From: "Greg Butterfield" To: youth-4-mumia@egroups.com Subject: [Y4M] Shaka's will: End death penalty by any means necessary Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2000 18:32:19 EDT ------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the July 6, 2000 issue of Workers World newspaper ------------------------- SHAKA’S WILL End the racist death penalty ‘by any means necessary’ By Larry Holmes Never before have the ruling class's most influential media organs--all the major television networks, magazines, and daily newspapers from coast to coast--given the degree and the kind of coverage to a scheduled execution as they did to Shaka Sankofa's (Gary Graham). For once it appeared that the mainstream media--which lies, hides and distorts the truth--was admitting that Sankofa's trial, conviction and sentence epitomized all that is unjust, flawed, and racist about the death penalty in the United States. Along with an unprecedented three editorials calling on Gov. George W. Bush to halt the execution of Sankofa, the New York Times ran several lengthy front-page articles on the case. This included one that exposed Sankofa's court-appointed defense lawyer as a notorious hack for the judge and prosecution. CNN's "Burden of Proof" co-host Greta Van Susteren went to Texas to do a prison interview with Sankofa. She asked out loud on her program how he could be condemned to die on the testimony of one witness who claims to have seen the nighttime murder and murderer of Bobby Lambert 19 years ago in a dimly lit parking lot from a distance of 40 feet? An ABC "Nightline" host asked why a jury never heard the testimony of at least four other witnesses who saw somebody else kill Lambert--and also asked how someone could be convicted and sentenced to death without physical evidence linking him to the murder, and with ballistics tests that contradicted guilt. The Chicago Tribune ran a long expose of the Texas death penalty machine. The article cited Sankofa's case as typical of how Black and Latino defendants get bad defense lawyers, quick trials, paltry sums to defend their lives, judges politically inclined or pressured to sentence everyone in sight to death, and perfunctory appeals that routinely suppress evidence and uphold death sentences. Newsweek and Time magazines told everyone paying attention that Sankofa was legally a minor--just 17 years old--when convicted. Clearly, some mighty important people in the ruling class had concluded that U.S. death machine, led by Texas, was killing too many people too quickly, had become the source of political problems abroad and--even worse--could become the catalyst for social upheaval at home. Indeed, many thought that the pressure on Bush, who is trying to become President George W. Bush, was so intense that surely he would stop the execution. Surprise! He did no such thing. Bush's advisors and billionaire backers sent him the message that the racist ruling class, its politicians, courts, and jailers did not bring the death penalty back in 1976 in order to surrender it now: Kill Sankofa. Bush may have been at the head of the lynch mob but he was not alone on execution day. Along with the so-called Texas Board of Parole and Pardons, which voted 14 to three by fax to rubber stamp the murder, the U.S. Supreme Court gave the go-ahead to kill, albeit by a split vote. 'Rise up, fight back!' There is a lesson here for those who were certain that there was simply no way Texas would carry out Sankofa's execution with all the evidence of innocence, of a frame-up and with the whole world watching. What's the lesson? You are doomed if you rely on the bourgeoisie to fight your battles. If at some point along the line the masses of people don't intervene in a struggle like this one, we are left to the mercy of the few who own most of the wealth and control the system. And worse--we learn nothing of our own power. Once the media realized that all the attention they had given to Sankofa's case was not going to stop the lynching, they accommodated themselves to it. The day after Sankofa's execution, neither the New York Times nor the Los Angeles Times or any big newspaper printed on their front page in screaming headlines "Bush murdered an innocent man!" How important was the battle to save Sankofa's live in the scheme of things? A dumb question? Not really. Other than some outstanding exceptions, the progressive forces in the United States generally passed on this fight. Perhaps that is because the anti-death-penalty struggle has only begun to gain ground as a genuine mass movement. Maybe there are some in the civil-rights movement who were reluctant to embrace the plight of a poor Black man who had little formal education and a record of robberies. Or maybe the leaders and movers in organized labor, amongst the youth and all the other movements were too preoccupied with other issues to fight for Sankofa's life. No doubt some who consider themselves leaders were simply complacent, whether or not they admit it or even realize it. Whatever the case, what happened in Texas on June 22 was no small event, peripheral to other social and economic issues that appear to directly affect more people than the death penalty does. The day after Sankofa's murder, Cuban President Fidel Castro commented, "It is generally believed in the United States, and throughout the world that he [Sankofa] was convicted and executed simply for being Black." Fidel Castro's words in reaction to Sankofa's execution begin to put things in proper perspective. Castro knows who is on death row and who is not. And he knows the history of how the capitalist system has employed deliberate and very public acts of violence like lynchings--both legally sanctioned and otherwise--in its efforts to terrorize Black, Latino, Native and other oppressed people into submission. Sankofa's execution was about racism. Moreover, because of the extraordinary media attention his execution attracted, at a time when the death penalty is being hotly debated, and in the state governed by the biggest executioner in the country who happens to be running for president, Sankofa's struggle eclipsed all other issues, all other struggles. His execution came to personify the breadth, the scope, the essence and horror of racism in the United States. 'Keep fighting, save Mumia!' No doubt many people are deeply concerned about how Sankofa's execution will affect the outcome of death-row political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal's struggle. Indeed, if they can kill Sankofa, what will stop them from killing Mumia? In part the answer to this question is that Sankofa died to save Mumia. How Sankofa dealt with his execution is most instructive to those who want to end the racist death penalty and the class interest that it serves. We need not offer ourselves as martyrs--a matter Sankofa had no choice in. But we need to heed his example and fight to end the death penalty as Sankofa said in his final words--"by any means necessary." Sankofa fought his executioners with the last breath in his body. The battle wounds visible on his body, and the use of leather and Velcro straps and handcuffs to restrain him on the death gurney, were all signs of the fight he waged to send a signal to us. His message is as clear and strong as the way he lived and died: "Keep fighting, save Mumia, stop the death machine." The problem with the struggle against the death penalty is not its numerical weakness. The fact of the matter is that the anti-death-penalty movement is growing both stronger and more militant. The actions in cities across the country and the unprecedented 1,000-strong demonstration outside the death chamber in Huntsville, Texas, on June 22 are testament to this. The crisis is as it has always been--one of leadership. It is left to the most radical and revolutionary forces to ensure that Sankofa was not martyred in vain. Those of us who know better and are ready, willing and able must be the kindling that keeps the spark created by Sankofa alive--until its flames envelop greater and more decisive numbers of people. To their credit, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Al Sharpton and a small handful of Black leaders were in Huntsville on June 22. Jackson, who at Sankofa's request witnessed his execution, said publicly that he wept uncontrollably as he watched the poison smother the life out of Sankofa. Indeed one can only imagine how helpless he must have felt watching what he later called a "state-sponsored murder." Maybe Sankofa's invited witnesses would have felt a little better if they had put their bodies in front of the doors to the death chamber, until the guards and goons were forced to carry them out in handcuffs. And once outside, as they were being led off to prison, they could have shouted to the crowd and the media: "Shaka said: Rise up, fight back!" What's needed now? Just last year the people shut down Seattle. In April the people shook the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings. Now it's time to rock Philadelphia and Los Angeles at the Republican and Democratic conventions--to demand an end to the death penalty, to stop racism, to free Mumia Abu-Jamal and to avenge Shaka Sankofa. - END - (Copyleft Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contactWorkers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: ww@workers.org. 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