Longtime activist sent to federal prison
By
Sara Flounders
New York
Published Apr 2, 2008 11:33 PM
Ed Lewinson is 78 years old and blind. On April 2 he leaves for the federal
prison in Elkton, Ohio, to serve a 90-day prison sentence based on his 2007
arrest protesting the School of the Americas (U.S. School of Torture) at Ft.
Benning, Ga.
Rev. Lucius
Walker & others pay tribute to Ed Lewinson, right.
|
Lewinson is one of a dozen people who were arrested at the SOA Watch protest
for crossing the line on to the base. More than 20,000 people participated in
this year’s annual November protest. It was Ed’s fourth arrest at
the Ft. Benning protests. When offered a more lenient sentence, he insisted
that all the defendants be treated and sentenced equally.
Although Lewinson is blind from birth he has always been determined to
participate fully in political struggles and in all aspects of life. He has
been a political activist for almost 60 years and has been arrested numerous
times for sit-ins and civil disobedience actions and participated in hundreds
of picket lines, demonstrations and rallies.
Attorney/activist Lynne Stewart.
WW photos: John Catalinotto
|
He is active in political struggles in Newark with Peoples Organization for
Progress and N.J. Peace Action. He has been an active volunteer with the
International Action Center for 14 years since first attending an event linking
war as wealth and profits for a few and misery and poverty for millions.
He attended Detroit’s Northern High School, the only school in the area
that offered a Braille class. Northern also was predominantly Black, and
Lewinson’s first lessons in civil rights came from listening to the
stories of his classmates.
In 1949, at age 19, Lewinson participated with the Congress of Racial Equality
(CORE), a pioneering civil rights organization, in the sit-ins and struggles to
desegregate the Greyhound Bus Terminal in Washington D.C.
In the early 1960s he participated in sit-ins to desegregate restaurants along
the Route 40 Baltimore-Washington corridor. In Brooklyn he participated in
actions to desegregate housing, and he was part of the earliest struggles of
Local 1199 to organize hospital workers.
In the mass civil disobedience actions to stop the execution of Mumia
Abu-Jamal, Lewinson was arrested twice—once in Philadelphia at the
Liberty Bell and once in Washington, D.C.
He participated in actions to end the U.S. starvation sanctions against Iraq,
including making several difficult trips to Iraq with IAC delegations to take
desperately needed medical supplies there and several trips to Cuba with
Pastors for Peace and the IAC to break the blockade. He has also traveled to
North Korea.
The International Action Center is organizing an April 1 Solidarity Send-off
for Ed Lewinson in New York.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email:
[email protected]
Subscribe
[email protected]
Support independent news
DONATE