Welcome home, Ed Lewinson!

Ed Lewinson

Political activist Ed Lewinson returned home July 1 after serving a 90-day sentence at the federal prison in Elkton, Ohio. Lewinson is 78 years old and has been blind from birth. He has been active in the movement for almost 60 years.

Lewinson was one of a dozen people arrested at last November’s SOA Watch protest for crossing onto the U.S. Army base at Fort Benning, Ga. More than 20,000 people participated in the annual event. It was Lewinson’s fourth arrest at the protests, which have exposed the Pentagon’s training of Latin American military officers in torture techniques.

When offered a more lenient sentence, he insisted that all defendants be treated and sentenced equally. He also says he wants activists to focus on other prisoners who were in far worse conditions.

Lewinson was forced to serve most of his sentence in the Special Housing Unit, known as the “hole,” under punitive lockdown conditions. The prison officials kept him locked down 23 hours a day on weekdays with a one-hour walk in a small closed yard. On weekends he was locked down around the clock.

It wasn’t because he was accused of being disruptive. He was locked down simply because the prison had no facilities for blind prisoners.

After activists from School of the Americas Watch, New Jersey Peace Action and International Action Center waged a three-week campaign of letters and calls to the prison for Lewinson to be released into the general population, he was finally transferred to less restrictive conditions for a few days. But then, claiming it was inconvenient for the prison, the authorities put him back in the highly restrictive lockdown.

At the International Action Center here on July 9, he was given a warm and rousing welcome by a meeting of activists. Lewinson had arrived to help put out a national mailing by the Stop War On Iran campaign. The gathering was a combined welcome back celebration for Lewinson and a mobilizing and strategy meeting for Aug. 2 demonstrations opposing any U.S. war on Iran. For many years Lewinson has helped on mailings and phone banking, walked countless picket lines and been in the forefront of countless struggles against racism and war.

Lewinson says his prison time increased his determination and reaffirmed his thinking that people need to be ready to do whatever is necessary in order to make an important political point. He said this is an example he learned from the Freedom Riders in Mississippi.

“While nobody wants to go to jail, social change will only come about by the commitment of many, many people. I hope that my acts contributed to people realizing the need for real social change,” he says.

Welcome home, Ed Lewinson!