-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the July 6, 2000
issue of Workers World newspaper
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HUNTSVILLE, TEXAS: SANKOFA, PROTESTERS FIGHT LEGAL
LYNCHING TO LAST MINUTE
By Richard Becker
Huntsville, Texas
At 8:49 p.m. Central Daylight Time on June 22, poison injected into
his veins by a Texas prison doctor stopped the heart of Shaka
Sankofa. He fought until the very end.
Strapped to a gurney, Sankofa gave a stirring speech that ended
only with his last breath.
Sankofa is dead, legally lynched by Gov. George W. Bush and the
state of Texas. But through his heroic and determined struggle in the
last days of his life, he dealt a mighty blow to the racist death
penalty.
Sankofa is dead. But his revolutionary spirit lives on.
In 1981 Shaka Sankofa, then known as Gary Graham, was
convicted of murder and sentenced to death. He was condemned
after a two-day legal proceeding so corrupt and farcical that it could
not be accurately called a trial--even by bourgeois legal standards.
Graham, a 17-year-old African American, was accused of killing
Bobby Lambert, a reputed drug dealer who was white. Graham's
conviction rested entirely on the testimony of one eyewitness who
viewed the killing from 35 to 40 feet away, through a car windshield,
at night.
His court-paid lawyer, Ronald G. Mock, failed to call any witnesses,
although there were two at the time who said they were sure the
shooter was not Graham. Nor did Mock introduce a ballistics test
that showed that Graham's gun could not have fired the bullet that
killed Lambert.
Five times before, Texas authorities had set execution dates for
Sankofa. Each time, his new lawyers and public pressure had won a
stay and a new appeal.
But never in the nearly two decades after his original conviction was
Sankofa granted a new, real trial.
In early May, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his final
appeal. The Texas Department of Corrections immediately set June
22 as the execution date.
With no appeals left it appeared almost certain that the sentence
would be carried out. But supporters in Texas, including the Texas
Death Penalty Abolition Movement, Nation of Islam, SHAPE
Community Center, National Black United Front, New Black Panther
Party and others went into high gear.
They demanded that Bush and his appointed Board of Pardons and
Paroles grant Sankofa clemency and a new trial. The International
Action Center/Millions for Mumia sent out a call to hold National
Days of Protest on June 16-20 to stop the execution.
Sankofa himself vowed to resist to the end--as had his comrade
Ponchai "Kamau" Wilkerson, who was executed in March.
Struggle outside death house
The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles had scheduled the
announcement of its recommendations in Sankofa's case for noon
on June 22--just six hours before the time set for his execution.
By that time, 300 anti-death penalty demonstrators had assembled
outside the red brick prison in Huntsville, about 70 miles north of
Houston. Several dozen media trucks were parked in an adjacent lot.
Hundreds of state, county and city cops, along with the infamous
Texas Rangers, surrounded the area. On the other side of the
prison, a heavy police guard protected about 20 Ku Klux Klan
members wearing white robes and carrying Confederate flags and
pro-death-penalty signs.
Noon came and went without an announcement from the board.
Then, at 1:45 p.m., longtime Sankofa supporter Ashanti Chimurenga
spoke to the crowd. "The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles has
denied all relief and clemency," she reported.
The board had not met. Its members simply faxed in their ballots to a
central office in Austin.
They voted 12 to five against clemency, 14 to three against a 120-
day reprieve to investigate, and 17 to zero against a conditional
pardon.
The execution was set to be carried out in just a few hours. Family
members, friends and supporters were stunned, many in tears. But
no one was ready to give up.
Despite her evident pain, Sankofa's stepmother, Elnora Graham, told
reporters and supporters: "He's a very strong man. And he's still
alive. He's still alive."
A little after 2 p.m., a powerful rally began along the high barricades
set up less than 25 yards from the prison wall. It was co-chaired by
Gloria Rubac, a leader of the Texas Death Penalty Abolition
Movement, and Anthony Freddie of the Shaka Sankofa/Gary
Graham Justice Coalition.
Rubac, who met with Sankofa and other death-row inmates many
times, denounced "the slavery that exists today inside the Texas
prisons."
"Bush the father slaughtered the people in Iraq," Rubac continued.
"Now George W. is slaughtering the people inside the Texas
prisons.
"We have to end prison slavery in Texas. We have to stop the Texas
death machine."
Quanell X of the New Black Muslim Movement said: "We are not
here to appeal to the conscience of George W. Bush. There is no
point to that. We are here to appeal to the Black family."
Conrad Worril, chair of the National Black United Front in Chicago,
termed Texas "a part of the new Confederacy. ... It is George W.
Bush and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles who are on trial
here today."
Larry Holmes, a national leader of the International Action Center
and Millions for Mumia, said that "the real murderer is not inside
here in some cell but in the governor's mansion in Austin.
"If they have the arrogance to go through with this assassination, it
will be a freedom fighter who is martyred here today."
At one point, a group of youths and other activists rushed the line of
police and prison guards outside the death house. Some broke
through and ran toward the building. Eight people were arrested.
Minister Robert Muhammad of the Nation of Islam, Sankofa's
spiritual advisor, emerged from the prison a little before 4 p.m. He
told the crowd that Sankofa had said that "the board decision comes
as no surprise."
Muhammad said: "Shaka knows that this struggle is much bigger
than him as an individual. It is the struggle to end the racist, anti-
poor death penalty."
He quoted Sankofa as saying: "Death is a complement to life. The
only way you can avoid dying is by not being born. But what the
enemy tries to do is to make death something to fear.
"Non-cooperation with evil is an obligation like cooperation with
righteousness is an obligation."
Muhammad explained that Sankofa "refuses to accept a last meal
because it would be to accept injustice." He called Sankofa "one of
the strongest people I've ever met," and said that "he does not seem
desperate or even anxious."
Around the same time, it was announced that Sankofa's lawyers,
Jack Zimmerman and Richard Burr, had made last-ditch appeals to
the Texas Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Texas high court quickly turned it down. At 5:30 p.m. came the
news that the U.S. Supreme Court had refused to hear the appeal
by a vote of five to four.
The multinational crowd outside the prison grew, swelling to as many as 1,000 between
4 p.m. and 6 p.m. After the announcement of the Supreme Court decision, the organizers
led a march to the downtown Huntsville area, which was closed down that day, and into
the Black community.
There the New Black Panther Party staged an armed demonstration of support for
Sankofa. About 200 people, mostly African American, joined the march.
A little before 6 p.m., the execution witnesses--including Sankofa supporters the Rev.
Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Al Sharpton, Bianca Jagger of Amnesty International, and
Minister Muhammad--entered the Walls death unit.
Outside, Larry Holmes led the demonstration in chanting, "Shaka Sankofa, live like
him--dare to struggle, dare to win."
The end seemed near.
Then came another announcement. Law yers Burr and Zimmerman had filed an unusual civil
action based on the deprivation of Sankofa's constitutional rights. If the issues it
raised could not be resolved by midnight, an automatic 30-day stay of execution would
have to be granted.
But at about 8 p.m., word came that the civil action, too, had been thrown out.
In the last minutes of his life, as Sankofa spoke his final words, the demonstrators
join ed in chanting, "Long live Shaka Sankofa."
With great sadness and deep anger, the demonstrators marched out or slowly dispersed.
Deep divisions in ruling class
The acceleration of the movement to stop
Sankofa's execution and end the death penalty in the weeks before his death brought to
the surface deep divisions within the U.S. ruling class.
This latest development came only a few months after Illinois Gov. George Ryan was
forced to declare a moratorium on executions in that state because 13 innocent people
had been released from death row.
Suddenly, the TV screens and editorial pages of leading capitalist media outlets--the
New York Times, CNN, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, ABC, etc.--were filled with
calls to stop Shaka Sankofa's execution, grant him a new trial, and, in some cases,
suspend the death penalty.
A widely reported study of all death sentences in the U.S. between 1973-1995 by
Columbia University showed that 68 percent were overturned due to legal flaws, and
that many of those retried were found innocent.
pretended champion of human rights and democracy around the world.
Nearly all of the closest U.S. allies have eliminated the death penalty, while at home
the pace of executions is speeding up. And it's clear that those sent to the death
house are exclusively poor and overwhelmingly people of color.
Many of Washington's allies, including the European Union, condemned the United States
for this latest execution, in large part because Gary Graham/Shaka Sankofa was a minor
in 1981. Executing a person for a crime committed while under age 18 years is a
violation of international law.
Another factor in the emerging bourgeois opposition to the death penalty is fear that
the rash of legal lynchings will spur rebellions in the nationally oppressed
communities.
Execution carried out despite growing opposition
In the days after the execution, condemnation was widespread.
The June 23 Italian daily Il Manifesto carried a big picture of Bush on its front page
with the headline "The executioner doesn't let up." Many other newspapers around the
world condemned the execution.
A German legislator, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, said: "The U.S. presents
itself as the world police defending human rights, and on the other side it carries
out the death penalty."
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, who had called for a stay of
execution, said that it "ran counter to widely accepted international principles."
In the United States, demonstrations and disruptions of Bush's campaign activities
took place coast to coast for a week before June 22. In Texas, the active movement
against the death penalty, especially in the African American community, grew to a
level not previously seen.
Dozens were arrested during these pro tests. As the clocked ticked down to the
execution June 22, 18 people were arrested at a militant protest in San Francisco and
11 more in New York.
that this could raise expectations and encourage the struggle.
The prison system and the death penalty are weapons of state-sponsored terrorism,
which have been greatly expanded over the past two decades.
ther struggles.
It is only when those movements grew, became stronger and proved that they weren't
going away that the ruling class was forced to make some concessions.
l executions and abolish the racist death penalty once and for all.
- END -
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