Speaking for Inmates
At the hearings, family representatives are called upon to inform the board of how the inmate has changed since going to prison. Before each hearing on july 26, Cliff Walker, a member of the special board, asked the people there on behalf of inmates to talk about whether they are now ready to be responsible citizens.
Wiley, who compiled reports on inmates for the board to review, said parole officers ask inmates if they have a statement to make before the board that they can include in the file. Inmates usually just ask that the board is informed of whatever programs they’ve completed, Wiley said.
Riendeau, however, said his parole officer didn’t ask him for his comments. Like many other prisoners, he said, he sent the board a letter in the mail. He said prisoners send letters to board members all the time, though they don’t know if the board members read them.
Don McGriff, a member of the special board, said the board often receives letters from prisoners. He said they are placed in the prisoner’s file with the report.
McGriff said he doesn’t feel as if board members get second-hand information about a prisoner. He said the parole officers’ reports are comprehensive, and family members provide context at the hearings. “Through that, he’s represented,†McGriff said.
Besides, he said, an inmate’s presence at any given hearing would not be likely to affect the ultimate decision.
The three members who make up the original parole board, Sidney Williams, Nancy McCreary and VeLinda Weatherly, declined to be interviewed for this report.
I'd like to meet:
SEKOU CINQUE T.M. KAMBUI (s/n William J. Turk is a New Afrikan political prisoner currently serving two consecutive life sentences for crimes he did not commit. Sekou has already spent more than 29 years of his life behind bars on trumped up charges of murdering two white men in Alabama in 1975.
Throughout the 1960s, Sekou participated in the Civil Rights movement, organizing youth for participating in demonstrations and marches across Alabama and providing security for meetings of the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC), Congress for Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
On January 2, 1975, Sekou was captured in North Birmingham for allegedly running a yield sign and/or speeding. During this stop, a 9mm pistol was found in the car lying between the front seats. Subsequent investigation by police on the scene discovered that the pistol was listed as stolen during a Tuscaloosa, AL murder. A wide-range investigation followed, which included inquiries into his personal relationship with a white woman. At one point during the investigation, Sekou was told by one of the investigators, "We don't really give a damn whether you committed these crimes or not, but you should have because we are gonna hang your ass with them anyway…" Sekou was falsely arrested and charged with the murders of two white men: a KKK official from Tuscaloosa and a multi-millionaire oilman from Birmingham.
Books:
"The cold within"
By- James Patrick Kenny, S.J.-
Six humans trapped by happenstance,
In black and bittercold,
Each one possessed a stick of wood,
Or so the story's told,he
Their dying fire in need of logs.
The first man held his back,
For on the faces around the fire,
He noticed one was black.
The next man looking across the way,
Saw one not of his church,
And couldn't bring himself to give
The fire his stick of birch.
The third man sat in tattered rags.
He gave his coat a hitch.
Why should his log be put to use
To warm the idle rich?
The rich man just sat back thought,
Of the wealth he had in store.
And how to keep what he had earned
From the lazy shiftless poor.
The black man's face bespoke revenge,
As the fire passed from his sight,
For all he saw in his stick of wood
Was a chance to spite the white.
The last man of this forlorn group
Did naught except for gain,
Giving only to those who gave
Was how he played the game.
Their logs held tight in death's still hand,
Have proof of Human sin.
They didn't die from the cold without,
They died from the cold within.
