NO MORE LEGAL LYNCHING/ TEXAS PRISONER IS DEFIANT TO THE END
Greg Butterfield
Huntsville, Texas
On March 14, Ponchai Kamau Wilkerson, 28 years old-- revolutionary, organizer, death-row activist--lay strapped to a gurney. Did he have a final statement, the warden asked. "This is not a capital case," Wilkerson said.
As a lethal injection was pumped into his veins, the young African-Asian whispered, "The secret, as of Wilkerson," and spit out a key--the kind of key used to open prison handcuffs and shackles. Somehow he had kept it hidden from his captors.
It was a final act of rebellion and defiance from a youth who lived and died a fighter behind the walls. The Texas Death Machine pronounced him dead at 6:24 p.m.
The battle to end the death penalty reached a new level of resistance as the State of Texas executed Wilkerson. He was the 210th person executed here since the death penalty was reinstated, and the 123rd to die on Gov. George W. Bush's watch.
As Kamau Wilkerson was being legally lynched in the Walls Unit, 35 angry protesters outside chanted, "George Bush, serial killer!" and "Moratorium now!"
A banner from the Texas Death Penalty Moratorium Committee called on Bush to enact a moratorium on executions. Other signs demanded freedom for Wilkerson's companion Njeri Shakur, a political prisoner in the Harris County jail.
Members of the National Black United Front from Houston performed a Swahili chant in his honor. Wilkerson's comrades and friends from the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement, SHAPE Community Center and a local college spoke of their determination to continue the struggle.
When the authorities emerged from the death house, signaling that Wilkerson had died, the demonstrators shouted "Murderers! Murderers!"
Protesters here were supported by death-penalty opponents in cities like New York, Chicago, Cleveland and Detroit, who took up the Abolition Movement's call for a National Day of Action for a Moratorium on Texas Executions. They targeted Bush's presidential campaign, Republican offices and federal buildings.
March 14 was also the day of Texas' primary elections. The Abolition Movement called on registered voters to write in Ponchai Kamau Wilkerson for president in the Republican primary. Both Bush and his likely Democratic opponent, Al Gore, support the death penalty.
Political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal added his voice, too. In a statement from Pennsylvania's death row, he wrote: "While Ponchai now has only hours of life measured to him, it is still an appropriate time to speak out against the political machine of death in favor of the simple human right of life."
Others around the world supported the Abolition Movement's call by flooding Bush campaign offices with phone calls, faxes and emails demanding a stay of execution for Wilkerson and a moratorium.
A hidden and flawed Warrant of Execution--uncovered by activist Ward Larkin and investigated by attorneys Dick Burr and Mandy Welch--was not enough to stop the courts' wheels of injustice.
`RISEN TO REVOLUTION'
"I will not cooperate with your act of murder," Wilkerson had told Warden Robert Treon when asked about his last meal.
He meant it.
Wilkerson refused to sign papers requesting family, friends or a spiritual advisor to view the lethal injection. He refused to sign away his remains or cooperate in any way with the government executioners' "standard procedures."
When the guards came to take him from the Terrell Unit in Livingston to the Huntsville death house, Wilkerson refused to leave his cell. A SWAT team was called in--standard procedure when a prisoner shows defiance. He was gassed and hog-tied with chains.
Supporters expected nothing less from the only person to ever attempt escape from Texas' death row twice.
On Feb. 21-22, Wilkerson and Howard Guidry--both members of the death-row movement Panthers United for Revolutionary Education--said "no more."
Entombed in a high-tech Terrell fortress--its builders called it "resistance proof"--Wilkerson and Guidry took a prison guard hostage for 13 hours to dramatize their righteous anger over brutal prison conditions and the railroading of youths to death row.
Njeri Shakur of the Abolition Movement, Deloyd Parker of SHAPE and Kofi Taharka of NBUF met with the prisoners and presented their demands to prison officials. The guard was released unharmed.
Their militant act shook the Texas prison system. It helped put the moratorium demand on the front burner.
"They made a choice to do something about injustice," Njeri Shakur said. "They were two brothers who had risen to a position of revolution. Now for those of us who have been fearful it is a good time to do something."
Shakur received a 30-day jail sentence from Judge Jan Krocker, who also set Wilkerson's death date, because she stood up and objected to bailiffs beating him in the courtroom.
A group of men have been locked down at Terrell since Wilkerson's and Guidry's demonstration. Warden Treon charged them with "communicating with two Black offenders" and "hampering negotiations in a hostage situation."
In a March 6 letter, PURE's Emerson Rudd reported: "We prisoners are faced with more repression and retaliation. . Sgt. Poole informed me that our [good] behavior meant nothing and that when Warden Treon said the lockdown would progress, that's when it would."
The lockdown, now in its fourth week, means the prisoners are denied the right to hot meals, regular showers, recreation and visits from family and friends. The Abolition Movement is asking supporters to call and fax protests to prison officials.
To help, call the Abolition Movement at (713) 521-0629 or visit the website at www.geocities.com/tdpam/.
FURIOUS PACE
A furious pace of activities around the death penalty and other working-class issues shows a movement is bursting from under the surface.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson came to Houston March 9-10 for a rally and mass march to demand equal funding for historically Black public colleges like Texas Southern University and Prairie View A & M. He'd just come from a march of 50,000 for affirmative action against Florida's Gov. Jeb Bush.
At the March 9 rally at Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church, Jackson gave what he called "meat talk":
"In every city I visit I see at least two new buildings," Jackson reported, "a new ballpark and a new jail. We have first-class jails and second-class schools.
"As of Feb. 15 there were two million people in jail in the United States," said Jackson. "We are 5 percent of the world's population and 25 percent of the world's prison population. African Americans are 12 percent of the population but 55 percent of the jail population. Put Black and Brown together and we are 75 percent of the prison- industrial complex."
He said Texas under Bush ranks 50th in spending on teachers' salaries; first in the percentage of children without health insurance; 41st in per-capita spending on education, and fifth in percentage of people living in poverty.
At the same time, Texas is first in executions--an average of one every two weeks since Bush took office.
Urged on by NBUF elder Jean Dember and artist Michael Demarris, Jackson declared his support for a moratorium and expressed solidarity with Njeri Shakur, who was just hours away from being jailed. "We don't just support you," Jackson told Shakur, "we are with you."
About 20 family members, community activists, and young supporters of Mumia Abu-Jamal accompanied Shakur to the Harris County Jail March 10. After marching several blocks to the booking station, they entered as a group, holding a banner reading, "Stop the execution" and leafleting workers inside.
Shakur embraced her daughters and gave a clenched-fist salute as she was taken away.
The Abolition Movement then joined the Jackson-led march from TSU to the University of Houston, where they distributed hundreds of flyers and signed up students on petitions. On March 11 the group traveled to the University of Texas at Arlington, near Dallas/Ft. Worth, where Gloria Rubac spoke on the panel at the opening of Richard Kameral's anti-death-penalty art exhibit, "The Waiting Room."
"The death penalty is a continuation of slavery," Rubac said. "The prison system is set up like a plantation system for big landowners. `The farm' is still a free-labor system."
The escalation of struggle doesn't surprise Shakur. When this writer spoke to her by phone from her jail cell, she said, "Kamau and Howard set things in motion. Things can never be the same again."
Kamau Wilkerson Enters Land of the Egungun fighting racist system with his last breath
Wed, 15 Mar 2000
Michael Haggerty exodusn@idt.net
Houston, Texas-
On Tuesday evening at 6:24 p.m. Ponchai "Kamau" Wilkerson moved on to the realm of the ancestors. Kamau just over 2 1/2 weeks ago took a prison guard hostage in order to make a political statement about the racist death penalty and justice system in Texas and throughout the United States. Just minutes before the lethal dosage entered his veins Kamau made one final revolutionary statement shocking his executionors by spitting out a "universal" handcuff key at them . Kamau, who had been on death row in Texas for eight years for a crime committed while 18, had become politically aware during his incarceration , was an accomplished poet, member of the Afrikan prison inmate organization P.U.R.E.(Panthers United for Revolutionary Education), and a member of the National Black United Front - (prison membership). Kamau was executed with no witnesses there in his behalf.
Backtracking to Tuesday, February 22, 2000, it was on this day that Kamau Wilkerson and L.D. Guidry, made a bold move in order to relay specific demands in protest of the racist death penalty in Texas by taking a female prison guard hostage for 13 hours. During this time they made request to meet with several activist members of the African community (Deloyd Parker, Executive director of the S.H.AP.E. Community Center, Njeri Shakur of the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement and a member of the National Black United Front - Houston Chapter, Kofi Taharka - Chairman of the National Black United Front - Houston Chaper were among those requested.). After over an hour of negotiating TDCJ officials relented and allowed the community to meet with the warrior prisoners. This meeting allowed them to voice the several demands including:
1 ) to highlight the call for a moratorium on the death penalty in Texas. 2) to protest the conditions of sensory deprivation being practiced at the new death row facility which includes no human contact, deplorable conditions in hygiene facilities, lack of proper legal counsel 3) the unfair application of the death penalty affecting African-Americans, Hispanics and poor people disproportionately. 4) New evidence to be heard in the case of fellow death row inmate Odell Barnes. 5) raise the issue of Texas governor George Bush and other state officials ignoring the possibility of innocent men and women being executed. 6) to call for Black people to get involved in the fight against the Prison Industrial Complex.
As a result of this bold stance, Kamau's last days on earth were spent in even more isolation, and in addition to this, Sister Njeri Shakur, a strong Afrikan queen who has also helped lead the anti-death penalty movement in Houston, was sentenced last week to 30 days incarceration for her efforts in protesting the treatment of Kamau by law enforcement officers and the judge's denial of his right to make a statement in his behalf.
Because of our committment in the fight against the racist acts committed by Chief executioner George Bush and the state of Texas and support for Kamau and Sister Njeri for their unselfish actions, the National Black United Front led by Chairman Kofi Taharka and Deloyd Parker, Executive Directory of the S.H.A.P.E. Community Center led a spirited protest of the actions of Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Let by Brother Kofi, dressed in African garb, and proudly raising high the banner of Red, Black and Green the group chanted in Ki Swahili- Uhurua Sasa, and charged President Clinton, George Bush, Al Gore and TDCJ officials with genocide, startling the onlooking guards and other protestors with our "in your face style of protest". Our dress contrasted against the drab grey Confederate style uniforms of the prison guards, who were given a history lesson regarding the origin of the Texas prison system (it's direct connection to slavery which is well documented in the "Handbook of Texas" (online at http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/ (use keywords - plantations, prison system, prison leasee system,etc.), by NBUF Secretary Omowale Manu.
Prayers were offered up to the creator and the ancestors for the spirit of Kamau, indictments of the justice system were made by Brothers Kofi and Deloyd. In addition indictments of the various religious bodies were made for their relative silence regarding the justice system in America for people of Afrikan descent.
In retrospect , too many lives have been lost , too many children orphaned , too many mothers left weeping too many jobs lost, too many dreams wasted. It is past time for new strategies in this fight for the total liberation of Afrikan people. To those who have access to our masses and who are not doing the job of educating them so that they will understand why our condition is as it is...it's time you "shaped up or shipped out". Paraphrasing a leader of over 100 years ago, "Power concedes nothing without a demand, it never has and it never will". We cannot afford to wait for someone to give us our just due, it is hightime we went about the business of taking our freedom. Wake up Black People!!
"Too Black !!!!, Too Strong!!
Aluta Continua,
Omowale Manu - Secretary National Black United Front - Houston Chapter
Back to: Political Prisoners/ Mumia Reports/Press
Back to: Political Prisoners/Mumia Action Alerts
