Necessary Blackness Ep. 28: Political Prisoner Advocacy w/ Thutmose Sankara

When the prison doors are opened, the real dragon will fly out.”

– Ho Chi Minh

 

Political Prisoners are the vanguards of the movement that possesses the willingness to die for the liberation of their people. When we look at the glaring incongruity between democracy and capitalist America and how Blacks are treated, we come to realize we are all political prisoners, but some of us are wearing invisible chains.

Necessary Blackness talks with political prisoners advocate, Thutmose Sankara to discuss the plight of political prisoner Veronza Bowers,who has been imprisoned for 40 years. Veronza was convicted of murder on the word of two government informers. There were no eye-witnesses and no evidence independent of these informants. At trial, two relatives of the informants gave testimony insisting that they were lying was ignored.

Kamau Sadiki was a member of the Black Liberation Army (BLA). In 2001, following increased interest in terrorism, one such former BLA member gave a statement about the 1971 murder after being detained during a traffic stop. With no eyewitness testimony and no physical evidence, the State based its case entirely upon the statements of three former BLA members who were present in Atlanta at the time of Officer Green’s murder. Mr. Sadiki was arrested in 2002 in Brooklyn, New York some thirty one (31) years later after the murder.

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