•
•
ysurround­
by Khalid
n CoIl in
ey in ifi, many
Dei 0 ganizatio
not only eond t
but eel to distant tb,O'l'naAl'UCIQ
from Mini Lou' Feu. &CILA,&.IoClU.L
One n bl ption
NAACP.
Dr. Benjamin Chavi too
note of Kh lid Muh mm d'
speech during Martin Lut
King ddr t the Smith-
man in W hington, D.C. in
January. Dr. Chavis 0 erved
that the peach was not consis­
tent with the vie and m hod
of approach of the NAACP. Dr.
Chavis, howe , did not run to
the p with a denunciation of
Minister Farrakhan nor did he
thre ten to di tance himself
from the Nation ofIslam.
Dr. Chavis was one of the
principal participants in the his­
toric Unity Forum which
convened and chaired by Cong.
Kwesi Mfume at the Congres­
sional Black Caucus eekend in
September of 1993. At that
meeting Cong. Mfume, on behalf
of the CBC, declared a Covenant
between the CBC and the Rain­
bow Coalition, the NAACP and .
the Nation ofIslam.
y 0
v. J Ch vi
and Board Chairman Dr. il­
liam Gib on r to be com­
mended for charting
courageous co it rela to
t Khalid uhammad contro­
versy. Th call fo Bla Lead­
ership Summit is definitely in
ord r and it' co istent ith
th meeti convened by Dr.
Benjamin Hoo , the former Ex­
ecutive Director of NAACP, in
the effort to form an ational
Con of Black organizations.
Every onable effort must
be made to encourage a broad
section of Black leadership
to meet to discuss th State of
Emergency which exist in the
Black community.
The current controversy must
also be discussed in order to
reach some consensus on how
Black I del'S will air their dif­
ferences and resolve future con-
Lester's World@ Copyright 1993
--------------------------------------
flicts f ure and influ-
e from fo ext to t
BI community.
Hopefully the
tay the co , t date nd
d out the invitatio to the
Summit.
As Board Chairman Williams
Gibson r marked, you do not
have to agree with FSrrakhan or
Bey other leader on every aspect
of their ideology or direction in
order to tablish principled and
meaningful working relation­
ships.
What matters m t is the
greater good of the Black com­
munity. No Black leader who
ks to be credible in the Black
community should refuse to sit
at the table in a Summit meeting
with other leaders who have a
demonstrated record of princi­
pled rvioe in the interest of
Black people. In that regard it
will be quite interesting to see
who shows up for the Summit
and who opts out.
THE ATTEND CE or
lack of attendance at th Sum­
mit will be an indicator of where
different Black leaders are in
terms of their allegiance and ac­
countability to the Black com­
munity vs. allegiance and
accountability to forces outside
the Black community.
Progressive ctivist, grass­
roots leaders and concerned
Black people must stand with
the NAACP in support of the
courageous call for a Black Lead-
. ership Summit.
WE MUST BE determined
that the NAACP will serve the
interests of the Black commu­
nity without compromise. If we
do not stand with the NAACP at
this critical moment then we will
get what we deserve - a mild
mannered, timid shell of an or­
ganization that will be irrele­
vant to the needs of the masses
of Black people. We must have
the courage and resolve to see
that this does not happen.
Ron. Daniels serues as President of the
Institute for Community Organization
and Development in Youngstown, Ohio.
He may be oontacted. at (216) 746-5747.
o
ool p
m
c
ofe
r
•
I
do
not
bapp
n,
AIn rica will
or
d
cades to
corne.
Where a mlsstonary
zeal has been
d monstrated by school
administrators and
te chers, and where
... (there is) a desire to
involve parents,
much has been
accompltshed. "
-MART1N LUTIiER KING, JR.
Why We Can't Wait, 1963
m
that
highly principl and co ,
. ted for Minister
G4JLCIUI�nto pond toth con-
tro y.
Minis Farrakhan repudi-
ated the remar ofKhalid Mu­
hammad nd relie
post ational Spo
t Nation of! lam.
Once Mini ter Farrakhan
acted, Dr. Chavis ftirmed that
the NAACP ould continue i
working re1atio hip ith the
Nation of I lam in eeping with
the spirit of the september Cove­
nant.
Dr. Chavis also called for a
Black Leadership Summit to
discu ways and mean of
strengthening working relations
between various Black leaders
and organizations.
Implicit in the call was the
suggestion that a meeting of
Black leaders was needed to dis­
cuss how to function within a
Copyright 1M2 Kem D"'gn Qro"" Inc.
All Rlghte R"WVN
Things that make you go Hmmm?
wy
From Death
Ro
_,. -
• ....,,,. _. 't
By Munlia Abu-JaJllal
''Woe unto you lawyers! For ye
have taken away the key of
knowledge: ye enured not in
yourselves, and they that were
entering in ye hindered. "
- St. Luke 11 :52, The Bible
Panther Deputy Information
Minister, Zayd Malik Shakur,'
was murdered by state police,
and Assata was shot and badly
wounded.
THE RECORD OF those
events are best told by Assata
herself, and aredone so in her
remarkable autobiography, ti­
tled Assata (Lawrence Hill, pub­
lisher)
Now comes Inadmissible Evi­
dence, the tory of a principled
African American attorney,
who battles on Assata's behalf
were one of many, both personal
and political.
Her rugged struggle for re­
spect and r cognition in white
courts, her struggle for survival,
her determination to resist the
state's ongoing efforts to cage
Black life, are all elements ofth
book, in addition to its telling of
Assata's courtroom campaigns.
Her long battles in criminal
law led her to the following con­
sidered opinio-i; "I believe that
all African-American prisoners
are political prisoners, whether
or not they label themselves as
such, because of the circum-
stances that got them into jail as
well as the harshness' of sentenc­
ing applied only to them."
SHE WRITES ffectionately
of "Joey," her pet 'name for As­
sata, of how p cious she was
as a child, and how d tennined
she was as a woman, as a revo­
lutionary, and as a political pri �
oner.
Williams rev aIs how white
courts responded to her attempt
to protect her client' (Assata's)
interests, by leaving the court­
room after her client was barred
from participating in her own
trial, by citing Williams for
criminal contempt, and sentenc­
ing her to county prison for 10
days.
Her lling of th attempted
humiliation, the conditions of
her confinement, and N.Y.
tate's attempt 0 u e the con­
tempt to justify h r disbarment,
reveals the lengths the govern­
ment will go to, to "disciplin " a
. lawyer for political prisone ,
and also how a la wy r of political
principle, con inu to truggle
on her client's half, and even
to win.
: �
• '" I y( .-I
In an age of lawyer-bashing,
it may seem out-of-step for one
to write praise words for an at­
torney. The quotation cited
above is one of several attributed
to a personage not usually
known for lawyer-bashing, Je­
sus Christ.
. What follows will be a review
of sorts on an extraordinary book
written by an extraordinary
Black lawyer named Evelyn Wil­
liams.
Who?
Ms. Williams is perhaps best ..
known as both the aunt and lead
trial attorney for Black Libera­
tion Army soldier Assata
Shakur, and she fought a slew of
tate and federal chargeslodged
against Assata after her near
murder and arrest on a New Jer­
sey turnpike on May 2, 1973,
charged with the killingofaN.J.
State Trooper.
On that date, former Bla
As a young, neil-thin girl,
her father fed h r mind and
pirit with tal s of at Turn r,
slav rebel Denmark Vesey,
Haitian lib rator Toussaint
L'Ouverture, and African na­
tionalist Marcus Garv y.
AS , d fending
soldiers of th Black Liberation
Army Oik h r ni ," J ,
those tal of Black istanee
paid off.
(Williams, Evelyn; I nadmis­
sible Evidence: The Story of the
African-American Trial Lawyer
Who Defended the Black Libera­
tion Army pub nshe by
La nee Hill Boo B klyn,
.Y., 1993 .
..
C 0 A I., I �r 1 o N
Dennis Rivera, Chairman
Rev. Jesse Jackson, President & Founder
Jesse Jackson Jr., Field Director/ JaxFax Editor
P AN
SeePLAN,A7
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