THE LEGAL LYNCHING OF SHAKA SANKOFA AND THE STRUGGLE TO END THE RACIST, ANTI-POOR DEATH PENALTY

By Richard Becker, International Action Center
Huntsville, Texas

At 8:49 p.m. CDT on June 22, 2000 on June 22, 2000, poison injected into his veins by a Texas prison doctor stopped the heart of Shaka Sankofa. Shaka, also known as Gary Graham, fought until the very end. Strapped to a gurney, he gave a stirring speech which ended only with his last breath.

Shaka is dead, murdered by the state of Texas. But through his heroic and  determined struggle in the last days of his life he dealt a mighty blow to the racist death penalty. Shaka is dead, but his revolutionary spirit lives on.

Gary Graham was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1981. He was condemned following a two-day legal proceeding so corrupt and farcical that it can not be accurately called -- even by bourgeois legal standards -- a trial.

Graham, a 17-year-old African American youth at that time was accused of killing Bobby Lambert, a white reputed drug dealer. His conviction rested  entirely upon the testimony of one eyewitness who viewed the killing from 35-40 feet away, through a car windshield, at night.

His court-paid lawyer, the infamous Ronald G. Mock, failed to call any witnesses, although there were two at the time who said that they were sure the shooter was not Graham. Nor did Mock introduce a ballistics test  showing that the bullet which killed Lambert could not have come from Graham's gun. In the June 11, 2000 New York Times, Mock boasts of having more clients end up on death row that any other lawyer in the U.S.

Mock's role was to speed up the death march for the poor and  overwhelmingly African American and Latino clients he was lavishly paid to represent by the state of Texas. In fact, there were two prosecutors and no defense lawyer in Graham's case, and therefore, no real trial took place.

On five occasions previous to June 22, Texas authorities had set execution dates for Shaka. Texas has executed the largest number of people by far since the death penalty was reinstated in the mid-1970s. Each previous time, Shaka's new lawyers and public pressure had won a stay and new appeal. But never in the nearly two-decades since his original conviction was Shaka granted a new, real trial.

In early May, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Shaka's final appeal, and the Texas Department of Corrections (TDC) immediately set June 22 as a new execution date. With no appeals left it appeared almost certain that the sentence would now be carried out. But supporters in Texas, including the Texas Movement to Abolish the Death Penalty, Nation of Islam, National Black United Front, New Black Panther Party and others, went into high gear, demanding that Gov. George W. Bush and his appointed Board of Pardons and Paroles grant Shaka clemency and a new trial. The International Action Center/Millions for Mumia sent out a call for National Days of Protest, June 16-20 to stop the execution.

Shaka himself vowed to resist to the end, as had his comrade, Kamau Wilkerson, who was murdered by the TDC in April. Both Sankofa and Wilkerson were members of the revolutionary death row organization Panthers United for Revolutionary Education (PURE).

The acceleration of the movement to stop Shaka's execution and end the death penalty brought to the surface deep divisions within the U.S. ruling class over the issue. This latest development came only a few months after the exposure in Illinois of the fact that many death row prisoners were innocent, leading Illinois Gov. George Ryan to declare a moratorium on executions in that state.

Suddenly, the TV screens and editorial pages of leading capitalist media outlets -- New York Times, CNN, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, ABC, etc. -- were filled with calls for stopping Shaka's execution, granting a  new trial, and, in some cases, suspending the death penalty. A study of all death sentences in the U.S. between 1973-95 by Columbia University showed that 68% were overturned due to legal flaws, and that many of those retried were found innocent.

What accounts for this surge of opposition to the death penalty from some  of the biggest corporate media? Certainly is cannot be attributed to any  moral outrage -- they are corporations after all. No, it has to do, on the one hand, with the reality that the rising tide of executions here undercuts the U.S. role as the pretended champion of human rights and democracy around the world.

Nearly all of the U.S. closest allies have eliminated the death penalty, while in the U.S., the pace of executions is speeding up rapidly. And, it  is clear that those sent to the death house are exclusively poor and overwhelmingly people of color. Many of its allies, including the European Union have condemned the U.S. for this latest execution, in large part because Gary Graham was a minor in 1981.  Executing a person for a crime committed while under the age of 18 years is a violation of international law.

Another factor in the emerging bourgeois opposition to the death penalty is fear that it will spur rebellions in the nationally oppressed communities.

THE STRUGGLE OUTSIDE THE DEATH HOUSE

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles had scheduled the announcement of its recommendations in Shaka's case for 12 noon on June 22, just six hours prior to the time set for his execution. By that time, 300 anti-death penalty demonstrators had assembled outside the red brick prison in Huntsville, about 70 miles north of Houston. Several dozen media trucks were parked in an adjacent lot. Hundreds of state, county and city cops, along with the infamous Texas Rangers surrounded the area. On the other side of the prison, about 20 Ku Klux Klan wearing white robes and carrying Confederate flags and pro-death penalty signs were protected by a heavy police guard.

Noon came and went without an announcement from the Board. Then, at 1:45 p.m., long-time Shaka supporter Ashanti Chimurenga spoke to the crowd: "The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles has denied all relief and clemency." The board, which had not met but simply faxed in their ballots  to a central office in Austin, voted 12-5 against clemency, 12-3 against a 120-day reprieve to investigate, and 17-0 against a conditional pardon.

The execution was set to be carried out in just a few hours. Family members, friends and supporters were stunned, many in tears.  But no one was ready to give up.  Shaka's mother, Elnora Graham, despite her evident  pain, told the press and supporters: "He's a very strong man. And he's still alive. He's still alive."

A powerful rally began a little after 2 p.m., along the high barricades set up less than 25 yards from the prison wall. It was chaired by Gloria Rubac, a leader of the Texas Movement to Abolish the Death Penalty. Rubac, who had met with Shaka and other death row inmates on many occasions, denounced "the slavery that exists today inside the Texas prisons."

"Bush the father slaughtered the people in Iraq," Rubac continued. "Now George W. is slaughtering the people inside the Texas prisons. We have to  end prison slavery in Texas. We have to stop the Texas death machine."

Quanell X of the New Black Muslim Movement said: "We are not here to appeal to the conscience of George W. Bush. There is no point to that. We  are here to appeal to the Black family."

Conrad Worril, chairperson of the National Black United Front in Chicago termed Texas "a part of the new Confederacy … It is George W. Bush and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles who are on trial here today."

Larry Holmes, a national leader of the International Action Center and Millions for Mumia, said that "the real murderer is not inside here in some cell but in the governor's mansion in Austin.

"If they have the arrogance to go through with this assassination, it will be a freedom fighter who is martyred here today."

Minister Robert Muhammad of the Nation of Islam and Shaka's spiritual advisor emerged from meeting with Shaka a little before 4 p.m. He told the crowd that Shaka stated that "the board decision comes as no surprise." Minister Muhammad said, "Shaka knows that this struggle is much bigger than him as an individual. It is the struggle to end the racist, anti-poor death penalty."

He quoted Shaka as saying: "Death is a complement to life. The only way you can avoid dying is by not being born. But what the enemy tries to do is to make death something to fear.

"Non-cooperation with evil is an obligation like cooperation with  righteousness is an obligation." Muhammad explained that Shaka "refuses to accept a last meal because it would be to accept injustice." He called Shaka "one of the strongest people I've ever met," and said that "he does not seem desperate or even anxious."

Around the same time, it was announced that Shaka's lawyers, Jack  Zimmerman and Richard Burr, had made last-ditch appeals to the Texas Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court. The Texas highest court quickly turned it down. At 5:30 p.m. came the news that the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Shaka's appeal by a vote of 5-4.

The multi-national crowd outside the prison was growing, doubling in size  between 4 and 6. After the announcement of the Supreme Court decision, the New Black Panther Party and Quonell X led a march to the Huntsville downtown area which was closed up for the day. There they staged an armed  demonstration of support for Shaka. About 200 people, mostly African American, joined the march.

A little before 6 p.m., the execution witnesses, including Shaka  supporters Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton, Bianca Jagger of Amnesty  International, and Minister Muhammad entered the Walls death unit. Outside, Larry Holmes led the demonstration in chanting "Shaka Sankofa, Live Like Him -- Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win."

The end seemed near. Then came another announcement, attorneys Burr and Zimmerman had filed an unusual civil action based on Shaka's deprivation of constitutional rights. If the issues it raised could not be resolved by 12 midnight, an automatic 30-day stay of execution would have to be granted. But at about 8 p.m., word came that the civil action, too, had been thrown out.

In the last minutes of his life, as he eloquently spoke his final words, the demonstrators joined in chanting "Long Live Shaka Sankofa." With great sadness and deep anger, the demonstrators marched out or slowly dispersed.

DESPITE GROWING OPPOSITION, EXECUTION IS CARRIED OUT

The next day, condemnation of the execution was widespread. The Italian daily Il Manifesto carried a large picture of Bush on its front page with  the headline: "The executioner doesn't let up." Many other newspapers around the world also condemned the execution.

A German legislator, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said: "The U.S. presents itself as the world police defending human rights, and on the other side it carries out the death penalty."

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, who had called for a stay of execution, said that it "ran counter to widely accepted international principles."

In the U.S., demonstrations and disruptions of Bush's campaign activities  took place from coast-to-coast for a week before June 22. In Texas, the active movement against the death penalty, especially in the African American community, grew to a level not previously seen.

But despite strong opposition from within their own ranks, the decision of the U.S. rulers and their state was to go ahead with the legal lynching of Shaka Sankofa. They oppose granting anything that could be viewed as a concession or even a slight relaxation of repression, to the oppressed, fearing that this could raise expectations and encourage the struggle.

The prison system and the death penalty are weapons of state-sponsored terrorism, which have been greatly expanded over the past two decades.

The ruling class and its state have always turned first to greater  violence and repression when confronted with new and rising popular movements, in an attempt to crush them and demoralize their proponents. This has been true in the U.S. in regard to the civil rights, labor, anti-war and other struggle. It is only when those movements grew, became  stronger and proved that they weren't going away that the ruling class was forced to make some limited concessions.

In the final analysis, the state killed Shaka Sankofa because the movement wasn't strong enough to stop them. The best way to truly honor Shaka and to assure that his valiant sacrifice was not in vain is to build a movement so powerful that it can stop the state murder of Mumia, halt all executions and abolish the racist death penalty once and for all.

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