Originally published on Colorlines.

At the height of the presidential primary season in March, about 30 activists gathered at St. Louis’ Peabody Opera House to protest a Donald Trump campaign rally there. One of the activists, Melissa McKinnies, says that even before the Republican candidate took the stage, his supporters were chanting, “Build a wall! U.S.A! Build a wall! U.S.A!”

McKinnies, a 40-year-old Black mother of three who was a consistent fixture at the protests in Ferguson following Michael Brown’s death, was among 20 Black and Latino protesters stationed on the ground floor trying to be heard above the din. “Stop the hate!” they yelled. “Stop the hate!” In the balcony, 10 or so White protesters rolled out an anti-Trump banner. At one point, a handful of White allies created a human shield around the people of color on the ground floor. Still, McKinnies was terrified.

“I sit there, and the more I listen, the more afraid I am because they are screaming and you hear the word ‘nigger’ in there like crazy—like it’s an ordinary, everyday word. They are pointing their fingers and you see fists and folks are yelling things like,‘U.S.A.!’ and ‘Get out of here, nigger!’”

After the banner was unfurled, groups of police moved to eject the protesters from the balcony and the ground floor. “We got picked up, slammed, dragged out of the building and eventually taken to the police station,” McKinnies says. 

Of the 32 anti-Trump activists police removed, 31 received summonses for disturbing the peace. But McKinnies, a former member of Ferguson grassroots activist group Lost Voices, was slapped with a second-degree robbery charge that had nothing to do with the rally. The charge—greatly inflated—was connected to a 2014 nonviolent exchange at a church meeting that McKinnies had with a man who wouldn’t stop recording the private gathering.

McKinnies is now facing a maximum sentence of 17 years in prison.

With nearly two decades in prison hanging over her head, McKinnies has joined the ranks of embattled activists who emerged organically as local leaders of the broader movement for Black lives. They lack the notoriety and resources of famous arrestees such as Cornel West, yet they are well known to their local police departments. A look at circumstances surrounding some of their felony arrests suggest either outlandish coincidences or that they are being targeted by the police from whom they’re demanding justice. 

Unusually Stiff Charges

In June, Black Lives Matter–Pasadena founder Jasmine Richards was convicted of a charge that, until recently, was called “felony lynching” for pulling a Black woman accused of stealing a meal away from police. She was demonstrating with her chapter in La Pintoresca Park when she saw the woman being arrested. Richards faced up to four years in prison. She was sentenced to 90 days in jail with 18 served. She will be on probation for three years and must take one year of anger management training.
It is clear that the arrests are a police effort to suck us for our resources. Every time it happens, we spend money, time and energy getting people out of jail instead of focusing on ending police violence.

In December 2015, in Baltimore, the U.S.Attorney’s office charged 22-year-old Gregory Butler Jr. with aiding and abetting arson and obstruction of firefighters during a civil disorder after he allegedly stepped on, then punctured, a fire hose during a Freddie Gray protest. The charges came with mandatory minimums of 20 and five years, respectively. In an exchange for the guilty plea he made earlier this month, authorities dropped the arson charge, but he could still serve five years in prison. Butler, who uses the name Greg Baly but is often identified by media as Greg Bailey, is set for sentencing in September.

Also in Baltimore, Allen Bullock, a friend of Gray, agreed to a plea deal that includes a 12-year prison sentence with all but six months suspended for smashing the windshield of a police car during a protest. A photo of 18-year-old Bullockholding an orange traffic cone while standing atop the car has become synonymous with the April 27, 2015, Baltimore uprising. His bail was initially set at $500,000.

In 2015, Brittany Ferrell, a founding member of Ferguson’s Millennial Activists United, was charged with first-degree property damage for kicking an SUV that a civilian drove through a line of protesters blocking Interstate 70 on the one-year anniversary of the Mike Brown Rebellion. Alongside activists Ashley Yates, Johnetta Elzie, Tef Poe and Tory Russell, Farrell emerged as an early voice of clarity, inspiring the national resistance now known as The Movement for Black Lives. If convicted, Farrell could be sentenced to four years in prison. She appeared in court in July and wrote on Facebook that her case had been assigned to new judge for the third time, her trial rescheduled for the fifth time and that her next court date is “sometime in September.”

What all of these activists have in common is that they are first-time offenders facing serious charges—and they have all been on the frontlines of direct-action protests in their own communities.

Some in the Ferguson and St. Louis activist community refer to Josh Williams as one of the first of a new generation of Black political prisoners. 

In December 2015, then-19-year-old activist was sentenced to eight years in prison for an arson he pleaded guilty to committing while protesting the police killing of Antonio Martin. The fire was allegedly set outside a convenience store, but the building never caught fire.

“They are making an example out of [Williams], not only because he was a protester, but because of who he was—someone who had been on the front pages of magazines,” says Keith Rose, a member of the National Lawyers Guild based in the St. Louis. “The New York Times, in a front-page story, had called him a leader of the Ferguson protests. [The police] didn’t like him. They didn’t like his tactics. He embodied resistance in a way that few people do and so they targeted him.”

When a Church Meeting Morphs Into a Robbery Charge

The disturbing story of McKinnies’ felony charge began in November 2014 at Greater St. Mark’s Church in Ferguson, a few days before St. Louis County prosecutor Robert McCulloch announced that a grand jury would not bring charges against Brown’s killer.

McKinnies was among 30 to 40 activists from various organizations who had been invited to discuss their role as peacekeepers. “We were having a safety meeting to talk about what to expect because we were supposed to be out there to keep the peace,” she recalls. “But before the meeting started, we were told that we were not supposed to record or to have any recording device.” 
The following week, I hear about this incident on the news. Before you know it, I’m hearing that I’m wanted for second-degree felony robbery.

A man who McKinnies says “just looked out of place” sat in the pew behind her. “I was going to welcome him and ask him his name, [but I saw] that he was recording. So I said ‘Listen, I know you just got in, but we can’t record.’ Two minutes later, I look back and he was still recording.”

McKinnies says she then told a woman who had accompanied the man, whom police and St. Louis media have identified as 22 year-old Chris Schaefer, that recording wasn’t allowed. The woman reiterated the rule to Schaefer, but he continued to record. So McKinnies changed seats, moving further to the front. “Two minutes later, I turn around and this young man is sitting directly behind me again and he’s recording! So I stood up, and pointed back to him and said, ‘He’s recording!’”

Almost immediately, someone McKinnies says she’d never seen before or since threw Schaefer across the room. “I was in disbelief,” she recalls. “I looked at my organization brother and said, ‘We need to get everybody out of here.’ So we proceed to the door. By that time, there is a big scuffle outside. I turned around and went back inside because I didn’t want to be in the middle of it.”

McKinnies says that after she finally exited the church she encountered a group of people who had taken Schaefer’s cell phone. They were debating about what to do with it and she intervened: “I snatched the phone from them and told my boyfriend, ‘Let’s go give this guy his phone back and get out of here.’ Unable to find Schaefer, McKinnies says she gave the phone to the woman who accompanied him to the church.

“That’s what he recorded his hospital interview with,” says McKinnies about the cell phone Schaefer used to record himself in a hospital bed. “The following week, I hear about this incident on the news. Before you know it, I’m hearing that I’m wanted for second-degree felony robbery.” Police investigators accused five members of Lost Voices of attacking Shafer with the intent of stealing his iPhone and charger. McKinnies and three other members were charged with second-degree robbery. 

“It’s retaliation,” legal observer Rose says of McKinnnies’ felony charge. “Police don’t like the Lost Voices because the group brought so much national attention to Ferguson. They are using this random assault charge that didn’t really happen the way they say it happened and definitely didn’t involve her.” 

Lost Voices sparked the ire of local authorities by camping outside 24 hours a day and holding almost daily protests that included shutting down traffic on West Florissant Avenue, not far from where officer Darren Wilson killed Brown. McKinnies’ trial is scheduled to begin on September 15. Colorlines’ calls to St. Louis County police were not returned.  

The Dangerous Irony of Being a Local Activist

So far, McKinnies’ case has drawn very little media attention or national discussion. She’s not a member of a national organization or clergy network and she lacks the name recognition of a DeRay Mckesson, the Teach for America administrator from Baltimore who came into prominence for his prodigious use of social media in cities rocked by racialized police violence. Large national organizations, clergy groups in particular, tend to have legal and communications support in place before members are arrested at protests. With those resources, people who stage civil disobedience actions are generally released from jail within hours without being charged.

Richards, the Black Lives Matter–Pasadena founder who faced the bizarre lynching charge, had national support from the Black Lives Matter (BLM) network. Leaders such as Patrisse Cullors spoke out about the injustice and irony of a Black woman facing serious time for a charge intended to stop White mobs from abducting Blacks they wanted to lynch from police stations. Richards’ case also received mainstream media attention, likely due to its novelty, and that attention probably helped her get a sentence of 90 days in jail instead of four years in prison. Colorlines’ calls to the Pasadena Police Department were not returned.

Melina Abdullah, a BLM organizer and chair of Pan African Studies at California State University, L.A., says that local police are using arrests and felony charges to contain a resistance movement pushing to disarm, defund and abolish their departments. “I saw it happen several times; I was present for the targeting,” she says, recalling the way police officers watched and followed Richards over the last several years as they organized actions.

Abdullah says that mass arrests are another tactic police use to oppose the overall movement for Black lives and people affiliated with BLM in particular. “It is clear that the arrests are a police effort to suck us for our resources. Every time it happens, we spend money, time and energy getting people out of jail instead of focusing on ending police violence.”

Stories have emerged from Ferguson and Baltimore about non-protesters who got caught up in waves of arrests while doing everyday things like getting off the bus or walking out of the laundromat. These people weren’t connected to activist networks and some lacked friends and family to keep tabs on their whereabouts.

Ferguson has a comprehensive network of jail support and legal assistance made up of volunteers from groups including Organization for Black Struggle, Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment, National Lawyers Guild, ArchCity Defenders and Saint Louis University School of Law Legal Clinics. Despite these activists’ best intentions, unknown numbers of people have slipped through the cracks and are still sitting in jail, says Rose. Also forgotten, according to Rose, are those charged with looting-related crimes. “During the protests, people also received felony charges for burglary, breaking and entering and possession of stolen goods. They have been totally ignored.”

Given the pattern of aggressive policing in Black, Latino and Native communities and the law enforcement surveillance of Middle Eastern and South Asian people, it is not a leap to question these charges. 

Mass Arrests, High Bail and Special Plea Deals as Deterrents

In Baltimore, when protests erupted following Gray’s funeral in April 2015, police arrested more than 200 people over several days. Maryland law requires police to charge arrestees within 24 hours or release them. But Gov. Larry Hogan signed an executive order to keep arrestees in custody for an additional day without charges. Nearly 100 people were released after 48 hours with no charges because officers either could not recall who they’d arrested or why they arrested them.

TJ Smith, chief spokesperson for the Baltimore Police Department, says his colleagues now try to avoid arresting people. “I can’t speak for other departments, but in Baltimore we have certainly changed the way that we respond. We are going to help facilitate the protests, except when people break the law. When people break the law, we are going to affect arrests. But arrests are definitely our last option.”

How people behave at protests should go both ways, Smith says. “We have had dozens and dozens of protests in Baltimore during the last year where no arrests were made. But it’s a two way street. We have to keep a line of communication open with protesters, and we have to be clear that criminal activity is not protesting. And our position moving forward is that we are going to treat a riot like a riot and a protest like a protest. And what happened on April 27, 2015, was a riot, not simply acts of civil disobedience.”

When asked about the 65 arrests made on July 17 when protesters blocked interstate 83, he categorized the action as criminal. “Some people think they are going to do whatever they want to do, and things like blocking a highway [are] a crime. That promotes a significant safety risk, and that is not something that we are going to accept. So arrests were made.” 
We have to keep a line of communication open with protesters, and we have to be clear that criminal activity is not protesting. And our position moving forward is that we are going to treat a riot like a riot and a protest like a protest. And what happened on April 27, 2015, was a riot, not simply acts of civil disobedience.

Baton Rouge is one of the latest hotspots for mass arrests. During protests that began four days after officer Blane Salamoni fatally shot Alton Sterling—and two days after Micah Xavier Johnson allegedly killed five Dallas cops—officers in Baton Rouge arrested some 185 people for charges such as obstructing a highway of commerce and failure to obey officers.

Arthur “Silky Slim” Reed, founder of Stop the Killing Inc., a local group helping to lead nonviolent demonstrations in response to Sterling’s killing, says these mass arrests are not designed for public safety. 

“The goal is to discourage the protests,” says Reed, a family friend of Sterling who himself was arrested on July 9 for disturbing the peace and “contributing to the delinquency of a minor”—a creative term police used to describe his presence among young protesters. “It’s not about responding to lawbreakers. These are BS charges.”

Reed says that police and officials are also sending a message to people who come from out of town to join protests. “Their message to out-of-town folks is, ‘If you come here, we will show you how we handle business in the hardcore Confederacy.’” 

According to Stop the Killing Inc. and other activist organizations on the ground in Baton Rouge, protesters there had bonds set between $300 to $500. But many of those charged with rioting and disorderly conduct in Baltimore had bail set at $10,000 or more. Bonds that high tend to be out of reach of most people who live in the very communities protesting racialized police violence. This means that neighborhood and politically unaffiliated protesters are essentially being disappeared from the streets.

Wyndal Gordon, the attorney represending Baltimore’s Bullock and Butler, says over-charging people, is customary, but it reached a fever pitch during the Gray protests. Bullock, for instance, was charged with rioting, malicious destruction of property, disorderly conduct several other infractions. “It was much more heavy handed during the Freddie Gray protests, and those charges had a chilling effect,” says Gordon.

The bulk of the arrests related to The Movement for Black Lives protests in Baltimore, Boston, Los Angeles, Cleveland and elsewhere are for city-ordinance violations—misdemeanor charges for crimes like disturbing the peace, rioting, blocking a highway and disobeying a peace officer. 
It’s not about responding to lawbreakers. These are BScharges.

In Ferguson, some protesters arrested for misdemeanors were offered Suspended Imposition of Sentence (SIS) plea deals, an option to seemingly put the matter behind them with the least path of resistance.

But Ferguson activists tell me that by agreeing to an SIS, they essentially signed on for a probationary period. If arrested again, they would be automatically sentenced for the earlier crime. They believe that these arrests and plea deals were used to deter continued organizing—not only because the protesters who signed them were aware of the consequences that another arrest would bring, but because the police learned the names of those who signed them.

Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop

Of course, such tactics make it more difficult for people to exercise their Constitutional rights. But like various police actions in the Broken Windows/stop-and-frisk era, these approaches anticipate protester strategy and skirt along the border of civil rights violations for as long as it takes for activists to gather the financial and legal resources they need, including the support of attorneys who are able to move challenges through the legal system.

Ironically, few things have done more to politicize the current generation of activists than policing. Add to that rampant misdemeanor charges for protesters and felony cases against local activists like McKinnies, and many activists are doubling down on their work. “A lot of people ask me if I am going to back down a little bit now,” she says. “Hell no! Because that would be saying I give up on my babies, my grandson. Because Mike Brown could have been one of mine.”

Read the companion piece,”How to Prepare Yourself for a Protest—and What to Do If You End Up in Cuffs,” for tips on how to handle an arrest.  

Melissa McKinnies was a Ferguson uprising fixture. It’s for this reason that the St. Louis mother believes that one of her sons was lynched in their backyard. Here are her words.

First as a member of Lost Voices and then as an independent activist, Melissa McKinnies has consistently spoken out against racialized police violence. For that, she has paid a steep price. In 2016, McKinnies was arrested following a nonviolent protest at a Trump campaign rally. Authorities charged her with felony robbery in connection to an innocuous incident at a Michael Brown-related event two years prior. 

The single mother faced 17 years in prison, but that didn’t stop her from condemning the 2017 acquittal of Jason Stockley, the White St. Louis police officer who fatally shot Black motorist Anthony Lamar Smith. 

The following year, death hit McKinnies in her own home. On October 17, 2018, the body of her 24-year-old son, Danye Jones, was discovered hanging from a tree in their backyard. The noose was made of a bedsheet. 

Police eventually ruled the death a suicide, but McKinnies insists that Danye was lynched. She believes her son’s demise is part of a patternin which several other Black activists with ties to the Brown rebellion have died or faced threats: 

• Per The Associated Press, Deandre Joshua, 20, was found shot in a burning car blocks from a November 2014 protest against the acquittal of Brown’s killer. Activist Darren Seals, 26, was also found shot in a burning car, in September 2016. 
• HuffPost reported that Black Lives Matter activist MarShawn McCarrel, 23, fatally shot himself outside of the Ohio Statehouse. State police ruled it a suicide but there were no witnesses. 
• Edward Crawford Jr., the 27-year-old famously photographed by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch throwing a tear gas cannister back at police, fatally shot himself in May 2017 according to police.  
• Bassem Masri, the Palestinian-American activist known for live-streaming the Ferguson protests, died of an overdose of fentanyl in November 17. 
• In March 2019, activist and reverend Darryl Gray told The Associated Press that he found a box containing a 6-foot python inside his car.

Reflecting on the deaths, which McKinnies refers to as murders, the grieving mother talks about the personal cost of fighting the power—and why she won’t stop. 

At first, coming into the fight for justice for Mike Brown, it was like, “We’re fighting for something good!” But when it hit the fan and one [activist] after the other has died, it’s like, “Wait a minute. Hold on. All these people can’t be mysteriously murdered!” That’s not what we signed up for. This stuff is getting too real, like maybe we shouldn’t have stepped in this pile of boo-boo.

It’s nine months in since I lost my son Danye. It’s been really rough around here. I don’t sleep much. In the past, I imagined myself in the shoes of those mothers that have lost their sons to injustices and coverups. That’s one of the reasons I decided to fight as hard as I did. Now I’m living that life of one of the mothers of the movement. I wasn’t prepared for it. You never are.

My children, the three of them, were very close. They were always together. To have an integral part of our family gone, it’s hard for them to cope. I’m just trying to help them through it while they try to help me through it.

I raised all three of my children alone, so, they have always been very protective over mom. Danye was the most protective. He always wanted to make sure that I was taken care of. He felt like that’s what he was supposed to do. I never wanted him to think that way, but he just took that on as my oldest son.

Danye was very loyal. If he cared for you or loved you, he looked out for you. He saw the good in people when others didn’t. That was just Danye. That’s just who he was. And that’s why when the police said that he took his own life, we know that’s not true.

We didn’t put it out there at first, but we were receiving death threats. From the time we were out protesting Mike Brown’s murder in 2014 to 2017 when we were protesting the Jason Stockley case, it got worse and worse and worse. People started coming to our homes, sitting outside of our homes and sending messages. At that point, we would put it out there that we were being threatened, especially the more that we got involved.

During the Jason Stockley case, I was really in the forefront. I imagine them thinking, She just won’t sit her tail down and shut the hell up! I guess when you’re standing up for something, cowards try to figure out how to shut you up. And you have some that are willing to do whatever it takes just to have that notch on their belt. It’s not like it’s new. This is something that has been going on for forever: they shut up the one that they feel has a voice. They profile us. They watch us and they find out what are our strengths and weaknesses. And they knew that my children were a way to get me.

When I said, “It would kill me if it was one of mine” in a [Colorlines] videoin 2014, it was at a point when I really didn’t know better. I was just speaking out of emotion. I should’ve been just more strategic. This is a lesson for others: Don’t let them know everything. You can fight without letting ‘em know your strengths and weaknesses. Because that’s what they’re hoping; and that’s why they’re watching.

To people who ask what they can do to help, I say, share Danye’s story. Share it in its entirety. Let people know that they are covering some of the murders up. Ask for an investigation.

That’s what I now live to do, to speak on what has happened not only to my son, but to other peoples’ children, to Darren Seals and others. With Danye, at this point, we’re doing a private investigation because asking the police to investigate is just like asking murderers to look at themselves and to tell the truth. They don’t do it to tell the truth. They do it to get away with it.

We have a GoFundMe in memory of Danye Jones and the funds will go toward the investigation, which will include having his body exhumed. The funds will also go toward my move. I have to get out of this house. I’m still here, and I can’t go in my backyard. I can’t look in my backyard. All the back windows, the blinds have to remain closed at all times.

I hear people saying that the stories of Danye Jones and Darren Seals need to be known so that others can realize that there’s a price to pay for fighting for something that we believe in. I feel like that’s more of a coward’s way of speaking because it suggests that we should be afraid to fight. But we all have to die. And to people that call themselves warriors, if you’re a warrior, you cannot die on your knees. You have to die standing for something so that our children have something to look forward to. And they can say, “You know what My mom, my dad fought for me. They did that for me.”

I didn’t raise cowards. That’s why Danye once came to me and said, “I want to be an activist.” My son didn’t die on his knees.

Before Michael Brown Jr. became an international symbol of racialized police violence, he was an 18-year-old who cracked jokes, made music and planned for his future. Here, a deeply personal reflection by his dad on the fifth anniversary of his killing.

On August 9, 2014, Black 18-year-old Michael Brown Jr. was fatally shot by Darren Wilson, a White Ferguson, Missouri, police officer. The killing of the beloved teenager—and the four hours in which his bleeding body remained on Canfield Drive–sparked an uprising, a militarized police response and sustained political organizing that altered the course of U.S. history. But before Brown became a political symbol, he was just Mike-Mike. Here, Michael Brown Sr. reflects on what happened after the news cameras left.

At this point, I have found a little bit of peace. I’m not as angry as I was five years ago. But every day is different. The family is still trying to move forward. Mike Brown Jr.’s nine siblings are still hurting and have questions. They were all younger than him, and the last thing that they remember is that their brother was taken away from them in the manner that he was. So I’m just trying to keep those good memories going on with them. I’m just loving on the family.

People may have tried to dehumanize Mike Jr. But he was human, and he definitely had people that loved him on both sides of the family. He [was] a big brother. Someone’s son. Someone’s grandson. He wanted to be a rapper. He liked his computer and played online video games with other people around the world. He had just started driving, and he was really into girls at that point. He was engaging with life and being an average teenager.

Mike Jr. was also funny. A few months before he died, he told me that he had a baby on the way and hung up the phone on me. I was calling and calling him back, but he wouldn’t answer. Then he called me later on that evening. And I was like, “We didn’t finish what we were talking about!” He’s like, “What?” And I said, “You said you had a baby on the way!” And he said, “Ah, man, you forgot today was April Fool’s Day?” Yeah, he got me good.

Mike loved people. And a lot of the work that we’re doing right now at the Michael Brown Chosen for Change Foundation grew out of things that he and I were talking about before he passed. He had said that the world was going to know his name. But we never knew that he was going to leave like that.

I currently run a program under the umbrella of the foundation called Chosen Fathers. It’s for fathers who have lost children to police violence. A lot of people think that the father is supposed to just take it and take it—to take all the pain like it doesn’t hurt. People reach out to mothers when these tragedies happen and think that the fathers are supposed to just get over it. But we hurt too.

Some folks once said that once the cameras leave, the people leave. But people are still protesting for Mike Brown and other families that have suffered similar loss. I want to thank everyone that showed love to the family and stood up for what they believed in. It’s never over.

On Election Day, Ohioans will vote on a ballot initiative designed to help decriminalize nonviolent drug use and to divert millions of taxpayer dollars — currently spent pursuing an outdated and failed war on drugs — into drug treatment programs. By challenging perceptions of drug users, Issue 1 upends racist assumptions the nation has accepted for decades. 

The proposed constitutional amendment will decrease Ohio’s prison population by turning nonviolent felonies into misdemeanors that don’t require prison time, allow those with existing convictions to be eligible for those to be reclassified as misdemeanors, and prohibit prison time for people who violate probation for noncriminal offenses (such as being late for an appointment), among other humane policy shifts.

Ultimately, Issue 1 pushes back on draconian drug sentencing enacted at the height of the crack cocaine explosion of the ’80s and ’90s that led to disproportionate incarceration rates for black people, the poor and the undereducated. For the moment, it places the state at the epicenter of the ongoing struggle between U.S. citizens and lawmakers over the inherent racism of national drug policy that deemed black Americans expendable.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Ohio’s state prison population is around 52,000 (roughly the size of Cleveland suburb Lakewood). Although black people represent only 12% of the population, 43% of the state’s prison population is black. By contrast, while whites represent 81% of Ohio’s population, they represent 52% of the prison population. 

These statistics aren’t altogether new. Ohio’s prison population topped 45,000in 1996 and has remained above that level ever since. The vast racial disparities persist relatively unchanged. In 2004, not long after the publication of my book The Hip-Hop Generation, which documents the ways targeted policing in black communities coupled with harsh sentencing became a defining variable for a generation of black Americans, the Nation asked me, along with Walter Cronkite, George McGovern, Lani Guinier and other thought leaders, to each discuss a peoples-driven issue that should dominate the Democratic Party’s platform. 

“Mandatory minimums disproportionately affect African-Americans [who] represent 45% of the U.S. prison population,” I wrote. “The Democratic Party should advocate the repeal of mandatory-minimum sentencing laws at the state level as well as those provisions under the federal 1984 Comprehensive Crime Control Act, the 1984 Sentencing Reform Act, the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act, the 1988 Anti-Drug Abuse Act and the 1994 Crime Act.” 

Coming of age in Long Island, New York, in the ’80s, I witnessed firsthand friends and relatives “caught up” by policing that targeted petty dealers and users in majority black communities, while ignoring college students, and suburban and rural Americans who, studies show, use illegal drugs at the same rate. 

“Caught up” was an expression that emerged at the time, a catch-all phrase for the collateral damage of having a felony conviction. In short, once you are in the system, it is nearly impossible to avoid having its ramifications follow you in pursuit of housing, jobs, education and more for decades. These dynamics, commonplace in the state that birthed the drug laws, quickly became the national tough-on-crime blueprint. 

However, after years of heavy lifting from opponents who refuse to accept a two-tiered system of justice as business as usual, in 2010 a breakthrough came with the passage of the Fair Sentencing Act. Mandatory minimum sentences were repealed for the first time for federal offenders convicted of possession of crack cocaine. Additionally the 100-to-1 ratio disparity of crack to powder cocaine was changed to 18 to 1. Crack cocaine cases in federal court dropped by 50% as a result. 

But even as this leap forward underscored the extent to which U.S. drug policy was weighted with racism, it only applied to the federal prison system (a relatively small fraction of the nation’s incarceration population) and a gap remained that still more severely punished crack cocaine over powder cocaine users. 

It was among former President Barack Obama’s campaign promises that fell short, even as, more than any president in history, he never wavered in insisting that we should end racial disparities and sentencing practices that punished users. 

“We should not be locking up kids or individual users for long stretches of jail time when some of the folks who are writing those laws have probably done the same thing,” the president said in an interview with David Remnick in 2014. “It’s important for society not to have a situation in which a large portion of people have at one time or another broken the law and only a select few get punished.”

This shifting discourse created leverage for grassroots activists fighting for change at the state level. Similar ballot initiatives passed in California in 2014 and Oklahoma in 2016. Both report decreases in the prison population.

The frontline now comes to my current home state, Ohio, where organizations like the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, Ohio NAACP, Ohio Justice and Policy Center, and Khnemu Lighthouse in partnership with the Alliance for Safety and Justice see the possibilities.

Issue 1 is not a panacea. The legacy of racial disparities and inequalities fostered by drug policy persists — from the U.S. Census bureau’s recent decision to continue to count inmates in districts where they are incarcerated, rather than their hometowns, to redistricting maps drawn in states like Ohio that strategically places 91% of the state’s prison population in Republican districts, when most of their actual hometowns are in Democratic ones. 

Likewise, a fierce debate rages on both sides of the aisle that has pushed visions of equality, justice and democracy to the brink, with both Democratic and Republican judges lecturing prospective jury pools to vote against the amendment and some voters questioning whether the change of heart for drug users is merely driven by the skin color of those most affected in Ohio by today’s opioid crisis.

No matter the outcome, what is certain is that Issue 1 is a litmus test for how far the Ohio electorate has evolved in its willingness to dismantle public policy solutions that punish blacks more severely at a time when the nation is more racially polarized than at any point in the last half century.

With the Freddie Gray uprising as a catalyst, Baltimore residents voted in the $12 million Children & Youth Fund. Here’s how local activists in this majority Black city ensured that young, people-of-color-led, grassroots groups had a seat at the table. With the Freddie Gray uprising as a catalyst, Baltimore residents voted in the $12 million Children & Youth Fund. Here’s how local activists in this majority Black city ensured that young, people-of-color-led, grassroots groups had a seat at the table. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Three years after the police killing of Freddie Gray triggered an uprising in Baltimore, little has changed for Black residents who make up 63 percent of its population. Attempts to prosecute Gray’s killers famously failed. A 2017 consent decree, which the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) entered into after the U.S. Department of Justice found a pattern of civil rights violations against Blacks, is stalled. This year’s revelations about the corruption and violence of the BPD’s Gun Trace Task Force underscore more of the same.

There is, however, the potential for change in the form of the Baltimore Children &Youth Fund (BCYF). More than two decades in the making, the new $12 million fund provides local youth-focused groups with grants ranging from $500 to $500,000. BCYF is funded annually by 3 percent of the city’s property taxes. What’s innovative is how its principals structured it to ensure that small Black grassroots groups that usually go unfunded have a seat at the table.

The Freddie Gray Connection

Baltimore City Council President Bernard “Jack” Young had been introducing the idea of a dedicated youth fund since 1996. In 2016, city council unanimously approved a bill he’d introduced in 2015. But then-mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake vetoed it, claiming that earmarking discretionary funds limited mayoral decision-making power. With a newfound urgency forged by the Gray uprising, city council did something it hadn’t done since 1982: they overrode the mayor’s veto and brought an amendment to the city charter before voters. Over 80 percent voted yes.

“The unfortunate and untimely death of Freddie Gray provided the propellant to move this initiative forward,” says Lester Davis,Young’s deputy chief of staff charged with setting up the fund. “We realized we needed new ideas and we needed to support youth in a different way than we had in the past.”

The youth fund law didn’t specify how the money would be allocated or managed. Young appointed a 34-member taskforce of city agency heads, philanthropic leaders and grassroots activists to figure that out. Adam Jackson, the outspoken CEO of the Black “grassroots think tank” Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle(LBS) co-chaired the taskforce along with T. Rowe Price Foundation president John Brothers.Kim Trueheart,a Northwest Baltimore activist and city council meeting fixture who ran against Young in 2016, also served on it.

A core recommendation of the taskforce was that racial equity should be at the core of the structure. Says Jackson, “A lot of the spirit of the taskforce from early on was, ‘How do we make sure that racial equity and transparency and accountability is embedded into how the fund is structured and operates?”’

To that end, the taskforce did the most logical thing: “We went to communities and asked folks who run programs, parents, students, youth and young adults what they believed should be funded,” says Jackson. To structure the meetings, they borrowed from the idea of “people’s assemblies,” a radical form of community forums popularized by the late Jackson, Mississippi, mayor, Chokwe Lumumba.

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When I arrived at 10 a.m. on Saturday (October 28), thousands of women from across the United States had already filled Detroit’s Cobo Center for the inaugural Women’s Convention, a followup to January’s historic Women’s March. From its inception this summer, the Convention was challenged—by lingering racial tensions from the march, criticism of the $295 cost of general admission and the scheduling of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a man, as an opening-night speaker. (Sanders went to Hurricane Irma-ravaged Puerto Rico instead.) Under these conditions, could the Women’s March movement truly unite women across race and gender politics and help them build the power to defeat Trump’s MAGA agenda?

Surprisingly, the Convention crowd appeared to be equal parts White women and women of color, and there was a smattering of men in attendance, including me. Michelle Murguia, an 18-year-old college freshman from Albuquerque who works on deportation defense with New Mexico Dream Team, says the attendance defied her expectations. “I didn’t expect to see a lot of diversity here,” she told me in crowded hallway outside the main auditorium. ”It’s just amazing to see these strong women from diverse cultures fighting for their rights.” 

Rana Abdelhamid, 24, founding president of The Women’s Initiative for Self-Empowerment, was also skeptical, but she made the trek from Palo Alto, California, anyway. “Being at the Women’s Convention was one of the most beautiful spaces I’ve ever been in as a woman of color. There was a sea of women of color and everyone was empowered to call out White feminism, White supremacy and White violence,” she said in a telephone interview the day after her presentation on self defense at the Convention. “I felt like I could speak my mind and speak my truth because it was such a diverse space. Also, the sessions were actively pushing well-intentioned White women to be better allies and accomplices in the fight for justice.”

The diversity of the Convention was not a coincidence. The event borrowed its theme, “Reclaiming Our Time,” from Rep. Maxine Waters’ (D-Ca.) famous refrain and booked her as the conference keynote. And leaders of color in the Women’s March movement, including activists Linda Sarsour, Tamika Mallory and Carmen Perez, were highly visible on social and news media.

A cross-section of grassroots activists such as Rosa Clemente of #PRontheMap, Tarana Burke, #MeToo movement founder, and Shakyra Diaz, managing director of the Alliance for Safety and Justice, added to the diverse voices. They spoke bluntly about the past and current challenges of organizing women across vast race and class divides on issues from sexual assault to mass incarceration to the rebuilding of Puerto Rico. 

At one of the most attended breakout sessions, “94 Percent Voted Against Trump: Black Women in 2018,” panelists including Melanie Campbell, CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, and Brittney Packnett, cofounder of Campaign Zero, discussed Black women’s fight for resources and recognition while navigating slights by their White counterparts. Symone Sanders, who served as the national press secretary for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, moderated the session and Women’s March movement leader Mallory led off the question-and-answer period by asking the mostly Black crowd how they deal with the power dynamics of their emerging leadership. “We have been left on the sidelines so long that we have to think about what happened when we are invited in the room, and we show up hard, and sometimes make people run away. How do we deal with that?”  

After the session, Mina* Davis, a 25-year-old debate coach from Omaha who is running for state legislature, called for the Democratic Party to be more inclusive of women of color. “I would like to see more involvement. I’m half Black and half Filipino. I am the only woman of color running in state legislature,” said Davis, who is also a member of the Nebraska Democratic Party. ”I’ve found that showing up is half the battle, but I think Democrats need to work harder to bring more people of color into the fold.”

But while some attendees were focused on the politics of the Democratic Party, many were focused on issues and activism that transcended electoral political concerns. 

The breakout session “Confronting White Womanhood” was so popular on Friday that organizers repeated it on Saturday. That session easily had about 500 of mostly White participants. “How can you consider yourself a feminist if the only issue for you is gender equality?” Rhiannon Childs,** one of the session leaders and co-chair of the Women’s March Ohio chapter, asked the crowd. “It’s time to end White womanhood and rise up in sisterhood.” Her comments received a standing ovation.

The Convention also served as a social gathering space. Throughout the day, women gathered in the atrium to take photos in front of a vibrant social justice art exhibit. Some made new friends. Others had come with old friends such as Abdelhamid. She came with Dami Oyefeso, a Queens, New York, publicist whom she met years ago in the Posse Foundation’s scholars program. 

By chance, Pamela Perry, a 61-year-old Army veteran and retiree from the human services sector, reconnected with 18-year-old Khadega Mohammed, a Sudanese immigrant from Saudi Arabia whom she met a year earlier on a Greyhound bus from Chicago.

Mohammed, a Detroit-area college student and spoken-word poet, encountered Convention organizer Sarsour, whom she met last year at one of her performances. But she said that beyond the camaraderie she didn’t get much out of the convention. “It was a cool environment to be in, but I felt not enough emphasis was placed on what we can take away to continue protesting and marching,” she told me.

Perry, who attended the Women’s March on Washington, said she had been concerned about the lack of African-American women organizing the marches when she joined the Illinois planning committee. But at the Convention, she was excited to meet people such as 60-year-old Remi Ogidan, whom she encountered on an Amtrak train and discovered that they were both headed to the Convention. “As we talk about bringing women together to rally around issues that impact us, we have to be concerned about what we are for, not just what we are against,” she told me. ”African-American women need to reach across the aisle, not only to White women but also to women who voted for Trump.”

The Convention also served as a social gathering space. Throughout the day, women gathered in the atrium to take photos in front of a vibrant social justice art exhibit. Some made new friends. Others had come with old friends such as Abdelhamid. She came with Dami Oyefeso, a Queens, New York, publicist whom she met years ago in the Posse Foundation’s scholars program. 

By chance, Pamela Perry, a 61-year-old Army veteran and retiree from the human services sector, reconnected with 18-year-old Khadega Mohammed, a Sudanese immigrant from Saudi Arabia whom she met a year earlier on a Greyhound bus from Chicago.

Mohammed, a Detroit-area college student and spoken-word poet, encountered Convention organizer Sarsour, whom she met last year at one of her performances. But she said that beyond the camaraderie she didn’t get much out of the convention. “It was a cool environment to be in, but I felt not enough emphasis was placed on what we can take away to continue protesting and marching,” she told me.

Perry, who attended the Women’s March on Washington, said she had been concerned about the lack of African-American women organizing the marches when she joined the Illinois planning committee. But at the Convention, she was excited to meet people such as 60-year-old Remi Ogidan, whom she encountered on an Amtrak train and discovered that they were both headed to the Convention. “As we talk about bringing women together to rally around issues that impact us, we have to be concerned about what we are for, not just what we are against,” she told me. ”African-American women need to reach across the aisle, not only to White women but also to women who voted for Trump.”

The Convention also served as a social gathering space. Throughout the day, women gathered in the atrium to take photos in front of a vibrant social justice art exhibit. Some made new friends. Others had come with old friends such as Abdelhamid. She came with Dami Oyefeso, a Queens, New York, publicist whom she met years ago in the Posse Foundation’s scholars program. 

By chance, Pamela Perry, a 61-year-old Army veteran and retiree from the human services sector, reconnected with 18-year-old Khadega Mohammed, a Sudanese immigrant from Saudi Arabia whom she met a year earlier on a Greyhound bus from Chicago.

Mohammed, a Detroit-area college student and spoken-word poet, encountered Convention organizer Sarsour, whom she met last year at one of her performances. But she said that beyond the camaraderie she didn’t get much out of the convention. “It was a cool environment to be in, but I felt not enough emphasis was placed on what we can take away to continue protesting and marching,” she told me.

Perry, who attended the Women’s March on Washington, said she had been concerned about the lack of African-American women organizing the marches when she joined the Illinois planning committee. But at the Convention, she was excited to meet people such as 60-year-old Remi Ogidan, whom she encountered on an Amtrak train and discovered that they were both headed to the Convention. “As we talk about bringing women together to rally around issues that impact us, we have to be concerned about what we are for, not just what we are against,” she told me. ”African-American women need to reach across the aisle, not only to White women but also to women who voted for Trump.”

Standing in line at Hall D around 1:30, it was clear that, despite some differences, attendees were united in their excitement about hearing Waters address the convention.  Emceed by image activist and creative director Michaela angela Davis and “Newsone Now” anchor Roland Martin, the “working lunch” that honored Waters was peppered with shout-outs to Sojourner Truth, Grace Lee Boggs and Rosa Parks.

In her 20-minute speech, Waters shouted out some of her Democratic congressional colleagues, including Reps. John Conyers (D-Mi.) and Frederica Wilson (D-Fl.) but focused on the core concerns of progressive, poor and middle class Democrats.

“We are speaking to women who are single mothers, women who are working two or three jobs making minimum wage or less, women who have been exploited and harassed or taken advantage of in their personal or professional lives, women who are suffering from illness and diseases who are worried about the future of healthcare, women who have been disrespected in the boardroom or feel that their talent is not appreciated or valued in the work place,” she said. “Today we are gathered to discuss the issues and organize a plan of action to continue our resistance.” And, of course, she led the crowd in a round of “Impeach 45” chants.

Dami Oyefeso, a Queens, New York, publicist who is registered as an Independent, said that while she found Waters’ speech inspiring, she had come to see how the Convention would defy stereotypes of White feminism. “I had never been to a women’s convention, and I wondered how the march that was so huge could be turned into dialogue and not just one-way activism but a conversation between ourselves,” said Oyefeso. ”Feminism has this bloated history of not being inclusive. I was interested in seeing how the Women’s Convention would stack up. They did really well in terms of the inclusiveness of trans women, women of color, hijabi and non-hijabi Muslims, and everyone that identifies as a woman.”

At the end of the day, it was clear to me that the Women’s Convention—the first of its kind in 40 years—filled a void. What remains to be seen is whether the gathering will help channel the vast concerns of ordinary women into a force that can transform the landscape of mainstream American politics.

Black Panther alumni celebrated the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Party in 2016. In this informal census we present the names of those who are still in prison, who were recently released and who died while incarcerated.

One of the highlights of 2016 was the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Black Panther Party (BPP), which alumni marked with celebrations and gatherings around the country. But a painful side of the 50-year mark is how many former Panthers and affiliates are still languishing in America’s prisons. The context in which members of the BPP and its underground offshoot, the Black Liberation Army (BLA), were charged, tried, convicted and sentenced supports some of their claims of political repression.

The Black Panther Party promoted armed self-defense against rampant police brutality and anti-capitalist revolution. Their militarized stance, along with “survival programs” such as free sickle cell anemia testing, attracted the intense ire of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and President Richard Nixon. 

Hoover’s FBI had been infiltrating, spying on and disrupting various political groups through the convert counterintelligence program COINTELPRO since its inception in 1956. The Communist Party was the first target, but by the mid-1960s, leaders and organizations classified as Black nationalist were priorities. In one revealing office memo, Hoover described the BPP’s free breakfast program—not its guns—as “the greatest threat to internal security of the country.” The Panthers were also on Nixon’s infamous political enemies list. 

By portraying the BPP as a major threat, Nixon and the FBI gave local authorities permission and incentives to help infiltrate, surveil, lie to, raid, frame, injure, murder and incarcerate dozens of BPP members and affiliates. In this climate, BPP and affiliates often faced manufactured or excessive criminal charges. Some were convicted due to false, inconclusive or non-existent evidence. Some were tortured into confessing to crimes they did not commit. Witnesses were frequently coerced into lying on the stand or not called at all. Prosecutors concealed evidence and relied on the testimony of paid informants. Judges were blatant about their racial bias.

The majority of BPP and BLA prisoners have appealed their convictions, a slow process that doesn’t tend to allow for challenging evidence presented in an original trial. Their appeals focus on introducing new evidence and proving a lack of due process. Because most of these cases involve the death of a police officer, BPP and BLA prisoners up for parole are frequently stymied by pressure from victims’ families and police unions. Many have been held in solitary confinement, some for decades.  

Here is a list of BPP and BLA participants still behind bars and the amount of time served. Based on court documents associated with their appeals and news reports, we also present the broad strokes of controversy surrounding their cases. Their names are in alphabetical order. 

Mumia Abu-Jamal

Affiliation: Abu-Jamal joined the Philadelphia chapter of the BPP at age 15 in 1967. After a brief stint, he went on to become a progressive radio journalist and affiliate of the MOVE organization.
Conviction: In 1982 for the 1981 murder of a Philadelphia police officer, Daniel Faulkner 
Sentence: Death 
Case controversy: Witnesses said that they saw a man they believed to be the shooter fleeing the scene. >> Ballistics testing confirms that Abu-Jamal himself was shot at the scene by Faulkner. Some witnesses didn’t come forward; others have changed their stories since testifying in 1982. >> Supporters say that the prosecution withheld and falsified evidence.​
Time incarcerated: After 30 years on death row, Abu-Jamal’s sentence was commuted to life without parole. He has been in prison a total of 34 years. 
Support website: www.freemumia.com

Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (aka H. Rap Brown)

Affiliation: After serving as chairman of the Student Non-Violent Organizing Committee, Al-Amin briefly joined the BPP in 1968.
Conviction: 2002 for the 2000 murder of Sheriff’s Deputy Ricky Kinchen in Fulton County, Ga.
Sentence: Life in prison without possibility of parole 
Case controversy: The FBI amassed a 44,000-page file on Al-Amin while surveilling him within his Muslim community and failed to connect him to any crime. >>Al-Amin was not wounded in the 2000 shootout with police that led to the death of Kinchen. >>An officer who was injured during the confrontation claimed that the shooter was wounded. >>During a manhunt for Al-Amin following the shooting, police reported finding signs that the assailant was wounded. >>Al-Amin’s fingerprints were not found on the murder weapon. >> Three months after the shooting, a fugitive from Atlanta who was captured in Nevada claimed he he killed Kinchen. >> Five years after his conviction, Al-Amin was transferred to the federal prison system. 
Time incarcerated: 16 years.
Support website: www.imamjamilactionnetwork.weebly.com*

Sundiata Acoli

Affiliation: BPP, BLA
Conviction: With co-defendant Assata Shakur in 1974 for the murder of New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster. 
Sentence: Life plus 30 years in prison
Case controversy: Sundiata Acoli was driving a car on the New Jersey Turnpike with passengers Assata and Zayd Malik Shakur. A traffic stop by state troopers resulted in a shoot-out in which Assata was injured and Zayd was killed. Foerster was killed and another officer was injured. >> Acoli and co-defendant Shakur unsuccessfully sought to have their case tried in federal court -rather than state court, citing the small Black population of Morris County. >> Acoli was confined to special unit in a New Jersey prison, and let out only 10 minutes a day for showers and twice a week for recreation. >> Despite not being a federal inmate, he has been transferred to several federal prisons in Marion, Ill. and Fort Leavenworth, Kans. beginning in 1979. >>Although the parole board was ordered by state appeals court in New Jersey in 2014 to set terms for his release, the parole board again denied the appeal in 2016.
Time incarcerated: 43 years
Support website: www.sundiataacoli.org

Herman Bell

Affiliation: BPP
Conviction: In 1974, of the 1971 murder of two New York City Police Officers Joseph Piagentini and Waverly Jones
Sentence: 25 years to life in prison
Case controversy: Herman Bell was one of five defendants collectively known as the New York 5. Their first trial ended in a hung jury. During the second trial, charges against co-defendants Gabriel and Francisco Torres were dropped due to a lack of evidence. >> Bell claims that he and the remaining defendants, Albert Nuh Washington and Jalil Abdul Muntaqim, were convicted based on coerced witness statements, manufactured and circumstantial evidence and prosecutorial and judicial misconduct. >> No eyewitnesses identified Bell as a shooter. >> Bell’s defense team claims that the prosecution withheld exculpatory ballistics evidence. >> They also claim that misleading charges and courtroom bias resulted in Bell being denied due process and the right to a fair trial. >> Bell argues he was illegally extradited from Louisiana to New York to stand trial.
Time incarcerated: 43 years
Support website: www.freehermanbell.org

Veronza Bowers

Affiliation: BPP
Conviction: In 1974 of the 1973 murder of U.S. Park Ranger Kenneth Patrick, in Marin County, Calif. 
Sentence: Life in prison
Case controversy: Bowers was convicted primarily on the eyewitness testimony of a police informant. The informant, who claimed he was with Bowers at the time of the murder, had previously been a co-defendant in the same case. After their cases were severed and the informant testified against Bowers, the informant’s case was dismissed. >> On appeal, Bowers challenged the search warrant and procedural fairness of his trial. >> Supporters believe that evidence seized during the search of Bowers’ residence should not have been used in trial. >> After mandatory parole was granted in 2005 by the regional parole commission, Bowers’ release was interrupted by the unusual intervention of the federal United States Parole Commission and the involvement of then-U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez. In 2011, the U.S. Parole Commission re-voted and denied mandatory parole.
Time incarcerated: 43 years
Support website: http://veronza.org/

Romaine “Chip” Fitzgerald

Affiliation: BPP 
Conviction: In 1970 for the 1969 murder of a mall security guard, Barge Miller. Also for attempted murder of a California highway patrolman in a shootout following a traffic stop
Sentence: Fitzgerald was sentenced to death. When the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty in 1972, California commuted both of his sentences to life in prison with possibility of parole.
Case controversy: During Fitzgerald’s attempted murder trial, a police officer testified that he had orders to shoot members of the Black Panther Party. The judge ordered the jury to ignore that statement.>> In the case of the security guard murder, Fitzgerald says he was at home with his sister that night, but his alibi was ignored. >> A witness who says he saw Fitzgerald fleeing the scene could not identify him in photographs. During cross-examination, the witness could not describe him to the judge without looking at Fitzgerald. >> In appealing his conviction, Fitzgerald unsuccessfully argued that the evidence used to convict him was insufficient and that his rights to an attorney were denied as he had sought to have his court appointed attorney replaced.
Years incarcerated: 46. Several years in solitary confinement led him to stage a hunger strike in 2010. Although eligible for parole since 1976, he has been denied repeatedly for decades. 
Support website: www.abcf.net/abc/pdfs/chip.pdf

Kenny “Zulu” Whitmore aka Eusi Zulu Heshima

Affiliation: BPP
Conviction: In 1977 for the 973 murder of Marshall Bond, former mayor of Zachary, La., Sentence: Life plus 99 years in prison
Case controversy: Heshima, who was 18 at the time of the murder, says he rode out to Bond’s farm with another man who claimed to be seeking work. Heshima maintains that he was waiting in the car while the man robbed and killed Bond. Heshima was arrested on an unrelated robbery charge 18 months after the murder. >> According to The Advocate, Heshima claims he was interrogated for almost two days by police who threatened and physically abused and denied him food or sleep. “I was intimidated and threatened and told I would spend the rest of my life in Angola if I did not provide the information they asked for,” The Advocate reports Whitmore as stating. >> Heshima also claims that additional recorded statements that were made during a polygraph test might have cleared him. 
Time incarcerated: In April 2016, Whitmore was moved to general population after spending 34 of the previous 36 years in solitary confinement. 
Support website: www.medilljusticeproject.org

Ruchell “Cinque” Magee

Affiliation: BPP
Conviction: Pleaded guilty to aggravated kidnapping for his part in the 1970 Marin County Courthouse takeover. 
Sentence: Life in prison without the possibility of parole
Case controversy: In August 1970, 17-year-old Johnathan Jackson took a judge, district attorney and three jurors hostage at the Marin County Courthouse in an effort to free his brother, Johnathan and the two other Soledad Brothers. Magee happened to be on the stand serving as a character witness in an urelated case, but he and two other bystanders helped with the takeover. Johnathan and Superior Court Judge Harold Haley were killed. >> Magee sought to make the legal argument that incarceration was equivalent to slavery and that the attempt to free the Soledad brothers was justified in accordance with the Supreme Court’s decision in the Amistad case. >> Magee’s trial ended in a hung jury with the jury leaning heavily toward acquittal for murder, aggravated kidnapping and simple kidnapping. Magee pleaded guilty to aggravated kidnapping, he says, out of frustration. His attempts to withdraw the guilty plea and have a new trial were rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Years incarcerated: 53
Support website: www.thejerichomovement.com/profile/magee-ruchell-cinque

Jalil Abdul Muntaqim (aka Anthony Bottom)

Affiliation: BPP, BLA
Conviction: Along with Herman Bell and Albert Nuh Washington, Muntaqim, convicted of the 1971 murder of two police officers in Harlem, Joseph Piagentini and Waverly 
Sentence: Two concurrent prison terms of 25 years to life
Case controversy: Muntaqim was tried and convicted along with co-defendants Bell and Washington largely on circumstantial evidence. >> On appeal, he argued that his constitutional rights were violated and the integrity of the grand jury was impaired on the grounds that the prosecution knowingly used a police detective’s false testimony about ballistics testing. >> An important FBI ballistics report was kept secret by the prosecution during the trial. >> Muntaqim and others argued that they were denied a fair trial because two witnesses told prosecutors that a third man with a gun was at the scene of the crime and recanted their testimony. Prosecutors failed to share this information with the defense before the trial. 
Time incarcerated: Although eligible for parole in 2002, Muntaqim was denied for the ninth time in 2016. He has been incarcerated for 45 years.
Support website: www.freejalil.com

Pete O’Neal

Affiliation: BPP
Conviction: Transporting a shotgun across state lines in 1970 
Sentence: Four years in prison
Case controversy: Pete O’Neal founded the Kansas City chapter of the Black Panther Party in 1969. Later that year, an off duty police officer who tried to stop a robbery was killed with a shotgun that police say O’Neal brought across state lines, from Kansas City, Kan., to Kansas City, Mo. >> O’Neal says that as head of the chapter, he was routinely harassed by police. >> O’Neal did not have the gun when he was arrested. >> Police had confiscated the gun from another man nine months earlier. >>A photo of O’Neal with the shotgun in Missouri was used as evidence to convict him, but police had no evidence that O’Neal transported it over state lines.
Time incarcerated: O’Neal fled to Tanzania rather than go to prison for crime he says he didn’t commit. He has been a fugitive for 46 years. 
Support website: www.caseforapardon.com/atty_gen_letter_sign.php

Ed Poindexter 

Affiliation: BPP
Conviction: First degree murder of Omaha Police Officer Larry Minard in 1970
Sentence: Life in prison
Case controversy: Minard was killed by a suitcase bomb placed in an abandoned house he come to in response to a phony 911 call. Poindexter was convicted on the testimony of 15-year-old boy he knew through organizing. The boy, Duane Peak, reportedly made the call and planted the bomb. >> Evidence that Poindexter’s hands had tested negative for dynamite residue found on his clothes was withheld from the jury. >> Appeals to the state argued that the evidence seized during a search of a co-defendant’s home was obtained under an illegal search warrant. >> Eight years after the trial, an FBI memo surfaced showing cooperation between police and FBI in suppressing a 911 tape as evidence that might have demonstrated Poindexter’s innocence. Likewise, court documents reveal that Omaha police had been monitoring the activities of Poindexter for two years prior to the murder.
Time incarcerated: 46 years
Support effort: www.n2pp.info/index.htm

Assata Shakur

Affiliation: BPP
Conviction: In 1977 of murdering New Jersey State Trooper Warner Foester 
Sentence: Life in prison
Case controversy: A pathologist and neurologist testified based on injuries she sustained during shootout, she could not have pulled a gun trigger. >>Shakur had no gunpowder residue on her fingers and her fingerprints were not on any weapons .>> A judge denied her request to subpoena the FBI director to testify about COINTELPRO.
Time incarcerated: Shakur was kept in solitary confinement for 21 months. She escaped a New Jersey prison in 1979 and was granted political asylum in Cuba in 1984. In 2005, the FBI classified her as a domestic terrorist. In 2013 the FBI added her to its Most Wanted Terrorist list.
Support website: None reliable due to suspected hacking

Mutulu Shakur

Affiliation: According to his official bio, Shakur worked with BPP and the Revolutionary Action Movement, and was a member of the provisional government of the Republic of New Afrika. Shakur has also spoken of his affiliation with the BLA.** 
Conviction: In 1988 with helping Assata Shakur escape from prison in 1979. He was also convicted on RICO charges connected to an October 20, 1981 Brinks truck robbery in which a guard, Peter Paige, and two Nyack, New York, police officers, Edward O’Grady and Waverly Brown, were killed. 
Sentence: 60 years in prison
Case controversy: Shakur claims that the prosecution failed  connect him to the evidence used to convict him. >> A government informant who participated in Brink truck robbery testified against Shakur then received $110,000 in material benefits and a reduced sentence. 
Time incarcerated: 30 years. Shakur was denied parole in 2016. 
Support website: www.mutulushakur.com

Russell ‘Maroon’ Shoatz  (aka Russell Shoats) 

Affiliation: BPP, BLA
Conviction: In 1970 of murdering Philadelphia Police Sgt. Frank Von Colln 
Sentence: Life in prison 
Case controversy: Shoatz underwent several police interrogations over a 20-hour period without legal representation. >> Supporters claim that guns taken into evidence were obtained by illegal police search and seizure. >> Supporters argue that witnesses who identified Shoatz at the scene were influenced by police suggestions. >> Supporters also contend that weapons seized during his arrest shouldn’t have been admitted as evidence because they were not used in the crime. The court insisted that the weapons were relevant. On appeal, his conviction was upheld in a 4-2 decision. (The dissenting opinion would have reversed the conviction and remanded a new trial.) >> It took a court order in 2016 to release him from 23-hour-a-day solitary confinement for 22 consecutive years in a 7- by 12-foot cell, with the lights on at all times. Supporters consider his treatment in prison retaliation for his political views and activism.
Time incarcerated: 44 years.
Support website: https://russellmaroonshoats.wordpress.com/

Kamau Sidiki (aka Freddie Hilton) 

Affiliation: BPP, BPA
Conviction: In 2003 of armed robbery and malice murder of an Atlanta police officer, James Green in 1971
Sentence: Life plus 10 years in prison
Case controversy: No physical evidence tied Sidiki to the crime. >> Sidiki was arrested in New York City on weapons charge 31 years after Green was murdered. >> Supporters say the case was reopened in 1999 after Sidiki refused to cooperate with government attempts to recapture Assata Shakur. >> In appealing his case, Sidiki argued that the prosecution excluded testimony from the wife of a man who admitted that he and another man killed Green. 
Time incarcerated:12 years.
Support website: www.freekamau.com/

Seth Ben Ysaac Ben Ysrael (aka Robert ‘Seth’ Hayes)

Affiliation: BPP, BLA 
Conviction: The 1974 murder of a transit officer, Sidney Thompson; eight counts of attempted murder of a police officer; car theft at gunpoint, and other related charges 
Sentence: 25 years to life in prison 
Case controversy: In Ysrael’s account, he was framed for the fatal shooting of Thompson at a Bronx train station. Ysrael was convicted of stealing a car at gunpoint and using the vehicle to get his wounded friend to a hospital. His attempted murder charges stem from his resistance to officers who stormed into his home to arrest him. >> Because of the length of his incarceration and parole denial 10 times, despite an exemplary record, supporters say his incarceration is political in nature. >> He appealed his conviction; the ruling was upheld.
Time incarcerated: 43 years
Support website: https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/810a58

DIED WHILE INCARCERATED:

• Kuwasi Balagoom aka Donald Weems died December 13, 1986 after serving five years.
• Bashir Hameed, aka James Dixon, died August 3, 2008 after serving 26 years.
• Teddy Jah Heath died in 2001 after serving 28 years.
• Abdullah Majid died April 3, 2016 after serving 34 years.
• David Rice, aka Mondo we Langa, died March 11, 2016 after serving 45 years. 
• Herman Wallace died October 3, 2013 after serving 41 years. 
• Albert “Nuh” Washington died April 28, 2000 after serving 29 years.
• Warren Wells Sr. died June 29, 2001 after serving 18 years. 

See the Photo Essay here on Colorlines.

Far too often, the conservative analysis of race dominates contemporary American public policy and national discourse. This was the unspoken but understood variable when Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby approached the podium in the midst of Baltimore’s unrest in May. Her willingness to fly in the face of this tradition resulted in one of the most important public statements made by a black elected official in recent memory. 

Rather than caving in to the double standard rhetoric for policing, accountability and justice in black, brown and poor neighborhoods normalized over the years by officials and politicians alike, she told the plain, necessary truth. Calling for the need to develop “structural and systemic changes for generations to come,” Mosby directly addressed those whose issues are rarely at the heart of America’s collective public concern — black American youth:  

“You’re at the forefront of this cause,” Mosby said. “And as young people, our time is now.” 

Such honesty is sorely missing from the manner in which this nation has historically approached resolving contemporary racial dilemmas.

Too many Americans routinely use stereotypes about people of color rooted in misinformation as a way of justifying institutional and structural racism. Such perspectives have come to hold far too much sway in the court of public opinion and in the arena of public policy in key areas of black life. 

Rather than confront the inherent racism in America’s criminal justice system and bring an end to the prison industrial complex, for example, these talking points have come to inform the public that the reason blacks are disproportionately incarcerated is because they commit the most crime. Or consider the decades-old jobs crisis facing blacks, who, for the last six decades, have endured unemployment rates of twice their white counterparts: Rather than offer a jobs plan, the conservative race analysis dog whistles that the problem is blacks wanting free stuff and without wanting to work hard. 

Too many Americans routinely use stereotypes about people of color rooted in misinformation as a way of justifying institutional and structural racism. 

The truth of the matter is that such thinking springs from the same well as the defense for the Confederate flag. The conservative race analysis informed Americans for years that the rebel flag was as mere part of Southern heritage, while feigning ignorance about its roots in black oppression and white supremacy. These perspectives have been normalized in American popular discourse on race to the point of being accepted by many Americas as common sense. This is American “racecraft,” and reinforces obstacles to blacks gaining equality.

The civil rights and black power movements radically transformed the nation when it came to human rights. Yet injustices persist in education, employment, housing, income and, of course, criminal justice. All are reminders that the goals of the civil rights movement — often referenced today by those on the right as a bygone era — remain unfulfilled. 

In the five decades since major civil rights legislation, the conservative race analysis has not only become increasingly emboldened, but has also become entrenched and reinforced in legislation at local, state and national levels. Rife with excuses for institutional and structural racism, it remains one of the most tenacious obstacles to full citizenship for black Americans.

Thankfully, a bold new generation of young activists, in tandem with the ongoing work of well-established civil rights organizations and public intellectuals, insist the time for change is now. Through protests and community mobilization efforts like #Justice4Trayvon, #Justice4RenishaMcBride and #Justice4FreddieGray, and organizations like Millennial Activists United, Lost Voices, Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle and Bmore United, they have begun to directly confront what President Barack Obama, in response to the Baltimore uprising, called “business as usual.” 

Their efforts have begun to change the national discourse on race. Count the ground shift in national sentiment about the Confederate flag among their victories. Yes, the tragic mass shooting deaths of nine churchgoers at a South Carolina church connected the dots for many between the flag and the white supremacist rhetoric Dylann Roof spouted. But how often had we previously seen that line drawn with no response The youth protests from Ferguson to Baltimore and their race analysis via #BlackLivesMatter and beyond helped change the equation. 

In this way and more, a new generation’s unwillingness to back down on the issue of state-sanctioned executions of unarmed young blacks in America’s streets by police may be the catalyst for a giant step in social change not seen the U.S. in the last half-century.

Grassroots organizations with solutions to the problems that plague black communities have for too long been ignored. Until now, they have been casualties of an out-of-date racial politics. But the political winds are blowing. And those concerned about a meaningful future for this nation should join their efforts to turn the corner on race. It is prime time for a new way forward. 

Two weeks ago today, I, along with seven other Cleveland area activists, filed affidavits with the municipal court calling for the arrest of Police Officers Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback for their involvement in the killing of 12 year-old Tamir Rice. Tamir was gunned down in less than two seconds in a park at a community center near his home. While many in the community have applauded our approach as a breath of fresh air toward obtaining justice, Police Patrolmen’s Association President Steve Loomis called it “vigilantism” and labeled us advocates of “mob rule.”

Last week, following Judge Ronald Adrine’s ruling that there is probable cause that Loehmann should face murder, reckless homicide, dereliction of duty and involuntary manslaughter charges (and Garmback should face charges for negligent homicide and dereliction of duty), we filed an action with the 8^th District Court of Appeals to compel the judge to issue arrest warrants for the officers.

Many of our critics like Loomis, whose predecessor has called Tamir Rice’s killing by police “justifiable,” believe that we are trying to “hijack the rule of law and the constitutional process.”

But rather than evade the law, we are exercising our statutory rights as citizens of Ohio who believe there is enough probable cause a crime was committed. We believe that a secret grand jury process, solely controlled by the local prosecutor, would allow Officers Loehmann and Garmback to receive special treatment, just as the county prosecutor’s decision to not issue an arrest at any point over the last six months since Tamir’s killing has done.

This is the brand of justice that Loomis prefers for police: one that allows for police who kill unarmed citizens to circumvent the law. We have seen this already play out similarly across the country in other high profile cases since last summer—in Ferguson, MO (Mike Brown), Dayton, OH (John Crawford) and New York City (Eric Garner).

More specific than a general appeal to police accountability, which has become a catchall phrase in the contemporary movement to end police killings of unarmed Blacks, two core issues resonate in this fight. First, ending our society’s current practice in which police who commit crimes are allowed to operate above the law. And second, bridging the outlandish gap between this coddling of police officers and the harsh, unequal and sometimes illegal treatment of Blacks by the criminal justice system, often meted out by some of these same officers.

Because of these contradictions, many of this nation’s Black youth, including those who joined street protests in Ferguson and New York, Oakland, Los Angeles, Baltimore and other cities, have concluded that the criminal justice system is bankrupt. They have run out of patience with the labyrinth of legal loopholes from judges and prosecutors to grand juries and juries sympathetic to police that collapse over and over again to deem police innocent no matter how egregious the offense.

It is one of those ugly blemishes on our society, which prides itself on fairness, equality and transparency, where what has become common practice is out of synch with the democratic principles this nation claims to hold dear—in this case, a justice system that protects police from the rule of law at the expense of justice denied for citizens killed or violated when police make mistakes.

Across the country, almost routinely, police get away with murder. They hide behind the so-called blue wall of silence, are assumed always right, and police themselves. Out of thousands of on-duty police officer involved in fatal shootings of civilians over the last decade, only 54 officers have been charged, and most of those charged have been cleared or acquitted, according to a recent Bowling Green State University/Washington Post analysis.

A study of Cleveland police officer involved shootings by the Cleveland Plain Dealer found that police killed 32 suspects in 61 shootings between 2000 and 2014. All were deemed justified by prosecutors, grand juries, or the police.

In the days leading up to the police officer Michael Brelo verdict, Cleveland officials were unrelenting in their appeal to citizens to not riot. But they had little to say about justice for Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell, who were shot at 137 times by Cleveland police officers. Likewise, the demonstration of police force in the aftermath of the verdict raises the question, are officials better prepared to resist a riot protesting blatant injustice than they are willing to close the loopholes in a two-tiered system of justice that favors police?

This is not a veiled threat. It is an appeal to the reality that Williams and Russell deserved better. So does Tanisha Anderson, who died at the hands of a police officer using a takedown move. So does Tamir Rice. So do the citizens of this city. Signing these affidavits was our attempt to eke out a bit of justice from a bankrupt system in need of radical transformation. It is an opportunity for our city to re-imagine what justice looks like.