NYC: ED LEWINSON-90 DAY PRISON SENTENCE, Send off - TUES-Apr 1 at IAC

Ed Lewinson is 78 years old and blind. On Wednesday he leaves for Federal prison in Elkton Ohio to serve a 90 day prison sentence based on his arrest protesting the School of the Americas (U.S. School of Torture) at Ft Benning GA.

Please join us on Tuesday, April 1 at the International Action Center for a Peoples Solidarity Send-Off for Ed Lewinson.

Ed is one of a dozen people who were arrested at the School of the Americas protest for crossing the line on to the base. More than 20,000 people participated in this year's annual November protest. It was Ed’s fourth arrest at the Ft Benning protests. He insisted that all the defendants, including him, be treated and sentenced equally.

Ed Lewinson has decades of political activity on the front lines of the struggle. Although Ed is blind from birth he has always been determined to participate fully in political struggles and in all aspects of life. He has been a political activist for almost 60 years and has been arrested numerous times for sit-ins and civil disobedience actions and participated in hundreds of picket lines, demonstrations and rallies.

Ed has traveled to Washington DC countless times to participate in anti-racist and anti-war demonstrations. He is active in political struggles in Newark with Peoples Organization for Progress and NJ Peace Action. He has been an active volunteer with the International Action Center for 14 years. An event linking war as wealth and profits for a few and misery and poverty for millions drew Ed’s first involvement with the IAC.

Dr Ed Lewinson received a Doctorate in History from Columbia University and is Professor Emeritus of Seton Hall University. His own experiences combines decades of the peoples’ history of struggle for change.

A full page article in the February 19, 2008 New Jersey Star Ledger on Ed Lewinson and his 90 day sentence entitled: “A clear vision of justice - Retired Seton Hall professor spends his life fighting for human rights” described how he was inspired to become an activist early in life. He was born and raised in Detroit and attended Northern High School, the only school in the area that offered a Braille class. Northern also was predominantly Black, and Lewinson's first lessons in civil rights came from listening to the stories of his classmates.

In 1949, at age 19, Ed participated with Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), pioneering civil rights organization, in the sit-ins and struggles to segregate the Greyhound Bus Terminal in Washington DC. At the time there were separate waiting rooms and Black people had to move to the back of the bus in order to travel further south.

In early 1960s Ed participated in sit-ins to desegregate restaurants along the Route 40 Baltimore – Washington corridor. In Brooklyn he participated in actions to desegregate housing and he was part of the earliest struggles of 1199 to organize hospital workers.

In the mass civil disobedience actions to stop the execution of Mumia Abu Jamal Ed was arrested twice – once in Philadelphia at the Liberty Bell and once in Washington DC. He has also participated in many picket lines and rallies for other political prisoners.

Ed participated in the years of actions to end the U.S. starvation sanctions on Iraq, including making several difficult trips to Iraq to take desperately needed medical supplies with IAC delegations and several trips to Cuba to break the blockade with Pastors for Peace and IAC. Ed has also traveled to North Korea.

Ed has always refused to define himself as handicapped. He defines himself as a human being who happens to be blind. He is determined to challenge all forms of discrimination and to stay politically active on many issues and struggles because as Ed says: “Social change only happens if people get organized.”

If you have participated with Ed in international delegations or in hundreds of New York or New Jersey picket lines against racism and war, if you have been arrested with Ed Lewinson or worked on mailings and phone banking with him, then join with us:

TUESDAY, APRIL 1 at 6:30 PM at: The International Action Center
55 West 17th St, 5th Floor (Between 5th & 6th Ave) New York, NY 10011

Show your support and solidarity before Ed Lewinson leaves on Wednesday to begin his 90 day sentence at the Elkton Federal Correctional Institution, in Elkton Ohio.

The 20 minute film - Guns and Greed on the School of the Americas and the movement to shut down the U.S. /CIA school for torture will also be shown.

Call: 212-633-6646 for more information or check out: www.iacenter.org