Houston Juneteenth Parade
'Stop torturing prisoners in Texas and Iraq'
By Gloria Rubac
Houston
Anti-death penalty and anti-war activists
participated in Houston's 31st Annual Juneteenth Freedom Parade
on June 19. They carried banners and placards demanding the end
of torture of prisoners both in Texas and in Iraq and calling
for U.S. troops to be brought home now.
Juneteenth--June 19--marks the day in 1865 when enslaved
African laborers in Galveston, Texas, finally learned of the
Emancipation Proclamation, two years after it became law.
This year, speakers for the Texas Death Penalty Abolition
Movement and ANSWER drew wild support as they addressed the
crowd along the parade route. They demanded that the war be
"brought home"--that it should be a war against the racist
criminal justice system, and a war for jobs, schools and health
care.
The Abolition Movement carried signs and passed out hundreds
of flyers about death row prisoner Tony Ford, whose birthday is
also June 19.
Supporters stress that Ford has maintained his innocence and
has a strong case to prove it. These supporters--from Texas, to
Ford's home town of Detroit, to Italy--are taking his case to
the people.
Flyers were also distributed for a commemoration of the
fourth anniversary of the execution of Shaka Sankofa, "legally
lynched" by the state of Texas on June 22, 2000.
Reprinted from the July 1, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
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