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Why Our President Obama Is Having Problems

Why Our President Obama Is Having Problems

A wise man once said...

"We may not have it all together, but together we have it all."

Many people wonder why Republican legislators are so unrelenting on President Obama. Frederick Douglass gave us the answer many years ago. 

"... Though the colored man is no longer subject to barter and sale, he is surrounded by an adverse settlement which fetters all his movements. In his downward course, he meets with no resistance, but his course upward is resented and resisted at every step of his progress.

If he comes in ignorance, rags and wretchedness ... he conforms to the popular belief of his character, and in that character he is welcome; but if he shall come as a gentleman, a scholar and a statesman, he is hailed as a contradiction to the national faith concerning his race, and his coming is resented as impudence. In one case he may provoke contempt and derision, but in the other he is an affront to pride and provokes malice.''

Frederick Douglass ,September 25, 1883

Walmart Workers Flash Mob | Raleigh, NC

No More Names

Justice for Marissa! Set her Free!

Justice for Marissa! Set her Free! (Read and Sign) Zillah Eisenstein October 2, 2013 The Feminist Wire   October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month.     Marissa Alexander , thefeministwire.,                 Marissa Alexander was imprisoned in 2010 for 20 years after trying to defend herself from a known abusive estranged husband.  She shot at him after a life threatening beating from a battering spouse with a history of abuse.  She along with almost 85% of women in prison have been incarcerated because of the "criminalization of survivors of domestic and sexual violence;" according to the group Emotional Justice, "their survival strategies are criminalized."            The coalition of women's groups that have formed the amazing FREE MARISSA NOW CAMPAIGN are now in high gear to try and finally free her from her unfair/unjust incarceration in a Florida prison. For those who need a bit more information about the case, read on.  For those of you who think you have enough of the details please just visit some of the many sites below and sign the petitions or write a letter and keep sending it for the month of October.  In a world where too many of us feel unable to make change, this is your chance to make a huge difference for Marissa. Marissa wrote me from prison on 9/23: "I am really looking forward to the day where I can be candid and speak boldly and openly about my experiences while on this journey that are not visible to the public."  I am asking those of you reading this to help make that day come sooner, rather than later.           Here is some background information for those who might need it.  She is a 33-year-old Black woman/mother of three from Florida, found guilty of "aggravated assault with a deadly weapon."  She was sentenced to twenty years in jail under the mandatory "10-20" Florida law - according to which if you show a gun in an altercation, you get 10 years; if you fire it, you get 20.  The sentencing is mandatory and also minimum.  She had an 8-day-old baby daughter at the start of her incarceration.           With the assist of the Free Marissa Alexander Campaign the comparative injustice to the sentencing of George Zimmerman after killing Trayvon Martin was highly publicized.   Zimmerman is free after killing Martin; and Marissa is in jail for 20 years after defending herself, and her children and killing no one.  Marissa also used stand your ground law, but to no avail in her case.  The judge decided she was not sufficiently in fear of her life - or she would have run away rather than stood her ground-even though she had an earlier injunction against her husband for battery and survived a beating just 9 days before the premature birth of her daughter. Congresswoman Corrine Brown speaking about Marissa says that Stand Your Ground law is unfairly not applied to victims of domestic violence when attempting to protect themselves and that "if you are black, the system will treat you differently."           Marissa's case is mired in complex and structural problems of the U.S. legal system. To take action on her behalf begins to redress a grave injustice to her and her family and friends, but it also continues an important mobilization against these larger issues that are present.  Marissa's case reveals the intersection of a series of crisis points in our society: 1) domestic violence; 2) the problem of stand your ground law in the first place but particularly applied to battered women; 3) the unfairness of mandatory minimum sentences; 4) the repeated racism of the law and the penal system; 5) overzealous prosecutions, to name just a few. The committee to Free Marissa Now, along with her lawyers, has been granted a new trial for Marissa upon their appeal, and with the support they mobilized around the country.   Now with further assist from Rep. Corinne Brown they/we are requesting that the initial charges be dropped and that she be released from prison.   She has already served three years of an unjust sentence.            It is time for Marissa to return home to her children and her life.  It is completely within the realm of the prosecutor's discretion to drop all charges and not re-try this case.  If you agree will you please take a moment from your busy lives and make a difference.  Contact the names below.  A short sentence will suffice. 1. Sign this petition.  (Read and Sign) . 2. Contact the following officials: Office of Attorney General Pam Bondi State of Florida The Capitol PL-01 Tallahassee, FL 32399-1050 phone: 850-414-3300 Email: http://myfloridalegal.com/contact.nsf/contact?Open&Section=Attorney_General . Angela Corey, State Attorney Courthouse Annex 220 East Bay Street Jacksonville, FL 32202 (904)348-2720 (904)630-2400 Fax (904)348-2783 . Office of Governor Rick Scott State of Florida The Capitol 400 S. Monroe St. Tallahassee, FL 32399-0001 (850) 717-9337 http://www.flgov.com/contact-gov-scott/email-the-governor/ .

Madison Kimrey, NC Youth Rock: Video Presentation for UN International D...

A MIRACLE HAPPENED BECAUSE MANY PEOPLE BELIEVED

  THANK YOU FOR YOUR COURAGE

 AND FIGHT FOR JUSTICE

    It is so fitting that the prior message is a song speaking of "Miracles" -- if we only  "Believe." This week a miracle happened when a long-time solitary confined prisoner in the state of Lousiana was released from prison after 41 years served for a crime he and others were framed for -- a status quite believable by many people of the activist community.  Tears of joy nearly welled up in my eyes when I heard the glorious announcement that a Federal Court Judge had pronounced his freedom after a decades-long fight for justice.  This is the case of Herman Wallace, known as one of the "Angola Three",  because of the Lousiana prison built upon slave grounds known as Angola, where prisoners are forced into servitude, working the fields for little or no pay over the decades.  This is a national tragedy that is known about world-wide.  It is a blight upon the conscience of the most progresssive country in the world -- which is yet the most regressive in terms of the prison situation.



      Although I prayed and thanked the Supreme Being for the release of Herman Wallace, four days later he was released from Life due to a chronic illness from which he had been suffering. Although one must descry his unworthy incarceration, we must indeed rejoice that he spent his last days in freedom, surrounded by friends and family.  What a happy homegoing that had to be for someone in his sad but brave condition.  The following message from the NYCMumia organization gives more details.



This morning we lost without a doubt the biggest, bravest, and brashest personality in the political prisoner world.  It is with great sadness that I write with the news of Herman Wallace's passing.

Herman never did anything half way.  He embraced his many quests and adventures in life with a tenacious gusto and fearless determination that will absolutely never be rivaled.  He was exceptionally loyal and loving to those he considered friends, and always went out of his way to stand up for those causes and individuals in need of a strong voice or fierce advocate, no matter the consequences.

Anyone lucky enough to have spent any time with Herman knows that his indomitable spirit will live on through his work and the example he left behind.  May each of us aspire to be as dedicated to something as Herman was to life, and to justice.

Below is a short obituary/press statement for those who didn't know him well in case you wish to circulate something.  Tributes from those who were closest to Herman and more information on how to help preserve his legacy by keeping his struggle alive will soon follow.

With deepest sadness,

--

Tory Pegram

Campaign Coordinator

International Coalition to Free the Angola 3

504.338.2631

odsllc@gmail.com

On October 4^th, 2013, Herman Wallace, an icon of the modern prison reform movement and an innocent man, died a free man after spending an unimaginable 41 years in solitary confinement.

Herman spent the last four decades of his life fighting against all that is unjust in the criminal justice system, making international the inhuman plight that is long term solitary confinement, and struggling to prove that he was an innocent man.  Just 3 days before his passing, he succeeded, his conviction was overturned, and he was released to spend his final hours surrounded by loved ones.  Despite his brief moments of freedom, his case will now forever serve as a tragic example that justice delayed is justice denied.

Herman Wallace's early life in New Orleans during the heyday of an unforgiving and unjust Jim Crow south often found him on the wrong side of the law and eventually he was sent to the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola for armed robbery.  While there, he was introduced to the Black Panther's powerful message of self determination and collective community action and quickly became one of its most persuasive and ardent practitioners.

Not long after he began to organize hunger and work strikes to protest the continued segregation, endemic corruption, and horrific abuse rampant at the prison, he and his fellow panther comrades Albert Woodfox and Robert King were charged with murders they did not commit and thrown in solitary.  Robert was released in 2001 after 29 years in solitary but Herman remained there for an unprecedented 41 years, and Albert is still in a 6x9 solitary cell.

Herman's criminal case ended with his passing, but his legacy will live on through a civil lawsuit he filed jointly with Robert and Albert that seeks to define and abolish long term solitary confinement as cruel and unusual punishment, and through his comrade Albert Woodfox's still active and promising bid for freedom from the wrongful conviction they both shared.

Herman was only 9 days shy of 72 years old.

Services will be held in New Orleans. The date and location will be forthcoming.

ARTICLE IN HUFFINGTON POST'S 

"BLACK VOICES"

Herman Wallace, Member Of The 

'Angola 3', Dead At 71

By CHEVEL JOHNSON and MICHAEL KUNZELMAN 10/04/13 01:39 PM ET EDT

NEW ORLEANS -- NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A 71-year-old man who spent more than four decades in solitary confinement in Louisiana died Friday, less than a week after a judge freed him and granted him a new trial.

Herman Wallace's attorneys said he died at a supporter's home in New Orleans. Wallace had been diagnosed with terminal liver cancer and stopped receiving treatment. Wallace was held for years at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. In 2009, Wallace was moved from Angola to "closed-cell restriction" at Hunt Correctional in St. Gabriel, where he recently was taken to the prison's hospital unit.

Jackie Sumell, a longtime supporter of Wallace, said he was surrounded by friends and family when he died. Wallace at one point told them, "I love you all," according to Sumell.

"He was in and out of consciousness," she said.

U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson in Baton Rouge had ordered Wallace released from prison on Tuesday after granting him a new trial. Jackson ruled women were unconstitutionally excluded from the grand jury that indicted Wallace in the stabbing death of the 23-year-old guard, Brent Miller.

A West Feliciana Parish grand jury re-indicted Wallace on charges connected to Miller's death on Thursday. District Attorney Sam D'Aquilla told The Advocate newspaper that Jackson ordered a new trial because he "perceived a flaw in the indictment — not his murder conviction."

Wallace and two other inmates held in solitary confinement for years came to be known as the "Angola 3."

Wallace's attorneys said in a statement Friday that it was an honor to represent him.

"Herman endured what very few of us can imagine, and he did it with grace, dignity, and empathy to the end," they said. "Although his freedom was much too brief, it meant the world to Herman to spend these last three days surrounded by the love of his family and friends. One of the final things that Herman said to us was, 'I am free. I am free.'"

Wallace, of New Orleans, was serving a 50-year armed robbery sentence when Miller was stabbed to death.

Wallace and fellow "Angola 3" member Albert Woodfox denied involvement in Miller's killing, claiming they were targeted because they helped establish a prison chapter of the Black Panther Party at the Angola prison in 1971, set up demonstrations and organized strikes for better conditions.

In 2010, Woodfox was moved to the David Wade Correctional Center in Homer, where he remains in custody.

The third "Angola 3" member, Robert King, who was convicted of killing a fellow inmate in 1973, was released in 2001 after his conviction was reversed.