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FREEDOMWAYS           FOURTH QUARTER 1971

aches for freedom for himself, and his oppressed people. I know the cynic will smile at my remarks, yet I care nothing about his smile because I speak the truth!
I want to go to college (currently I have earned 21 college hours), I want to be a historian of science in Africa, and that is not all. I also want to help my Black people in whatever way I can to win their freedom. I feel that only knowledge and adequate formal training will enable me to be an effective person in the struggle for Black liberation.
    
             III
This third and final part will deal with my legal struggle for freedom. My legal struggle is based on the following facts, namely:
1. On May 6, 1959, I was committed to the St. Louis State Hospital by Circuit Court order, at the request of the Chairman of the State Mental Health Commission, for observation and diagnosis. On October 23, 1959, I escaped from the State Hospital and fled to Chicago.
2. At the time of my arrest for murder first degree and armed robbery, I was in fact an escapee from a mental institution. My mother informed my court-appointed lawyer, Mr. Joseph Noskay, of the fact that I was an escapee yet he failed to mention it to the court and he let me plead quality. However, according to law, I was legally incompetent to plead guilty.
3. There is not record to show that my plea of guilty was, in fact, voluntary, and there is every indication that I did not have adequate and effective assitance of counsel.
These facts constitute the gist of my case. The established constitutional rule since 1956 is that "the conviction of an accused person while he is legally incompetent, violates the due process..." (See Bishop v. United States, 350 U.S.961, 76 S. Ct. 400).
My lawyer, Mr. Arley R. Woodrow, has filed a legal motion seeking my discharge from custody since I have been detained under this illegal conviction for nearly ten years. However, even though there is no legal reason why I shouldn't be discharged, the authorities are reluctant to grant me my freedom. In a sense it has nothing to do with the merits of my case, but my skin color and political beliefs, I am no longer being held in jail for a crime against the state. I have become a political prisoner.
In my current quest for freedom I am going to need the help of
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