October 4, 2013

Photo of Herman Wallace, courtesy of Ann Harkness,

In the 1970s a bullet was sent to kill Herman Wallace while in prison for his political activities as a Black Panther. This was special bullet. It wasn’t cased in metal with gun powder. It was of a different kind. It was a bullet named solitary confinement. Like all bullets it came fast and unexpectedly. It came to silence. To stop. Its effects are the same as the other type of bullet. Silence and death. In these no one can talk. No one can hear the rage, the resistance the love for better humanity. This bullet would stop that.

This bullet came from a gun shaped like the prison system. The prison gun with its shining cold steel, its levers and site aimed on punishment and retribution. Its intent–to silence. This gun in Louisiana was aimed directly at Herman Wallace, Albert Woodfox, Robert King, Zulu and any like them for resisting the their systems, their exploitations, their degradation and their other guns. This kind of gun is everywhere in prisons all over. Its coldness, its steel, its trigger is waiting to be pulled. To silence those who refuse.

“This bullet came from a gun shaped like the prison system. The prison gun with its shining cold steel, its levers and site aimed on punishment and retribution. Its intent–to silence. ”

The trigger of this gun was pulled by those who assume to hold Power. In this case the petty politicians, redundant bureaucracies and corrupt administrations all within the so called justice systems. If there was to be blood it had their fingerprints all over the gun. Remember prisons don’t kill people. People kill people. Those who held this gun have names.

Power aimed their sites and fired this gun. Thinking it would be into silence and into quiet he would go. Herman deflected it. They all deflected it. Power fired again. And again it was deflected. He would not be silenced. He would not lie down and die in solitary confinement. He fought back. They all fought back. For over 40 years he fought back until he was free. Until he got his just freedom. The gun, the bullet and those who tried to silence him could not.

We, all of us inside and out, must continue to smash the guns called prisons, smash these bullets called solitary confinement and smash Power whose corrupt politicians, bureaucracies and administrations have blood on their hands.

Until we are all free.