for immediate release....
on monday, july 16th, on the 54th anniversary of her birth,
the new
black panther party will host a special teach-in on and
celebration of the life and commitment of assata shakur and sundiata
acoli.
the event is called 'for the love of assata/for the freedom of sundiata'...
it will take place at waset kommuniversity, 271 so. 9th
street in newark, between so. orange and 13th avenues...it will begin at
7p.m.
this special presentation on these two valiant freedom
fighters comes just weeks after carson dunbar, the first afrikan-amerikkkan
to head the n.j. state police, made a statement calling for assata's extradiction
back to n.j. as a necessary precondition for any normalization of relations
between the u.s. and cuba. he was joining a resolution being put forward
in congress by a little known democrat from the northwest.
"check this out. here is a black man, who just got his
job as an immediate and obvious consequence of the ongoing struggle against
racial profiling, doing the devil's work by renewing the price on assata's
head, when assata herself was victimized by racial profiling in the worse
way. one would think that in order to bring some integrity and credibility
to that police agency, one that has none whatsoever among our people, that
he would instead call for a fresh look at how cases like her's were so recklessly
mishandled. but no. true to masterserving form, he does just what the old
baldheads want him to do, spit out the old line and the old lies in full
facist regalia, and just as bad, there is no outrage from these compromisers
out here calling themselves black leaders," exclaimed zayid muhammad, a longtime
supporter of her shakur and her comrades, angrily.
on may 2, 1973, in what many refer to as 'the turnpike
massacre,' three members of the black liberation army, assata shakur, zayd
shakur and sundiata acoli, were stopped by the n.j. state police on the n.j.
turnpike in new brunswick for an apparent tailight violation. when it was
all over, zayd shakur and state trooper werner foerster were dead. assata
and sundiata were critically wounded and charged with foerster's death...
tried before an all-white jury in morris county, new jersey's
richest and whitest county, in a highly sensationalized media environment,
assata and sundiata were both convicted and given sentences of life + 30
years.
on november 2, 1979, black solidarity day, in a most heroic
expression of the underground railroad, assata was liberated from what was
then known as the clinton correctional facility in clinton,
n.j. she has since been given political asylum in the muscular
arms of the cuban revolution.
sundiata acoli, on the other hand, is currently in his
28th year of incarceration, making him one of the longest held political
prisoners in the united states.
several years ago, when he was first made eligible for
parole, sundiata was virtually resentenced in a blatant disregard for the
law when he was told that they would reconsider his parole in another 20
years!
by law, the longest a prospective parolee must wait is
five years for reconsideration.
’Bro. Zayid’ Kazi Angaza Kikongo Muhammad
7/19/01
