State repression and the Black struggle
'Everyone has a point where they won't back down'
Interview with Safiya Bukhari, part 6
By Imani Henry
In the previous installment,
Bukhari spoke of her arrest and imprisonment by Virginia
authorities.
Imani Henry: I asked about you getting out of prison
without doing all of your time.
Safiya Bukhari: I used the courts. And the women in
the prison started to watch what I was doing. ...The warden
said I was "a threat to the security of the free world." Then
she told them that I could organize the women in her prison.
And that was the only women's prison in Virginia.
They were concerned about my ability to organize and
"recruit" women from the institution. I didn't believe in
recruiting because the person has to make up her mind for
herself and if you recruit too many, then it puts the
responsibility on you. But if they did on their own, that was
something different. [The prison officials] didn't understand
those concepts at all.
Then the warden told me, "I'll approve you for a furlough,
but I won't approve you for honor college." Honor college is
where you can go in and out of the building anytime you want
to. Now I could go off grounds, I could do work release, but I
couldn't go to honor college on the grounds. What sense did
that make?
I and other women started this group, Mothers Inside Loving
Kids (MILK), for the long-termers. And we helped them spend
time with their children. Because one of the things they do
heavy in the South is that they take away parental rights,
especially if a woman goes to jail. Doesn't matter how long
she's in prison for or how short she's in prison for, even if
her case has nothing to do with child abuse. Virginia took away
parental rights.
That prison used to be a plantation. And most of those
prisons down there used to be plantations. And they still had
the slave housing; some of the same buildings that slaves had
slept in.
IH: So when you came up for parole, was that a
struggle again, or did you have enough good time?
SB: When my time came up for parole, the debate was
what I was going to say to the parole board. Everybody kept
saying I should say, "I have remorse."
IH: So what did you decide to do with the parole
board?
SB: What they asked me was, "What do you think about
violence?" And I told them. I don't believe in violence for the
sake of violence. But everyone has a point where you will not
back down.
And they asked me about being in contact with any former
Black Liberation Army people, Black Panthers and felonies. And
I told them, "Look, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that
I'm not to be in contact with my family. Because these people
are not just members of the BLA or BPP; these people are part
of my family. So it's up to you. And whatever you do, I will do
what I have to do."
Then they asked me, "Do you still believe in what you
believe in?" And I said, "No, in all these years, I learned
that not everybody is ready for armed struggle. There is a lot
of education that needs to be done. There's a lot of organizing
that has to be done if you want to support other people. And
that's what I do best." They didn't turn me down and they
didn't give me parole. They gave me a deferral.
IH: So you did eight years and eight months, and you
were released when?
SB: August 22, 1983.
IH: When did the Jericho movement start?
SB: I came to the conclusion there had to be a better
way to deal with this issue of political prisoners. I went to
Cuba to spend time with Assata Shakur and meet with the
Association of Cuban Women and we heard that we had won the
stay of execution for Mumia Abu-Jamal [in 1995].
In 1996, we started to build the Jericho march. ...We needed
a umbrella organization that represented all political
prisoners. The four objectives of the Jericho Movement are: 1)
Winning amnesty and freedom for all political prisoners
currently held; 2) Making the U.S. government acknowledge there
are political prisoners in U.S. jails; 3) Setting up a legal
defense fund so their appeal work gets done and there is
ongoing work on their cases after their trials; and 4)
Demanding adequate medical care.
Reprinted from the Aug. 15, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe to WW by Email: wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Donate to
support pro-labor, anti-war news.
Email
this article
Printable
page