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OF LOVE AND LIBERATION: A REVIEW OF BREAKING BREADThe label "Black intellectual" may be either oxymoronic or redundant, depending on the content one ascribes to the term and the historic context in which it is situated.
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DEATH SQUADS IN THE UNITED STATES: CONFESSIONS OF A GOVERNMENT TERRORISTDuring the first half of the 1970s, the American Indian Movement (AIM) came to the forefront of a drive to realize the rights of treaty-guaranteed national sovereignty on behalf of North America's indigenous peoples. For the government and major corporate interests of the United States, this liberatory challenge represented a considerable threat. On the one hand, Indians possess clear legal and moral rights to the full exercise of self-determination; on the other hand, their reserved land base contains substantial quantities of critical mineral resources. More than half of all known "domestic" U.S. uranium reserves lie within the boundaries of present- day Indian reservations, as do as much as a quarter of the high grade low sulphur coal, a fifth of the oil and natural gas, and major deposits of copper and other metals.' Loss of internal colonial control over these items would confront U.S. 6lites with significant strategic and economic problems.
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LEGISLATION ESPECIALLY FOR THE NEGRO? THE BLACK PRESS RESPONDS TO EARLY SUPREME COURT CIVIL RIGHTS DECISIONSThe years 1873-1883 form perhaps the most important decade in United States constitutional history. In the course of deciding a steady stream of cases involving the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments, the Supreme Court laid the basis for the next century of the constitutional law of civil rights and civil liberties. Unfortunately, it was a "dreadful decade." In decision after decision, the Court struck down federal laws designed to protect civil rights and civil liberties, and devitalized the new amendments.
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NOTES UNDER CURFEW: WEST COAST RIOTS INDICT BOTH RIGHT AND LEFTIn this country, two big illusions get people through the night: the Mighty State and the American Left. Some folks enjoy the idea of a Big Brother keeping them safe from the masses; others sleep soundly imagining a Left Opposition keeping them safe from Big Brother. But the "Rodney King"uprisings in L.A. (and here in the Bay Area) have exposed us all, leaving both sets of people cringing in the firelight, our precious myths melted by the heat of L.A. burning.
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POPULAR TRIBUNALS, LEGAL STORYTELLING, AND THE PURSUIT OF A JUST LAWThe current and historical realities of the U.S. legal system are best characterized by the contradiction between justice and order. Is this an irreparable rift? Have alternative forums for the pursuit of justice, contrary to the entrenched and formal legal system, emerged from community, political, or academic initiatives? What have been the social costs of the legal system's failure to deliver its intended good - justice? What examples exist of alternative justice systems from other countries and other times, from which we can create a visionary mosaic of possibilities towards a more just and ethical legal system? Is there a role for the excluded voices of the oppressed and for legal storytelling?
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AIDS AND HOMELESSNESS: PERSONAL ACCOUNTS1991-01-01The following accounts were originally presented at federal and local hearings on the subject of AIDS and homelessness. All of the authors are members of Anger into Direct Action (AIDA) a self-empowerment direct action group based in New York City, whose members are homeless people with HIV.
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COMING OUT FOR GAY RIGHTSOften at a gathering such as this one there is a natural tendency to focus on the issues facing our own communities. Speakers at a discussion on gay and lesbian issues might discuss topics such as AIDS, the rights of domestic partners, or ways to eliminate sexual orientation discrimination. Speakers at a discussion focusing on African-American issues might discuss affirmative action, black unemployment, or the problems of drugs in the black community. However, rarely does either community discuss issues of common concern such as the unique problems faced by Black gays and lesbians, or of the need to eliminate hate violence directed at both communities.
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LOOKING BEYOND THE NUMBERS: AFRICAN AMERICANS AND CRIMINAL JUSTICENo judge, and certainly no Black judge, can help but be distressed and depressed on sentencing day. I conduct sentencing on Monday afternoon. These are afternoons spent sitting in a courtroom filled with mostly young Black males, waiting to be sentenced. Unfortunately, Monday afternoons are the one time during the week when I take the bench in my courtroom and look out not upon the customary sea of white faces, but instead upon a room full of many faces not unlike my own.
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VERDICT OF THE INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL ON POLITICAL PRISONERS AND PRISONERS OF WAR IN THE UNITED STATES1991-01-01The Special International Tribunal on the Human Rights Violations of Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War in the United States was held in New York City from the 7th to the 10th of December, 1990. The Tribunal examined the situation of the national liberation movements of the New African, Native American and Puerto Rican sectors. Sponsored by a wide coalition of over 88 organizations from the civic, religious, anti-imperialist, labor and national liberation sectors, the Tribunal considered the US government's conduct ironic: as the U.S. government proclaims itself to be a defender of human rights in the world, demanding the freedom of political prisoners in other countries, it forcefully denies the existence of over 100 Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War within its own prisons by claiming they are "terrorists".
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PREVENTIVE DETENTION: PREVENTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS?Laura Whitehorn and Alan Berkman are two of the six political prisoners who are co-defendants in the Resistance Conspiracy Case (U.S. v. Whitehorn et al., 710 F.Supp. 803, D.D.C. 1989). The others are Susan Rosenberg, Marilyn Buck, Linda Evans, and Timothy Blunk. The six were indicted in May, 1988, for conspiracy to "influence change, and protest policies and practices of the U.S. government concerning various international and domestic matters through the use of violent and illegal means," and with carrying out a series of bombings against U.S. government and military targets, including the Capitol building following the invasion of Grenada and the shelling of Lebanon in 1983. According to Whitehom and Berkman, these actions constituted one part of the broader movements resisting racism, colonialism, and intervention in Central America, the Middle East, Africa, and Puerto Rico. The message of the bombings was that the U.S. government's denial of the right of oppressed nations to self-determination must be exposed and fought.
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SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER: POLITICAL PRISONERS IN THE UNITED STATESDhoruba Bin Wahad is a former leader of the New York Black Panther Party. He was imprisoned for 19 years for a crime he maintains was part of the FBI and New York Police Department's effort to target militant black leaders during the 1970s. New York Supreme Court Justice Peter J. McQuillan overturned Mr. Bin Wahad's conviction was last March, 1990, citing inconsistent and insufficient evidence. Mr. Bin Wahad presently works in New York with Freedom Now, a Chicago based organization which lobbies for the release of political prisoners being held throughout the U.S. The following text was extracted from a speech presented by Mr. Bin Wahad at Yale University on April 30, 1990 as part of a forum on Political Prisoners in the United States, sponsored by the Journal of Law and Liberation.
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POLITICAL PRISONERS IN THE UNITED STATES: THE PUERTO RICAN CHARADEJulio Rosado is a former Political Prisoner of the United States and is currently on the International Commission of Freedom Now. This article is a sparsely edited version of a speech given at Yale University on April 30, 1990 as part of a forum on Political Prisoners in the United States sponsored by the Journal of Law and Liberation.
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IN THE SPIRIT OF CRAZY HORSE: THE CASE OF LEONARD PELTIERLeonard Peltier, a Native American of Anishinabe/ Lakota descent, gets up at 6:30 a.m. with the other prisoners in Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas. He eats when they eat and, like everyone else, has to be in his cell at 10:00 p.m. for the last countdown of the day. There is one distinct difference between Peltier and the other prisoners at Leavenworth - widespread solidarity outside the prison.
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THE LAW OF RACIAL STANDINGDerrick Bell is the Weld Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. This talk was delivered at the 14th Annual Barrister Scholarship Ball of the Massachusetts Black Lawyers Association in Cambridge, March 31, 1990.
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WOMEN AND NATIONAL LIBERATION MOVEMENTSMuriel Tillinghast is a human rights and community activist. She was a key organizer for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, and one of three female organizers who headed county projects in Mississippi in 1964. She and her staff were responsible for Washington, Issaquena and Sharkey counties. She became the second state coordinator for the Council of Federated Organizations, the umbrella civil rights organization which called for the famous Mississippi Summer Project. Ms. Tillinghast resides in Brooklyn, New York, with her daughters, Bayo Callender and Aisha Hinton, her two dogs and two cats. She does social services advocacy in health and child welfare, labor issues and legal referral. She has recently joined the administration of Children in Crisis, which specializes in finding and counseling runaways and kidnap victims.Patricia McFadden is a member of the African National Congress who fled South Africa because of her political activities, and hopes to go home soon. She did her D.Phil at Oxford, and does work on gender in Southern African society and politics. She is presently doing research in Dakar, Senegal. At the time a version of this paper was given at the Yale Law School in April 1990, she was Visiting Professor at the Africana Studies and Research Center at Cornell University. She has three children, a son and a daughter still in South Africa, and a young son with her.
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Black Nation Under SiegeIn the name of Allah the Beneficent, the Merciful, the one, the true and the living God, the Lord of all of the world, the creator of all living things, the sustainer, the nourisher of that which he has created. In the name of his messengers and servants which include Moses, Jesus and Mohammed and in the name of every righteous man and woman who has ever lived or who is living today, in the name of our foreparents who were kidnapped and made slaves and whose unmourned and unburied corpses lined the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, I would like to offer to you, the students and faculty here at the Yale University Law School the Nation of Islam's greetings of peace in the Arabic language: "Asalaamu-Alaikum."
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MY DANCE WITH JUSTICEThe legal system is viewed by many as the lynching system. We see Afrikan men and women arrested disproportionately to their total numbers in the population. We are railroaded through the courts or incarcerated as we await court dates because we can't pay exorbitant ransom (bond). We see thousands of Afrikan political prisoners and prisoners of war. So - is this liberty and justice for all? Not for the Afrikan, in a system that is perpetuated by the victimization of the victim. A victimization that is the life blood of this parasite, capitalism.
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LANGUAGE, IDENTITY AND LIBERATION: A CRITIQUE OF THE TERM AND CONCEPT "PEOPLE OF COLOR"Any critical discussion on the question of identity must remind us that the process of liberation is not only a process of self-determination and power but also an internal process of self-examination. This internal process is valid and important in and of itself, but when it is present in the political/ideological struggle for liberation, it becomes crucial and qualitatively determinant.
