At 84 years old, Sundiata Acoli has been in prison for 48 years, and has been denied parole six times. Last December, he was diagnosed with COVID-19. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, Rev. Lukata Mjumbe of the Sundiata Acoli Freedom Campaign joins Eddie Conway to discuss Acoli’s life as an organizer, mathematician, artist, and poet; the push by his friends and family, along with faith leaders, to secure his release; and the challenges aging prisoners face to their health and well-being.
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bro. Eddie…would love to have u on a Radio Show I am affiliated with. Yall knocked it out of the park. Model effort…#BringSundiataHome! All power! babazayid@gmail.com...Zayid Muhammad
EXCELLENT interview and clearly very important. Sundiata was charged with committing a state crime and the court of N.J. eventually agreed to parole, but the hellbent federal govt decided to override the legitimate state court and moved Sundiata to federal prisons. One thing I wonder about is how guilty was Sundiata in the killing of the N.J. state trooper, for what's said in the Wikipedia page about him isn't clear enough, for me, in this regard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundiata_Acoli#New_Jersey_Turnpike_shooting Skipping the brief intro. and only quoting from the part about the fatal shooting of the N.J. trooper: " In May 1973, while driving the New Jersey Turnpike, his car was stopped by N.J. state troopers. Zayd Malik Shakur was killed and Assata Shakur was wounded and captured. One state trooper, 34-year-old Werner Foerster, was killed and another wounded. Sundiata was captured days later. He was convicted of the death of the state trooper and was sentenced to New Jersey State Prison (NJSP) for life plus 30 years consecutive.[8] ". SO, HE WAS convicted for the killing of the trooper, but the name "Assata Shakur" is linked and some text is popped up, saying that she was member of the BLA and that she fatally shot the trooper. However, that's just short text and using the link to go to the full page tells a different story, yet this still remains somewhat confusing to me.
Thank you so much for this video. This brings to mind another political prisoner, Leonard Peltier, also framed for killing two FBI agents caught in crossfire at Wounded Knee.
Prayers for Sundiata and for his freedom. Much love to him and his family.
4:20 minutes in to this and I don't know why he was in prison.
Just saying.