The activist group DenverABC marches to raise awareness of many US citizens held in political captivity.
DIANA AQRA, DENVER, CO, 2013 – The remembrance of the political legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. heightened awareness of the many political prisoners being held captive in US prisons today.
Not many people are aware that the US can detain people solely on their political beliefs, the Denver Anarchist Black Cross, or Denver ABC, shown in the picture above, marched and passed out pamphlets illustrating pictures of the many, mostly black, men and women still being held prisoner in the US for having “against the grain” political beliefs.
The list of political prisoners that DenverABC posted on their website, by category, is below.
Although the Marade in Denver today drew thousands of people, of all races, the crowd was stunned to see that the police broke up the culminating gathering of marchers in front of the State Capitol. Heavy-duty vehicles rung high-pitched alarms while policemen ordered hundreds through mega-phones to vacate the corner of Colfax and Broadway – the final moment that marchers thought would seal a positive march.
The police force at the end of the march shocked and reminded many that the political and social freedoms we feel so deserved are continually at stake. Always put more eloquently, I will quote MLK Jr.’s 1963 “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” when he, himself, was a political prisoner:
“We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed… Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?…then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.”
Social Movement Prisoners (DenverABC.wordpress.org)
Flyer being passed out during MLK Jr. 2013 Marade in Denver by DenverABC.
Anarchist Movement Prisoners
Mark Neiween (Migs) NATO Chicago 2012 Prisoner
Sebastian Senakiewicz NATO Chicago 2012 Prisoner
(Addresses and case information in link)
Anti-War
Anti-police
Black/New Afrikan Liberation
Fernando Gonzalez (Ruben Campa)
Ramon Labanino Salazar (Luis Medina)
Green Scare/Earth Liberation
Indigenous Prisoners
Byron Shane “Oso Blanco” Chubbuck
Puerto Rican Prisoners of War
United Freedom Front
Other National Liberation
NC Almighty Latin Kings and Queens
Abdul Azeez (Warren Ballentine)
Hanif Shabazz Bey (Beaumont Gereau)
War Resisters
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