, with the exception of limited vocational and educational
programs that these places provide, prison offers no reasonable
solution or alternatives to the initial problems that bring you
there.

Furthermore, compounding an already angry, frustrating environment
with de-humanizing, animalistic treatment can only help to further
fuel an already explosive situation.


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2. 'I FEEL THE POISON RUNNING NOW': THE DEATH PENALTY AS A
POLITICAL WEAPON

By Anthony D. Prince

HUNTSVILLE, Texas -- On August 20, 1993, 34-year-old Carl Kelly
became the 66th person to be executed by the state of Texas since
1976.

"I'm an African warrior, born to breathe and born to die," said
the condemned man as he was strapped down for the lethal
injection. "I feel the poison running now."

Carl Kelly's last plea exposed the nature of the death penalty
itself, his final words as heart-stopping as the deadly drugs that
flowed into his veins. David Riley, Kelly's alleged accomplice in
the same 1980 crime, confessed and was given a life sentence. Why
did the state of Texas spare one life and take the other?  Because
Carl Kelly exercised his right to a trial and paid for it with his
life. Because the death penalty is a weapon of political
intimidation.

Only days before Carl Kelly was executed, Gary "T" Graham won
another stay in a Texas death penalty case that has gained
worldwide attention. His son's life temporarily spared, Graham's
father immediately called for a massive mobilization to save a
young Latino, Ruben Cantu, scheduled to die one week later. This
beautiful show of unity means that the fight is not just about one
man.

The state of Texas may yet spill more blood, more individuals may
yet be sacrificed, but the unity produced in the fight to save
them will one day enable us to bury the whole unjust system.


[A longer version of this article originally appeared in the
summer of 1993.]


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3. WHO PROFITS FROM PRISONS?

By Al Cunningham
San Quentin State Prison

SAN QUENTIN, California -- While the benefits of prisons may be
questionable for the public, they are undeniable for a variety of
private corporate interests. To the $51 billion spent for state
and local criminal justice systems, we can add the amount spent
for federal criminal justice agencies ($5.7 billion in 1985) and
private security systems ($21.7 billion in 1980). The annual total
thus lies in the neighborhood of $80 billion (Focus, 1989).

By contrast, the amount of direct losses to individuals,
households, banks, and other businesses due to crime is
approximately $10 billion per year. In other words, for every
dollar directly lost by victims of crime, we spend about $8 to
apprehend the perpetrators.

Prisons take on another face if one views them as generators of
profits. Some of those who profit from the business of
imprisonment are easy to identify, like architects.

According to the chair of the American Institute of Architecture's
criminal justice committee, there are now over 100 firms
specializing in prison architecture. Of the 200 companies that
exhibit their products at the annual Congress of the American
Correctional Association, more than 10 percent are architectural
firms. One Michigan entrepreneur, who is marketing what he
describes as "do-it-yourself, easy-to-assemble portable jails,"
comments that "once this thing goes, we're talking about scads and
scads of money."


THE PRIVATE SECTOR

Architects are far from the only people with a vested interest in
the proliferation of prisons. After successfully lobbying the
state legislature for new prison construction, the former Alabama
state prison commissioner, Robert Britton, moved into the private
sector to head a for-profit medical firm that services Alabama's
prison system. "I've always wondered what the corporate world is
like," he said at the time.

The corporate world is extensively involved in prison. San Quentin
offers more than 350 products for prisoners to purchase, from
cupcakes to fried pies to perm-cream relaxers and pinup calendars.
The wares annually exhibited for sale to corrections professionals
at their convention include institutional hardware like Aerko
International's Mister Clear-Out ("The state of the art in tear
gas hand grenades, especially designed for indoor use") and the
wares of the Peerless Handcuff Company ("A major breakthrough in
cuff design!"). More prosaic products include the Muffin Monster
from Disposable Waste System, Inc. ("It will grind up into small
pieces all the things inmates put down toilets"); the food
distribution company Servomation (Justice Is Served); and the
Coca-Cola Company ("Time goes better with Coke!").


PRISONS AND WAR

It is a well-known fact that today, "prisons are the number one
industry in America, after war." Actually, in many cases the two
industries overlap. The American Security Fence Corporation of
Phoenix, Arizona, manufactures the double-edged, coiled razor
blade that graces most prison fences (Razor Ribbon, "The Mean
Stuff"). According to the company's promotional literature, their
top-of-the-line product, Bayonet barb, which "combines awesome
strength ... and vicious effectiveness," is "manufactured in
strict accordance with Military Specifications."

Likewise, GTE Security Systems of Mountain View, California, sells
an electrified fence called Hot Wire. Tested on the field of
battle, the product is advertised as being "so hot that NATO chose
it for high-risk installations; so hot that thousands have found
their place in military installations ranging from sub-zero
Alaskan winters to sizzling Southeast Asian summers."


MONEY TO BE MADE

>From architects to academics (who study prisoners and the prison
system), from food service vendors to health care firms, from
corrections bureaucrats to psychologists and social workers, there
is a lot of money to be made from the proliferation of prisons.
"It's a money thing." ["He who passively accepts evil is as much
involved in it as he who helps to perpetuate it. He who accepts
evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it."
(Martin Luther King Jr.)]

Our choices are clear. We can come together and organize the
millions of fighters for justice into one coordinated attack
against this system, and we can establish a society and economy
based on the moral principles of equality, liberty and justice. Or
we can continue to be suckered by lying politicians whose only
goal is public office.


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4. GOD DID NOT BUILD PRISONS

[Excerpted from an article by Alfred Williams Jr., editor of
FACTOR, Muskegon Correctional Facility, Muskegon, Michigan.]

If one would look closely at the system, it would become evident
who the primary beneficiary is, and it is not society per se. The
system serves the lawyers who earn millions as private attorneys
and as court-appointed lawyers for poor defendants. The system
serves politicians who use crime bills to promote political
ambitions and prison-building projects to promote so-called
economic development for bankrupt communities. It serves displaced
factory workers from Michigan's dismantled automobile industry. It
is argued that these payrolls are of great benefit to the economy
of the state. This is a myth.

Our country fought a bloody war over the issue of "chattel
slavery" of human beings, yet today we are promoting a new version
of "chattel slavery" cloaked in the legality of our judicial
system.


******************************************************************
5. THE RICH GET RICHER, THE POOR GET PRISON

By Paul Wright,
Washington State Reformatory

Excerpted from "Three strikes racks 'em up."

MONROE, Washington -- On April 15, Larry Fisher, 35, was convicted
of his third strike in Snohomish County Superior Court in
Washington. He will be sent to prison for the rest of his life.
Fisher was convicted of putting his finger in his pocket,
pretending it was a gun and robbing a sandwich shop of $151. An
hour later, police arrested him at a bar a block away while he was
drinking a beer. Fisher's two prior strikes involved stealing $360
from his grandfather in 1986 and then robbing a pizza parlor of
$100. All told, the take from Fisher's criminal career totals
$611. He has never harmed anyone.

How much will society pay to protect itself from this $611 loss?
On average, it costs $54,209 to build one prison bed space, and
$20-$30,000 per year to house one prisoner. If Larry Fisher lives
to be 70, the total cost will be approximately one million
dollars.

When the laws make no distinction in punishment between killing
five people, having a gun, having 650 grams of drugs or stealing
$151, there is something wrong. Washington and California police
have reported that since "three strikes" laws went into effect,
suspects have become more violent in resisting arrest. A suspect
knowing that if convicted for the $151 robbery he will spend his
life in prison has, quite literally, nothing to lose if he has to
kill a few people to avoid arrest. The result of this, I suspect,
will eventually be broadening the death penalty.

Seattle Police Sgt. Eric Barden was quoted in The New York Times
saying, "It now looks like some of these three strike cases might
try to get away or shoot their way out. Believe me, that's not
lost on us. We're thinking about it."

No laws will be passed making corruption by public officials,
endangering public health by corporations, etc., a "three strikes"
offense. In 1989, the federal Sentencing Guidelines Commission was
going to increase the penalties and punishment for corporations
convicted of crimes, including making its executives criminally
liable. Corporate America promptly lobbied the Commission and
Congress and these amendments never materialized. Unfortunately,
poor people affected by three strikes laws don't command a voice
that Congress and the media will listen to. The rich get richer,
the poor get prison.

[Paul Wright is the co-publisher of the Prison Legal News.]


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6. MAYBE THREE STRIKES IS OK... UNLESS THE UMPIRE IS MANAGER OF
THE OPPOSING TEAM

By Ray Sittloh

LUCERNE, Indiana -- You may have read about my son, Denny Page, in
a recent edition of the People's Tribune.

Denny is serving 60 years for a murder he did not commit (Strike
One). He is also serving eight additional years for an injury to
another one of the gang that had been threatening to kill him, and
who had burglarized two gun stores prior to the confrontation that
turned into a tragedy. The injury to this individual was so minor
that the prosecutor had the "victim" highlight it with a Magic-
Marker (Strike Two).

Now, let's look at the other team, the team that owns the umpire:

Three months before his trial, Denny was sent to the Indiana
Department of Corrections and held in solitary confinement to
prevent him from having anything to with mounting his defense.
Constitutional Rights Violation, (Ball One).

The prosecutor and his partner, the county attorney, the judge
(the prosecutor's former chief deputy), and the defense counsel,
with the help of the local newspaper, set out to destroy Denny's
reputation in the pool from which the jurors were selected.
Constitutional Rights Violation, (Ball Two).

Perjured testimony was not only permitted, but was practiced
before the trial by prosecution witnesses and police officials.
Constitutional Rights Violation, (Ball Three).

During his incarceration, Denny has been beaten, (Ball Four),
deliberately endangered by an attack dog, (Ball Five), deprived of
property in an amount sufficient to be felony theft, (Ball Six),
denied the right to submit an appeal, (Ball Seven). You get the
idea ... it all depends on the umpire, and since the governor is
ultimately the umpire, his team is still at bat.

"Three Strikes and You're In" is a stupid concept. Justice is not
a game, it is a very sacred piece of paper known as the
Constitution of the United States and set out in the Bill of
Rights.


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7. SON-OF-A-PRISONER

[Excerpted from an article by RMC, Death Row,
Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, Nashville, Tennessee.]

[Names have been removed - jd 3/15/99]

NASHVILLE, Tennessee -- For my son, discrimination entered his
life at the age of seven. Before the school year had started, B
was full of anticipation to attend school. Each time he walked
into a store that offered school supplies, he would become
overwhelmed by the sight of those he would need on his daily
journey to school.

During B's fourth month of school, his grades began to drop and
he pleaded to stay home from school. When he was questioned as to
why he felt this way, B responded, "My teacher asked where my
Daddy was, and when I told her that he lived in a big, big house
in Nashville by the river where the boats pass by, she stopped
being my friend."

Since this occurrence progressed, B's enthusiasm to learn was
washed away with the tears he shed for being the son-of-a-prisoner
living on Death Row.

I can recall what I once thought were major ordeals during my
school days: being teased about the dollar-store shoes, wearing
clothes that were not in style, or hair that was too short, but
never did I have to endure what my son has had placed on his
shoulders at such a young and impressionable age.

>From the teacher's standpoint, B is biologically predisposed to
certain behaviors. He is a mere seven years old and already
judged, condemned and sentenced. Even though it was not said, we
know this public servant said to herself "This one is no good, he
will be just like his father in prison, so why waste any time with
him?"

When B gets a little older and a little bolder from what he's
learned about people, what will he be like? And will the public
cry out that it was his parents' fault?

How many other children do you imagine this takes place with every
day?


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8. ISOLATION AT IONIA MAX

[Excerpted from an article by Derrick Bradley, recently paroled
FACTOR staff writer, Muskegon Correctional Facility.]

IONIA, Michigan -- Belly chains and handcuffs fasten his arms. A
long snake of chain slithers through iron loops and wraps around
him. He cannot get up from his bunk. Lying on his back, he stares
up blankly at a brick and steel ceiling.

He is resigned to the fact that he is no longer the sole owner of
his body. It also belongs to the state and the state does not want
the burden of maintaining his existence but is compelled by law to
feed him, to prevent him from escaping or harming others. Every 15
minutes or so, a black patch on the door peels back. A pair of
searching eyes gaze in on him.

The door opens. A guard steps in. He looks down on the prisoner in
chains. The guard does not frown, smile or speak. He merely
surveys the body. It is his job to see if the prisoner is alive.
It does not matter if the prisoner is alive or not. It matters
that the guard does his job.

Two days ago the prisoner fought this very guard and four others.
He fought with the full force of his bitter rage. The guards
fought back with tear gas, fists and iron chains, walking away
after their job was unmercifully done.

After the door closes behind the guard and the prisoner is alone
again, he tries to break free from the chains. The handcuffs dig
deep into his flesh, but do not yield. He lays still. He surveys
his body wrapped in chains in a lonely prison cell far from home.


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9. MOTHER HITS 'WAREHOUSING' OF MENTALLY ILL PEOPLE

by Sandra Gourley

NORMAN, Oklahoma -- Across the United States there are thousands
of mentally ill men and women who are serving long, hard
sentences.

One is very dear to my heart as he is my 33-year-old son, Bill
Waxler. In 1984 he had just been released from an alcohol
treatment program at the State Mental Hospital. He was very drunk
and he was wandering around the apartment complex where he lived.
He asked to use the phone of a female neighbor.

While he was there he had a seizure. The neighbor helped him, left
him at her apartment and went to his apartment to get his
medication. They spent several hours at her apartment and both
became intoxicated. In the early morning hours she helped him
downstairs to his room and she stayed until noon. When she left
she kissed him good-bye and went back to her room.

Several hours later he was arrested [and charged with rape]. On
his prior record were countless arrests for public drunkenness.
The local police were tired of "Crazy Bill" and, much to our
horror, he received a 70-year sentence.

Another inmate, Kirk S. is in his early thirties and is manic-

depressive. His only arrests were also for public drunkenness. In
a manic episode, he killed a young man in a residential care home.
The tragedy was that he had sought help from five different
agencies on that fateful night. He was turned down each and every
time and each time returned to the street. He knew his illness
enough to know that he was becoming psychotic and he begged for
help. He is now serving a life sentence.

Brian L. spent most of his 26 years in various state hospitals. He
has schizophrenia. During one of his psychotic episodes he threw a
rock at a police car and hit the windshield. He got a 20-year
sentence for assault on a police officer. In comparison, an almost
identical charge was filed in the same court. That person received
six months in jail as he was the son of a local official.

My hope is that someday these people will be sent to a treatment
center where they will receive humane treatment, proper medication
and professional care. Until that time, thousands of dollars are
and will be wasted on "warehousing" the mentally ill.

[Sandra Gourley chairs the Forensic Network of the Oklahoma
Alliance for the Mentally Ill.]


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10. DRUGS, PRISON AND PROFIT

[Excerpted from an article by Scott Sandlin, FACTOR staff writer,
Muskegon Correctional Facility, Muskegon, Michigan.]

A major increase in drug-related crimes has turned the punishment
business into a booming industry -- an industry that is
indifferent to causes and not concerned with solutions.

As the current trend towards mass incarceration and harsher
sentences proves ineffective, the suspicions of the general public
increase.

The real reason that more effective measures are not being taken
is mostly economic. Along with the major systematic restructuring
that would prove very time-consuming and expensive, there is the
fact that the present system of capitalism has proven itself able
to accommodate this problem.

The strange part of this problem is that although the
drugs/criminals have taken away in part from society, they have
also caused an increasing number of businesses and organizations
to spring up and the existing ones to expand. ...

The prison industry neither addresses the causes nor offers
solutions.

Our government deliberately circumnavigates these issues. They
realize they are creating the conditions and to change the
situation is not economically beneficial.

In short, the government has discovered a way to capitalize on the
disintegration and decadence of society, and as long as we as a
people  allow this type of government to continue, America's
problems, not limited to drugs, will continue.


******************************************************************
11. JUDY CHANCELLOR: HER SON'S DEATH DREW HER INTO STRUGGLE

By Judy Chancellor

YUKON, Oklahoma -- My beloved son, Andy Baltzell, took his life in
1992 after three years of prison warehousing on a substance abuse
conviction. He was sentenced to 15 years for $90 worth of drugs.

He became suicidal in prison and ended up sitting in a chain-link
dog run alone in the prison yard in McAlester.

After he was paroled, he was productive, in society's eyes,
working 10 1/4 hours a day, five days a week. On the sixth day, he
would pick up trash, etc.

While he made society happy and did all the above things, he was
dying inside from horrendous memories of prison warehousing.

Today he is buried on Garth Brooks Boulevard in the Yukon,
Oklahoma cemetery.

My finger is pointing and questioning a D.A. in Oklahoma County
named Bob Macy who wears a Wyatt Earp bow tie. It is his county
that has the highest incarceration rate per capita for both men
and women in the nation and world. This man has been a role model
for D.A.'s across this nation for the past decade. He calls
himself a Democrat while human rights groups call him "the Angel
of Death." My deceased son and babies born in prison would agree.

It is not prison staff who run to the capital screaming "lock-em-
up," it is the Wyatt Earps, the D.A.'s of our society who do this.
It is a tragic mess and it is time to undo it, in my son's memory
and for the ungodly number of babies born in our state and federal
prisons.

Because of this cruel warehousing, wasted tax money, the neglect
and extreme hatred and judgments on all prisoners, an Oklahoma
businessman took me to Washington D.C. We knocked on our Nation's
Capitol doors and brought back a national organization for prison
reform, called CURE (Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of
Errants).

There's a force behind this movement and it's the women.


******************************************************************
12. MOTHER OF PELICAN BAY INMATE FIGHTS FOR VISITS

[Excerpted from a letter from Betty J. McCullough to California
State Senator Robert Presley.]

Dear Senator Presley:

As a person having experienced denial of visitation with my son
(Lonzell Green, Prison No. H-09191) at Pelican Bay State Prison
for two years and two months, I would like to appear before the
panel hearing on the bill on denial of inmates' rights to
visitation.

I am opposed to the bill because had I not written the court
asking for a court order to visit my son, the false charges of his
assaulting a guard would still be against him [and] he would still
be in a dungeon-cell.

Obviously, Pelican Bay prison classification recognized my refusal
to give up when reversing their decisions to deny my right to see
my son. ...

When prison officials have fabricated false charges or committed
assault upon prisoners and want nobody to have access to evidence,
what law do you suppose they'll cite in cover-up if that stupid
law is passed?

Sincerely, Betty J. McCullough

[The author is a member of the Criminal Injustice Committee of the
National Organizing Committee and active in Mothers Reclaiming Our
Children (Mothers ROC).]


******************************************************************
13. WE SAY THERE'S _NO_ JUSTICE': WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT
IT?

By Mothers Reclaiming Our Children (Mothers ROC)

LOS ANGELES -- The United States imprisons more people than any
other country in the world.

The police abuse our young men in the streets, then arrest them on
bogus charges. They often end up doing time for being beaten up by
the police.

Twenty-five percent of all black males are locked in one form or
another into the criminal injustice system.

Prisons are filled with people of color from poor, working class
backgrounds.

The abuses that take place within the prisons (daily) go by
unchecked, including the police-instigated "race riots."

There is NO meaningful employment.

Mothers suffer a special pain when their children are incarcerated
(lost to them).

We are calling on mothers everywhere to help us build MOTHERS ROC
(Mothers Reclaiming Our Children from prison). We also invite
wives, fathers, sisters and brothers to help us build a movement
they can't shake loose.

Mothers ROC could provide support in the following ways:

1. Provide counseling and advice to families of the incarcerated;

2. Organize groups to attend court hearings and trials;

3. Meet and work with PDs or court-appointed attorneys;

4. Intervene on behalf of inmates who are mistreated;

5. Establish a hotline for prisoners and their families;

6. Have access to attorneys;

7. Educate, organize and politicize!!

If we understand that it is the system that is failing us all,
especially our young, and not the other way around, we will group
together and fight with the knowledge that right is on our side.
We will build and grow, we will overcome!!

Call Mothers ROC at 213-291-1092.

[Mothers ROC is a project of the Equal Rights Congress, 4167 S.
Normandie Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90037.]


******************************************************************
14. OUR SPIRIT IS FREE: THE PRISON CULTURE OF LIBERATION

INTRODUCTION

By Luis Rodriguez

The spirit of rebellion is alive in the cell blocks, tiers and
solitary confinement units of America.

When all is stripped away -- when one's value in society is
diminished, when one's family or home, one's livelihood or job is
taken away, there remains a quality which continues to triumph.
This is the creative spirit.

Throughout history, imprisonment has yielded some of the most
liberating and creative artwork, poetry, songs and letters.

The People's Tribune pays tribute to those new voices and visions
from America's prison system whose artistry has soared beyond the
re-inforced concrete walls, beyond the inhumanity of steel bars
and system of torturous intent.


[Luis J. Rodriguez is an award-winning poet and critic and the
author of _Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A._]


******************************************************************
15. POEM: EULOGY FOR A NEIGHBOR

By Delbert Tibbs

The year was 1975 and I had just arrived
there where a green clad guard with a ring of
                   a thousand keys, danglin & a Jangling

Informed me that I was to go to the death house
and so it was and is and you were there
                  wearing that mask that
We all wore on the "row"
                  Maybe to hide our fears and our love and our
Tears
I nodded and you nodded as I passed your cell walking a long hall
in a short hell
                  Where each cell held a speechless
Face/Mask
                   Hiding numberless fears and a weight too great to tally
Till I reached the open space in the bars that would lock me in
Over the next two years we became comrades in the second to second
and micro second battle waged every day and our pay for the struggle
was another day of that life, we fought the strife that comprised the
very ground of our life There -- not to become inhuman and be
as one with the system, there, and we hoped to live and we hoped to
live I remember you: that you were generous and sharing. You liked
athletic games, played strictly with the rules. I noted that you
seemed to choose your friends without The great regard for color; So,
I tend, always to see you as a brother with a white mask. And now
that your struggle is finished there, I speak this to your Spirit:
the cosmic balance wheel will deal with the killers who reaped
where they had not sown and did to you what they Charged you with
Bob Sullivan, may your spirit find peace, 11-30-83

["Eulogy for a neighbor" was written for Bob Sullivan who was
executed by the state of Florida in 1983. The author, Delbert
Tibbs, spent seven years on Florida's Death Row until his wrongful
conviction was finally reversed and he was freed.]


******************************************************************
16. POEM: LUNCH TIME IN AMERIKKKA

By Shaheed Khaleel Hamza


Lunch time in Amerikkka!!!
the menu continues ...

David Duke stew,
Bill Clinton potatoes,
Rush Limbaugh crackers,
U.S. constitutional corn,
death penalty b-b-q steak,
police brutality upside down cake,
stereo-typical media meat loaf,
holiday mass manipulation pot roast,
ol' fashioned oreo drop-a-dime rice,
Mississippi hangman's cinnamon spice,
U.S. political prisoner candy bars,
Hollywood madness chocolate covered stars.

Lunch time in Amerikkka

um!!!  so distasteful,
um!!!  so disgraceful,
um!!!  so traditional,
um!!!  so devilish and hateful.

Give me soul food by the plateful!

[Reprinted from "Harambee Flame!" from Nebraska State Prison.]


******************************************************************
17. POEM: TRINA MARIE

By Lori Lynn Mcluckie

Walking down the prison hallway
With your scarlet lipstick Norma Jean smile,
Green eyes impishly inviting;
Deliberately so.
A woman-child
With the translucent white skin
Reminiscent of more a Victorian era,
And the impetuous manner
Of a street child
Who knows the drill;
How to smoke cigarettes
And see people for what they really want from you.
These gray walls,

These dirty floors,
This ambiance of despair and cynicism
Merely provide contrast
To your vivacious and vulnerable glow;
And the deep gruff sounds
Echoing between these stark walls
Are mere background to the clear
Sweet tones of your childlike voice;
To your bold laughter
Which defies anything less.

You forge your way
Through this confusion every day,
Burning your candle at both ends
And loving at whim;
Not quite sure
Who to count on,
What is solid
Or what you want to be solid.
And in your concrete room at night,
Among your cigarettes and lipstick tubes,
Your letters and pictures,
You sit on your steel bunk
And wonder when you'll be able to settle down
To the one great love
Which you have always imagined.


[Reprinted from Fortune News, a publication of the Fortune
Society. This poem received first prize in the 1992 PEN Writing
Awards for Prisoners awarded by the PEN American Center.]


******************************************************************
18. 'STAND UNIFIED AS A SOLID WALL': MICHIGAN PRISONERS REFUSE TO
BE SILENT

A proper analysis of crime begins with the recognition that crime
is basically an economic and political problem. In fact, the
crucial phenomenon to be considered is not crime per se, but the
historical development and operation of the capitalist economy.
The solution rests in its resolution. Crime involves an
investigation of such natural products and contradictions of
capitalism as poverty, inequality, unemployment and the economic,
social and political crisis of capitalism.

The struggle between classes, central to developing capitalism, is
regulated by capitalist justice. Justice in capitalist society,
today as always, is an ideological and practical instrument in
class struggle. Capitalist Justice secures the capitalist system.
Justice is grounded not in some alternative idea of the social
good or the natural order but in the survival needs of the
capitalist system. Judgment is in the hands of legal agencies of
the capitalist state.

Yunus Collins,
former prisoner, current co-chair,
Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War Chapter of the NOC



On behalf of all political prisoners, we are in here under the
guise of someone's "politics." It is not the law that places
people in prison. It is the real thieves, the real murderers, the
real robbers and the real rapists who place us in here. They just
do so under the American system. We are not in here by mistake.
Those in power have their "think tanks" plotting and planning. The
state, thanks to Gov. John Engler, recently passed a law
abolishing the Freedom of Information Act for prisoners. I have
been advocating for many years that we must all stand unified as a
solid wall and do our duties and our part to free ourselves,
educate ourselves, to help ourselves. We cannot be silent and
accept prison conditions.

Ali K. Abdullah #148130
State Prison of Southern Michigan



The Freedom Network is growing stronger (as the struggle must). We
have tried to instill in the captive brothers that everyone is
significant to the overall impact of the struggle, and that each
must step forward to assume his role. But what we have been
struggling with mostly is to assist brothers in making what George
Jackson called the "intellectual breakthrough."

The majority are aware of struggle and oppression in the most
crude and unrefined sense. They know the surface stuff, but lack
specificity.  The process of oppression, and the same could be
said equally of the process of liberation, eludes the brothers.

And this is something we have to seriously deal with.

We are speaking not on prison reform, but, rather, prison
destruction. ... We are not talking only a black thang, but rather
a "collective captive thang."

Kwasi A. Bailey #199320
Carson City Correctional Facility, Michigan


******************************************************************
19. LETTERS FROM PRISONERS

'Salutations, People's Tribune and all likely readers:

I'd just like to thank you for printing my news-article inside
your February 14, 1994 issue which referred to prison officials
withholding of my incoming mailed books.

After a thorough investigation ordered by the prison's warden and
three months time span, the post office returned [the books] to
the prison.

It feels good to know there's still a voice of the people out
there.'

David Esco Welch, #E-25702
San Quentin [California] State Prison


******************************************************************


'I'm at the Merced [California] Re-Entry Mission. I've been in the
prison system and if you've seen one, you've seen them all. There
is constant oppression. No matter what race, age or sex you are.
To them, you are a number. They don't care if you can read or
write, as long as you do your assigned duties. They don't care if
you are sick or dying. To them, it's a job. With this new Three
Strikes and You're Out law, the prison system will be three times
as bad. To me, this isn't an answer.'

Tina Marie Rice
Merced, California


******************************************************************

I witnessed women dying in Dwight Correctional Center. A woman
having a heart attack was forced to walk to the clinic, and yes,
she died. I myself had a temperature of 102 degrees for six days.
I could not see a doctor, nor did I receive any type of
medication. You, the public are paying your tax money for us to be
treated cruel and inhumanely.

'I will go home July 28, 1994. I was sentenced to five years. My
going home does not enable me to forget the women I will leave
behind, nor the struggles they endure each day. I will go home
with the strength God has given me to fight for better conditions
for women on the inside.'

-- Tammi Fleming, #B21652

Dwight Correctional Center, Dixon, Illinois


******************************************************************


Pelican Bay prisoner writes: 'I refused to participate in their
dirty game'

Dear People's Tribune:

After being afforded the opportunity to read an issue of the
People's Tribune, I decided to write and inquire as to whether you
might be able to place me on your mailing list.

I am a prisoner here in California, locked down in the maximum
security section at Pelican Bay State Prison. I have been in
maximum security lock-up since January 1986, for allegedly
threatening staff, after telling a gun rail officer that if he
shot anyone on the yard, "his family better have Blue Cross." This
was said in the heat of anger.

I was given 10 days disciplinary detention and a segregated
housing term of four months, but when my four months expired,
instead of being released into the general population, I was given
an indeterminate term in segregated housing. Prison officials
claimed that they had confidential information that I was a high-
ranking member of an alleged para-military revolutionary black
nationalist prison organization which they consider a prison gang.
Therefore, they were not going to allow me back into the general
population unless I informed on the inside and outside activities
of this group and provided names of members and associates.
Because I refused to participate in their dirty game, they have
kept me locked up where I have no physical access to other people
unless I am manacled.

During my 18 years in prison, and the last eight in lock-up, my
access to outside resources has become very limited. Therefore, I
am unable to purchase literature and periodicals such as yours
which would keep me abreast of what's happening in the outside
communities. If you could share your paper with me, it would be
greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance for whatever you can do.

Yours in struggle,
Musa Mata

M. Mata Johnson
B-325278 C7-108
P.O. Box 7500
Crescent City, California
95532-7500.

******************************************************************
This article originated in the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE (Online Edition),
Vol. 21 No. 37 / September 12, 1994; P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL
60654; Email: [email protected]. Feel free to reproduce and use unless
marked as copyrighted. Please include this message with
reproductions of this article. The PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE depends on
donations from its readers -- your generosity is appreciated.
******************************************************************


TOPIC
People's Tribune (Online) 9-12-94
TEXT
******************************************************************
                People's Tribune (Online Edition)
               Vol. 21 No. 37 / September 12, 1994
                   SPECIAL PRISON EDITION

                P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL  60654
                       Email: [email protected]

******************************************************************
20. 'PRISONS, POLICE AND POWER': SPEAKERS FROM THE PEOPLE'S
TRIBUNE

The following are available as speakers:

Yunus Collins
Detroit, Michigan

Founder and co-chair of the Political Prisoners and Prisoners of
War Chapter of the National Organizing Committee


Maria Elena Castellanos
Houston, Texas

Leading criminal defense attorney, a founder of the Binational
Network Against the Death Penalty (Mexico-USA) and prisoners'
rights advocate


Anthony D. Prince
Chicago, Illinois

Editor of "Deadly Force" weekly column on police brutality for the
People's Tribune


Theresa Allison
Los Angeles, California

Founder of Mothers Reclaiming Our Children (Mothers ROC), Steering
Committee member, National Organizing Committee


Andrea Gibbs,
Gulfport, Mississippi

Founder, Mississippi Victim's Voice, former sheriff's deputy who
exposed police brutality


Jitu Sadiki
Los Angeles, California

Chairman, Black Awareness Community Development Organization
(BACDO), former prisoner and Steering Committee member, National
Organizing Committee


Shirley Dicks
Murfreesboro, Tennessee

Mother of Death Row inmate, activist, author


To arrange for a speaker, learn more or obtain a complete listing
of all People's Tribune speakers, call 312-486-3551.


******************************************************************
21. JOIN THE NOC

The National Organizing Committee (NOC) is a fighting
organization. When homeless activists seize empty buildings, look
for us. The NOC will be there. When the unemployed fight for jobs,
look for us. The NOC will be there. When the victims of police
state brutality speak out to expose injustice, listen for us. The
NOC will be part of the chorus. We are revolutionary fighters from
every battlefront.

Our mission is to forge the revolutionary force necessary to
destroy this capitalist system, a system of poverty and injustice.
We are an organization that believes the poor and exploited people
can be educated, organized and inspired to rise up in our
millions.

We want to create a new system based on justice and economic
prosperity for everyone.

___ I want to join the NOC.

___ Please send me the NOC program, information on speakers and
samples of NOC publications.

___ I want to make a monthly donation to the NOC of:

___$5  ___$10  ___$25 ___$50  ___Other


Name ____________________________________________________________

Address _________________________________________________________

City/State/Zip __________________________________________________


National Organizing Committee,
P.O. Box 477113,
Chicago, Illinois  60647
312-486-0028


******************************************************************
22. ABOUT THE PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE

The PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE, published weekly in Chicago, is devoted to
the proposition that an economic system which can't or won't feed,
clothe and house its people ought to be and will be changed. To
that end, this paper is a tribune of the people. It is the voice
of the millions struggling for survival. It strives to educate
politically those millions on the basis of their own experience.
It is a tribune to bring them together, to create a vision of a
better world, and a strategy to achieve it.

Join us!

Editor: Laura Garcia
Publisher: National Organizing Committee, P.O. Box 477113,
Chicago, IL 60647 (312) 486-0028


To help support the production and distribution of the PEOPLE'S
TRIBUNE, please send donations, letters, articles, photos,
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Respond via e-mail to [email protected]

Reach us by phone:

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