A people’s victory: Scott Sisters will be free

Jan 5, 2011

By Jaribu Hill
Greenville, Miss.

Dec. 30 — Gov. Haley Barbour calls the impending release of the Scott Sisters an “early” release. A release from 16 years of wrongful incarceration is most certainly not an “early” release.

Jaribu Hill at Black Workers For Justice banquet, April 3, 2009, Raleigh, N.C.

Elected officials like Barbour cannot be allowed to now claim that Jamie and Gladys Scott, who did not commit a violent crime or any crime for that matter, suddenly are no longer a threat to the safety and security of the public. Eleven dollars! The system that allowed the Scott Sisters to languish in prison for an alleged “eleven-dollar” armed robbery must be challenged.

The wrongful conviction and incarceration of hundreds more must be challenged. They are victims of human rights violations, which the U.S. refuses to acknowledge. They are victims of the same types of human rights abuses which the U.S. is quick to identify in other countries. In fact, until it became politically expedient, no one, from the White House to the Mississippi State House, even bothered to “look into the matter.”

We cannot allow the Scott Sisters’ liberation to be co-opted. The voices of thousands of outraged people were raised in protest. We kept the pressure on!!!

The Mississippi Workers’ Center for Human Rights and the Southern Human Rights Organizers’ Network salute the courage and perseverance of Evelyn Rasco, mother of Jamie and Gladys Scott, and all those who stood firm in these difficult times.

From Mississippi to Georgia, justice for all wrongfully incarcerated people! Human rights for all!

Hill is executive director of the Mississippi Workers’ Center for Human Rights and Southern Human Rights Organizers’ Network, 213 Main St., Greenville, Miss., 38701. E-mail workersrights@bellsouth.net.