Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire
  • omnibus

Russell “Maroon” Shoatz is Free, But Other Political Prisoners Languish
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
27 Oct 2021
Russell “Maroon” Shoatz is Free, But Other Political Prisoners Languish
Russell “Maroon” Shoatz is Free, But Other Political Prisoners Languish

The demand for freedom of political prisoners must be consistently made for their sakes and for all at risk of joining them in the future.

Russell “Maroon” Shoatz has been granted compassionate release after 50 years in prison. The length of his sentence is outrageous but it is hardly unique. The United States not only has the dubious distinction of being the country with the largest population of incarcerated people, but it also has political prisoners held longer than anywhere else in the world. Shoatz is now 78-years old and suffering from cancer. To be blunt, he is being released so that he can die outside of prison walls.

Of course there is deeply felt happiness that Shoatz will be freed for whatever time remains in his life, but no one should forget the tortures he suffered, including 22 years in solitary confinement. No one should forget the other prisoners such as Mumia Abu Jamal, Ruchell Magee, Sundiata Acoli, and Dr. Mutulu Shakur. They are the best known, but there are hundreds of people imprisoned since the days of the liberation movement. That movement was crushed in part because its most committed fighters were locked away.

As the late Glen Ford pointed out, we must say their names while they are still alive. We must say their names because they still live, instead of only remembering those who are dead at the hands of the police. Our remembrance should not be restricted to those who have passed but should be expanded to include the men and women whose lives were taken from them by imprisonment under brutal conditions.

There is also an element of self defense in advocating for these elders. The members of the Black Liberation Army and Black Panther Party were obvious targets so many years ago, but so were people who took to the streets of Ferguson, Missouri in the wake of the killing of Michael Brown in 2014. Six of them died mysteriously in the years that followed. Others are serving long sentences for minor offenses. Anyone who makes themselves known as an activist is a potential political prisoner. The noble act of fighting for their freedom is also necessary self protection.

The defeat of the movement created amnesia for some and a genuine lack of knowledge for the generations that followed. Demanding community control of the police or defunding or abolition are logical steps in a process begun by the freedom fighters who have been locked away for so long. Today’s struggle against the state is a continuation of what Shoatz and others carried out decades ago.

Lest anyone forget, the state is no less dangerous now than it was 50 years ago when he and others were first imprisoned. In the wake of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks the FBI changed tactics and began initiating crimes that were then prosecuted. Once again, draconian sentences were dispensed to Black people such as the Newburgh Four and the Liberty City Seven. They and others were entrapped by agent provocateurs who ensnared them in crimes they had created themselves and then testified against them in court.

Police departments all over the country surveil activists by old fashioned means and with the use of modern day technology. The Patriot Act was created in the days after September 11 and is regularly renewed by congress with as little scrutiny as when it was passed. The National Security Agency has records of every American’s electronic communications, from phone calls to emails. The FBI created a new designation, the Black Identity Extremist, which can mean anything they want it to mean, and gives them the ability to ensnare anyone they like for any reason at all.

The word fascism is bandied about frequently and often incorrectly. But it certainly applies in any description of Black people’s interactions with law enforcement. The mass incarceration state has quadrupled since 1970 and it can be said that most of those imprisoned are in fact political prisoners. The prison system grew so large in direct response to political activity. The end of legal segregation demanded a new means of control. It can be said that the more than one million incarcerated Black people are all political prisoners, locked away not because most of them are dangerous, but because the resistance of the 1960s and 1970s demanded harsh reaction.

We are grateful that Shoatz will be free but there are many more left behind bars. We can’t celebrate the release of the surviving members of the MOVE 9 or Shoatz or anyone else unless all of the names are lifted up. “What’s the call? Free 'em all!”

Margaret Kimberley’s column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents. Her work can also be found at patreon.com/margaretkimberley and on Twitter @freedomrideblog. Ms. Kimberley can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.

Free All Political Prisoners
Black Mass Incarceration
Surveillance State

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles. Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

Answering to Martin Sostre’s Ghost
Stephen Wilson
Answering to Martin Sostre’s Ghost
01 February 2023
Martin Sostre (1923-2015) was a political prisoner, jailhouse lawyer, and Black anarchist of Puerto Rican descent.
A Racial Disparity Across New York That is Truly Jarring
Jesse Barber , Simon McCormack
A Racial Disparity Across New York That is Truly Jarring
04 January 2023
Black people are disproportionately convicted of felonies across New York State.
Bittersweet Freedom for Mutulu Shakur
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Bittersweet Freedom for Mutulu Shakur
16 November 2022
Mutulu Shakur has been granted parole, but he is terminally ill. Black political prisoners in this country are held for 30, 40 and 50 years.
Nehanda Abiodun and the Legacy of Resistance to the Prison Industrial Complex
Abayomi Azikiwe
Nehanda Abiodun and the Legacy of Resistance to the Prison Industrial Complex
31 August 2022
The late Nehanda Abiodun was an African American revolutionary who exemplified the movement to end national oppression and the criminalization
ESSAY: Women in Prison: How We Are, Assata Shakur, 1978
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
ESSAY: Women in Prison: How We Are, Assata Shakur, 1978
10 August 2022
Assata Shakur exposes the conditions faced by incarcerated Black women in a powerful 1978 essay.
Crazy Like a Woodfox
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Crazy Like a Woodfox
10 August 2022
Crazy as a Woodfox...
Ruchell Magee: US Prisoner, Political Thinker, Rebel, and Still Fighting for Release After 67 Years
Natalia Marques
Ruchell Magee: US Prisoner, Political Thinker, Rebel, and Still Fighting for Release After 67 Years
10 August 2022
Ruchell Magee has been incarcerated for 67 years and is the longest serving political prisoner in the world.
FBI Still Targets Black People for Entrapment
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
FBI Still Targets Black People for Entrapment
13 July 2022
The COINTELPRO era never ended, as Black people bear the brunt of FBI surveillance.
Prison in Plain Sight: Visualizing the Economic Veins That Fuel Our Carceral Reality
The Mapping Project
Prison in Plain Sight: Visualizing the Economic Veins That Fuel Our Carceral Reality
13 July 2022
The prison system links corporate interests, the military industrial complex, and policing into a web of oppression impacting more than 2 milli
Thin Blue Wall of Silencing: Jalil Muntaqim vs. The (Language) Police
Spirit of Mandela Writing Committee
Thin Blue Wall of Silencing: Jalil Muntaqim vs. The (Language) Police
06 April 2022
Former political prisoner Jalil Muntaqim is still not treated as a free man. In this case, the State University of New York at Brockport succum

More Stories


  • BAR Book Forum: Miss Major and Toshio Meronek’s “Miss Major Speaks”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Miss Major and Toshio Meronek’s “Miss Major Speaks”
    01 Feb 2023
    This week’s featured authors are Miss Major and Toshio Meronek. Their book is Miss Major Speaks: The Life and Legacy of a Black Trans Revolutionary.
  • Black University, White Power:  Howard University Covers for US Imperialism
    Erica Caines
    Black University, White Power: Howard University Covers for US Imperialism
    01 Feb 2023
    The announcement of a $90 million Air Force contract making Howard University a University Affiliated Research Center is a first for an HBCU. Now Howard has joined other universities in creating a…
  • Answering to Martin Sostre’s Ghost
    Stephen Wilson
    Answering to Martin Sostre’s Ghost
    01 Feb 2023
    Martin Sostre (1923-2015) was a political prisoner, jailhouse lawyer, and Black anarchist of Puerto Rican descent. After being released from prison, he opened a radical Afro-Asian Book Shop in…
  • Global Africa’s Mission: Expose the CIA’s Shameless, Continuing Crimes
    Mark P. Fancher
    Global Africa’s Mission: Expose the CIA’s Shameless, Continuing Crimes
    01 Feb 2023
    The CIA director recently visited Libya, a state that was destroyed by the US. History shows that the CIA is never up to anything good in Africa.
  • Colonial-Capitalist Fascism and Its Deadly Outcome: The State Murder of Tortuguita in Atlanta and Tyre Nichols in Memphis Are Inextricably Linked
    Black Alliance for Peace Atlanta City-Wide Alliance
    Colonial-Capitalist Fascism and Its Deadly Outcome: The State Murder of Tortuguita in Atlanta and Tyre Nichols in Memphis Are Inextricably Linked
    01 Feb 2023
    All acts of police violence in the US are linked to the colonial capitalist state.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us