By Abayomi Azikiwe
On this year’s annual holiday to commemorate the life, times and contributions of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), news had quickly spread regarding the long-delayed decision to commute the life sentence of American Indian Movement (AIM) leader Leonard Peltier.
Peltier was charged in the 1975 killing of two FBI agents at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation of the Oglala Sioux Tribe of the Lakotas in South Dakota after the government operatives had illegally intervened in the area.
After the shooting in which no material evidence existed in regard to Peltier’s culpability, the AIM figure fled to Canada. Later he was illegally extradited back to the United States where he was put on trial and unjustly convicted for involvement in the deaths of the agents.
After 47 years in federal prison under horrendous conditions leading to serious medical issues, then outgoing President Joe Biden commuted his sentence just one day prior to the end of his tenure in office. This had been a major demand of activists for decades based upon the lack of evidence and the overall national oppression of the Indigenous people of North America.
The American Indian Movement (AIM) was formed in 1968 amid the burgeoning movement for Civil Rights and African American liberation. AIM worked in close alliance with other progressive and revolutionary organizations among oppressed nations and those in solidarity with the plight of Indigenous people.
Under successive U.S. governments, AIM was targeted by the intelligence apparatus with the objectives of disrupting and destroying the organization. This same policy was enacted against African American groupings including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Black Panther Party, National Black Economic Development Conference (NBEDC), among others.
At the time of the Pine Ridge incident, the people on the Reservation had invited AIM to help with combatting the U.S. government-backed agents terrorizing the population. Conditions today among the Native American population remain dire as the residents of Reservations and other areas where the Indigenous live continue to face monumental economic and health challenges.
Since the 17th century, the British, French, Spanish and Americans have systematically engaged in policies which have led to the forced removals and genocide of Indigenous people in North America. AIM grew out of the popular struggles of the 1960s which were designed to address the centuries-long systematic institutional racism, economic exploitation and the dislocation of millions of Indigenous and other oppressed peoples in North America and internationally.
An article published by prismreports.org on the commutation of the two life sentences given to Leonard Peltier in 1977, says:
“The campaign to free Peltier through either a pardon or commutation was led for decades by Indigenous rights groups, particularly those within the American Indian Movement (AIM), which was most active in the 1960s and 1970s, and in recent years, the NDN Collective. Coalitions on behalf of Peltier have petitioned every U.S. president since Jimmy Carter for his release; his latest bid for parole was denied as recently as last July. Biden’s order is set to go into effect Feb. 18, though organizers with NDN Collective and other groups are pushing the Federal Bureau of Prisons to release Peltier earlier due to concerns around his deteriorating health and the inadequacy of health care at Coleman 1, the Florida facility where he is incarcerated. Over the decades, Peltier has suffered from kidney disease, diabetes, and eye conditions that have led to near blindness; in January 2016, he was diagnosed with an abdominal aortic aneurysm.”
This profound injustice committed by the U.S. government against Leonard Peltier is a clear reflection of the continuing genocidal policy against the Native American people. His release after nearly 50 years of federal imprisonment is strong testament to the need for the total liberation of the Indigenous people and all other oppressed nations inside the jurisdictional confines of the U.S.
Marcus Garvey Pardoned After a Century of Delayed Justice
A legendary figure in the Pan-African struggle for unity and emancipation, Marcus Garvey (1887-1940), was pardoned by former President Biden in response to a decades-long campaign to have his name cleared from a government-inspired prosecution from 1923-1925. Garvey was charged and convicted of mail fraud while he sought to build a shipping company known as the Black Star Line.
Born in Jamaica in 1887, the Honorable Marcus Garvey, founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association, African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) in 1914. He travelled to the U.S. in 1916 and began to build the organization on a mass level.
By 1920, the UNIA-ACL had grown by leaps and bounds with chapters across the U.S. and Canada, along with the Caribbean, South America, Central America, Europe and the African continent. After his conviction and denials of appeals against his verdict, Garvey served two years in federal prison.
In 1927, President Calvin Coolidge commuted his sentence leading to Garvey’s deportation to Jamaica. In subsequent years, the release of classified government documents from the Bureau of Investigation (BOI) clearly shows that the UNIA was infiltrated with informants who provided information to the federal courts which resulted in his conviction and sentencing.
Responding to the pardoning by Biden, the Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, Olivia Orange, said before the Government of Jamaica House of Representatives:
“Garvey was indicted on 13 counts of mail fraud but was convicted on one count. No one else was convicted in the matter. The conviction was based on ‘evidence’ surrounding Benny Dancy, a port station worker who had bought 50 shares in the Black Star Line. Dancy had given an empty postpaid envelope addressed to himself to government agents who visited his home, though he said at the trial that he could not remember what was sent in the envelope or even if he had read the material. The court concluded that ‘men regularly sending out circulars in envelopes do not send out empty envelopes; also, one who received an empty envelope would remember the emptiness; and further and finally, that when Dancy identified the envelope and testified to letters and circulars so numerous that he could not remember all of them, the inference was justifiable that some or one of those documents came in the envelope.’ The contention of the authorities and the decision of the court was that the Black Star Line was part of a scheme devised by Garvey to defraud Blacks by soliciting subscriptions to worthless stock.”
Various family members of Garvey, including sons Marcus Jr. and Dr. Julius, have campaigned for many years for his pardoning. Nonetheless, this action by Biden should in no way overshadow the historic targeting of organizers from the African and Native American nations which continues well into the 21st century.
The Plight of Jamil Abdullah al-Amin (H. Rap Brown)
Another political prisoner, Imam Jamil al-Amin, formerly known as H. Rap Brown, has been incarcerated since 2000 for the shootings of two Fulton County, Georgia Sheriff Deputies, one fatally, in Atlanta. Al-Amin has maintained his innocence, and several appeals have not been successful in winning his release.
Imam al-Amin joined the Civil Rights Movement in the mid-1960s as an organizer for SNCC. In 1967, he was elected as the Chairman of SNCC taking over from Stokely Carmichael, later known as Kwame Ture. He also served as the Honorary Minister of Justice of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense based in Oakland, California. In Alabama during 1966, al-Amin and Ture were active in building the original Alabama Black Panther Party which prompted the spread of the movement to various cities and states throughout the U.S.
Al-Amin was transferred from Georgia state to federal custody during 2007. A letter recently-released by Arun Kundnani after a visit with al-Amin notes:
“When I got to the prison, two unexpected things happened. Firstly, I was told by the corrections officers that I was not allowed to record Jamil Al-Amin speaking. That meant I wasn’t able to get a recording of him talking about his medical situation, which would have been a powerful way to galvanize support for him to receive proper treatment. I assume that was exactly why the warden of the prison didn’t want me to record the conversation. Secondly, on my second day with Imam Jamil, I found out that he had in fact been taken to a hospital that morning. But instead of proper care, he received yet more abusive treatment. Someone attempted to pierce the swelling on his face by cutting it, hoping to drain the fluid. But that didn’t work. So, Imam Jamil was sent back to the prison with a bandage over the left side of his face, the swelling untreated, and still without any diagnosis. He was in considerable pain, found hearing hard as the swelling was beginning to cover his ear, and could not swallow solid food; while I was with him, a prison guard gave him a nutritional shake, his only diet.”
Therefore, political prisoners such as Imam Jamil Abdullah al-Amin and Mumia Abu-Jamal in Pennsylvania are still suffering from unjust imprisonment and the denial of adequate medical care. Such a reality requires the underlying conditions of systematic national oppression and its concomitant mass incarceration be eliminated.
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