Murdered
by the State (August 31, 2006)
The
state of Texas gave us another reason to forever commemorate Black
August and to rededicate ourselves to the revolutionary struggle. At
6:00 this evening, they executed our brother, Hasan Shakur, the
Minister of Human Rights of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party-Prison
Chapter. He had recently turned 29 years old. At 19, he was framed for
murder. He was called Derrick Frazier, then, a poor Black youth who had
grown up on the mean streets and in the juvenile halls of Texas, after
his mother died of a crack overdose.
Tricked by police into confessing
to a crime he did not commit, which they knew he did not commit because
they already had the confession of the youth who had done the murder,
Derrick Frazier was the victim of a racist hate crime, a frame-up, for
no other reason than the cops could do it and get away with it.
Cynically, they convinced Derrick they were doing him a favor that
would save his life.
They didn't tell him that he had a
right to an attorney or that he could not plea bargain without one.
They didn't tell him they had nothing on him, they told him he would
die unless he took some blame to show he was cooperating...blame for
another's actions he did not even witness. In a very real sense,
Derrick Frazier died in that police station.
Hasan Shakur was born on death row.
It didn't happen automatically. It came out of the depth of despair and
with his conversion to Islam and the teaching of a prisoner iman who
was a veteran of the original Black Panther Party. In prison he
awakened to the teachings of Malcolm X and Mao Tse-tung, of Huey P.
Newton and George Jackson. And his living mentor, former BPP/BLA
political prisoner/prisoner of war, Russell "Maroon" Shoats.
Hasan did not fear his death, nor
was he afraid to go on living, because he had found a purpose to his
life and death - REVOLUTION! He was prepared to meet the enemy standing
on his feet, standing tall! Because in life or death he stood for the
people!
Today they killed his body, but his
spirit will live on, like that of Che, Fred Hampton, Sr. and George
Jackson. He will march beside us in the streets and stand with us at
rallies and on the barricades. And when the final victory is won, he
will be there in the bright future of humanity that will have been
bought with martyr's blood and the struggle of generations against all
oppression and for the human rights of all!
Tom Big Warrior, Red Heart Warriors
Society
Hasan Shakur: A Maroon
on Death Row
By Walidah Imarisha
San Francisco Independent Media
Center
Wednesday 30 August 2006
"Whether
they murder me or not on Friday, I'm telling you, watch what Ima do,
the ancestors are gonna be proud." Hasan Shakur uttered these powerful
words a few days before he is scheduled to be executed in Texas,
Thursday August 31st.
I am sitting in my rented Chevy
Equinox outside of the Polunsky Unit, in Livingston, Texas. It's the
middle of farm country; there are stables right next door to the
prison, within pissing distance of the electrified fence and concertina
wire. I wonder if they belong to the prison. How much of this farmland
is the prisons? The inmates wear all white here. It is ghostly figures
I see pushing wheelbarrows, carrying rakes through a manicured lawn
with flower boxes shaped like the star of Texas. This place reminds me
so much of the California state prison my adopted brother Kakamia is
in, the town, the hotel I'm staying at, the prison itself, that I
walked into the visiting room expected to see my afro-haloed hermano.
But I guess maybe all prison towns start to look the same.
The processing is the fastest I've
ever been through going to a prison. I have had to wait hours before to
be cleared. I do not know if it is this prison, or the fact that I'm
visiting at off times, or the fact that I am visiting someone who has
an execution date set. Set for Thursday. Days are bleeding away, the
29th is just a breath away from the 31st.
Hasan
Shakur, aka Derrick Frazier, aka #999284, is dressed all in white as
well. Visiting is only through glass, and Hasan sits in a cage, the
telephone pressed to his ear. He is as big as I figured he would be. He
stands up to go to the bathroom, sticking his hands through the slot so
they can put the handcuffs on him, and he towers over the three guards
around him.
But
what doesn't come through in the photos on his web site is his baby
face. 29 years old now, with a face of a 15-year-old. He barely made it
to 29, wasn't supposed to make it. His life reads like a text book case
of black ghetto life ("I always felt more comfortable in the ghetto,
you know?" he says, eyes clear as spring water.): dad gone, addicted
beloved mother gone, didn't graduate high school, slanging and banging
and hardening his face to survive, and here he sits, for 9 years, on
Texas' death row, dressed in baptismal white. He was reborn here, held
not by heavenly loving hands but by night sticks and pepper spray. Not
gently laid back to be quietly submerged, but head pushed into toilets,
and balls crushed under boots. Hasan Shakur born out of Derrick
Frazier, not through water but a hail of bullets and billy clubs, child
of George Jackson and Angela Davis, Mumia and Sundiata and all the
political prisoners. Grandchild of Nat Turner and great great grandson
of Seminoles and maroon colonies and quilombos. He takes his heritage
serious as a heart attack, induced by a pound of poison shoved into
your veins by the state.
The
visiting room is busy today. Yesterday was family day, with his aunt
and grandmother coming in to see him, making a three hour drive both
ways. Today is supporter day. Hasan's wife and support coordinator
Debbie came from Canada a few days ago. Ray from the New York-based
group the Welfare Poets came, and me from Philly. Only two people are
allowed in the visiting room for him at one time, so we keep trading
off, two hours in, two hours out, a game of death room musical chairs.
I
met Hasan six years ago when I helped to found the Human Rights
Coalition, a prisoner family organizing group. It was the brainchild
and heartchild of Russell "Maroon" Shoats, a Pennsylvania political
prisoner, former Black Panther/Black Liberation Army member who has
served almost 20 years straight in solitary confinement, never touching
another human being except for his captors. Hasan is also Maroon's
heartchild, his adopted son. "This," Maroon wrote, "this brotha is our
future, with his lion's strength and determination." Hasan wears a
bracelet embroidered "MAROON" around his wrist that twists and turns as
he writes and organizes groups and organizations, concerts and
newsletters, campaigns and strategy planning from a cell the size of a
bathroom that has the held breath of murder in it. Hasan started a
chapter of HRC in Texas and serves on our advisory council. He has
given invaluable insight to our planning and visioning for the
organization, and he keeps us grounded. "Wa Wa, I'm a workhorse," he
says with a half smile, "and I'm going to push everyone around me, if I
see someone leaning back, Ima crack that whip." He says I should be
proud of him, because he got six hours of sleep the night before,
double his usual dose, which I often nag him about. "Yeah but how many
did you get the night before?" I ask, laughing.
Debbie
comes back in and says the affidavits will be filed in court today. The
hope is that these affidavits will win a stay of execution for Hasan.
There is also hope of perhaps getting a stay of execution from the
governor, and an international letter writing campaign has been in
effect since the date was handed down several weeks ago. Hasan was
convicted of killing a white woman and her son in Refugio, Texas. There
is a lack of physical evidence to tie Hasan to the scene. In fact, the
main piece of evidence against him is a forced confession the police
illicited from him, a 19-year-old black young man, while in their
custody, after a promise that he would only get 30 years for it. He was
found guilty by an almost all-white jury, some of whom had contact with
the victim's family during the trial. He had an incompetent lawyer who
was later suspended, and a questionable indictment that outlined
several different theories about the murders. I said to Hasan that some
people, even black folks, still believe in the inherent goodness of the
system, that there are some glitches but once those get cleared up, it
will be back on track. He snorted and said, "That's where we go wrong,
believing that simple shit. The system is on track ... it's on track to
ride over us."
But
there is still reason for hope. Hasan had an execution date scheduled
for April 27, the day before his 29th birthday. Three days before, the
courts gave him a stay. The prison shut down his visiting the minute
the paperwork was filed, so I didn't get to see him on that trip. This
is our first time meeting face to face, even though we have organized
and worked together for years. Also, another brotha was released from
death row last week; a new trial won him a different sentence, and
since he'd already spent 20 years on the row, they let him go. Debbie
said, "Of course they got tight restrictions on him, he can do nothing,
can't use the computer, can't leave the house, can't drink ... but
shit, at least he's home."
But
this is Texas, after all, and hope does not grow well in this soil.
When it manages to take root, it is promptly stomped back down. "Our
people don't prepare for the future, you know?" Hasan says, scowling.
The shatterproof glass between us reflects the light from the vending
machines behind the cages, and it looks like Pepsi is written sliding
down Hasan's face like tears, cracked right down the middle. "It took
us damn near thirty years to recover after we lost Malcolm. We have to
set it up so that things will continue even if they take us out, cause
you know that's what they're going to do. Wa Wa, just wait, just wait
until you see some of the things I'm going to do. Watch what I'm going
to do," he says, smile showing the nine-year-old face I saw on the
internet, little 80s afro and solemn eyes. "Whether they murder me or
not on Friday, I'm telling you, watch what Ima do, the ancestors are
gonna be proud."
--------
*
<http://www.hasanshakur.com/>
* Office of Texas Governor Perry:
phone: (512) 463-1782 / fax: (512) 463-1849
