Viewing page 20 of 100

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

FREEDOMWAYS                              FOURTH QUARTER 1971

down, but I knew a rash outbreak of violence would only hurt our cause at this point so I advised the brothers to be cool and not be provoked into doing something that would justify more guard brutality and possibly a mass killing.
  But the officials were so bent on teaching us a lesson that they came over to our cell block and attacked an inmate without provocation, thereupon some Black brothers attacked a white guard. In a matter of seconds, our whole cell block was up in rebellion and there were demands to see the warden. The associate warden of custody came over to check us out.
  When the associate warden entered the cell block, I told him that Black people are tired of being treated like dogs and that we want an end put to racism. He said: "Are you the spokesman?" and I replied that this was no time to try and play tricks on us . . . that we were dead serious about the rotten conditions we were dead serious about the rotten conditions we were being subjected to. He said, "Well, will you have a conference with the warden right now?" I told him I would not have anything to do with the warden. He said that he was serious and that if we got a committee of say five inmates, we could go see the warden right then. We held a brief conference among ourselves and decided to form a committee of five to meet with the warden.
  We met with the warden in the officer's assembly room. The warden called the meeting for one purpose-to line the ringleaders up. We knew this so I told him quite frankly that regardless of what he did to us, there was going to be trouble if the racism and brutality were not stopped. We didn't cause the trouble. I said, the prison officials started the trouble.
  The warden asked me to drop the petition. I refused. After about 45 minutes or more of discussion, the agreement reached was that the committee would meet again with the Deputy Director and other officials the next day. Meanwhile we were asked to return to our cells.
  We returned to the cell block and told the brothers that all the warden agreed to was another meeting. I told them no matter what happened, we should stick to the demands of the petition. I said that the Ku Klux Klan-minded guards had the full backing of the warden and that the warden refused to recognize the legitimacy of our demands. At this point the brothers began shouting, "Let's strike!" I responded to this by pointing out that whatever we do, we must stick together and carry the fight for our constitutional rights through to the finish.
  The next morning about 80 Black inmates refused to go to work

342

Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-14 11:45:38