Partisan Defense Committee

Last updated
Partisan Defense Committee
Location
Website http://www.partisandefense.org/

The Partisan Defense Committee describes itself as "a class-struggle, non-sectarian legal and social defense organization that champions cases and causes in the interests of the whole of the working people." The PDC works in accordance with the political orientation of the Spartacist League. The committee organizes demonstrations and performs legal work in defense of "class struggle" prisoners. Its longest standing campaign has been in defense of Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Contents

It has also organized counterdemonstrations in response to rallies planned by the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacists. [1] [2]

Campaigns

The PDC describes the following 15 people as "class-war prisoners" and provides small stipends to them: [3]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mumia Abu-Jamal</span> American political activist and journalist convicted of the murder of a police officer

Mumia Abu-Jamal is an American political activist and journalist who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1982 for the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. While on death row, he has written and commented on the criminal justice system in the United States. After numerous appeals, his death penalty sentence was overturned by a federal court. In 2011, the prosecution agreed to a sentence of life imprisonment without parole. He entered the general prison population early the following year.

Live from Death Row, published in May 1995, is a memoir by Mumia Abu-Jamal, an American journalist and activist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is known for having been convicted of the murder of a city police officer and sentenced to death in 1982, in a trial that Amnesty International suspected of lacking impartiality. Abu-Jamal wrote this book while on death row. He has always maintained his innocence. Publishers Addison-Wesley paid Abu-Jamal a $30,000 advance for the book.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">C. Clark Kissinger</span>

C. Clark Kissinger was the National Secretary of Students for a Democratic Society in 1964–1965. He visited the People's Republic of China twice during the Cultural Revolution, and is a devoted Maoist. His writings frequently appear in Revolution, journal of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. He was an activist for Refuse and Resist and Not in Our Name, and is an activist for World Can't Wait.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Africa</span> American civil rights activist (1931–1985)

John Africa, born Vincent Leaphart, was the founder of MOVE, a Philadelphia-based, predominantly black organization active from the early 1970s and still active. He and his followers were killed at a residential home, which served as the headquarters of MOVE, in a fire after the Philadelphia Police Department bombed the house with C4-explosive, and deliberately let the fire rage until it was out of control following a standoff and firefight between MOVE and police.

Refuse & Resist! ("R&R!") was a human rights activist group founded in New York City in 1987 by Emile de Antonio, Dore Ashton, Dennis Brutus, John Gerassi, Abbie Hoffman, William Kunstler, C. Clark Kissinger, Conrad Lynn, Sonia Sanchez, Rev. Fernando Santillana, and other activists who were concerned that the American government, epitomized by U.S. President Ronald Reagan, advocated a far right-wing political program directed against the political rights of its people. Artist Keith Haring created R&R!'s logo in 1988. The organization's national office was located in New York City, with chapters at various times in Atlanta, Georgia; Chicago, Illinois; Honolulu, Hawaii; Los Angeles, California; Miami, Florida; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Cleveland, Ohio; New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area. The organization officially dissolved in 2006. At that time, the national office closed, and the organization's files transferred to the Tamiment Library at New York University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leonard Weinglass</span> American criminal defense attorney and constitutional law advocate

Leonard Irving Weinglass was a U.S. criminal defense lawyer and constitutional law advocate, best known for his defense of participants in the 1960s counterculture. He was admitted to the bar in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and California. He taught criminal trial advocacy at the University of Southern California Law School from 1974 to 1976, and at the Peoples College of Law, in Los Angeles, California from 1974 to 1975.

Prison Radio is a San Francisco-based radio and activist project that produces the commentaries of several prisoners considered to be political prisoners, most notably Mumia Abu-Jamal. Multiple radio stations across the United States broadcast these commentaries. The project's political aims include analyzing the prison-industrial complex and attempting to present a more humanistic view of prisoners to the public.

Arnold Beverly is a Philadelphia man who rose to prominence during the legal appeals following the 1982 trial of Mumia Abu-Jamal. In 1999, Beverly signed an affidavit confessing to the murder of police officer Daniel Faulkner. Beverly swore that while acting as a hitman for the mob hired by corrupt Philadelphia police officers, he, not Abu-Jamal, killed officer Faulkner.

The John Brown Anti-Klan Committee (JBAKC) was an anti-racist organization based in the United States. The group protested against the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and other white supremacist organizations and published anti-racist literature. Members of the JBAKC were involved in a string of bombings of military, government, and corporate targets in the 1980s. The JBAKC viewed themselves as anti-imperialists and considered African Americans, Native Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Mexicans to be oppressed colonial peoples.

<i>Commonwealth v. Abu-Jamal</i> 1982 murder trial in Pennsylvania

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Mumia Abu-Jamal was a 1982 murder trial in which Mumia Abu-Jamal was tried for the first-degree murder of police officer Daniel Faulkner. A jury convicted Abu-Jamal on all counts and sentenced him to death.

Tigre Hill is a filmmaker known for tackling controversial subjects. He is perhaps best known for his first documentary, The Shame of a City.

Prison Legal News (PLN) is a monthly American magazine and online periodical published since May 1990. It primarily reports on criminal justice issues and prison and jail-related civil litigation, mainly in the United States. It is a project of the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

A polarizing figure, Mumia Abu-Jamal has attracted widespread attention in popular culture. Since at least 1995, there are examples of references to him in notable popular music recordings and musical performances. He and his case have been the subject of three documentary films and a shorter 20/20 television special which aired shortly after the 27th anniversary of his apprehension.

Mae Mallory was an activist of the Civil Rights Movement and a Black Power movement leader active in the 1950s and 1960s. She is best known as an advocate of school desegregation and of black armed self-defense.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Racial bias in criminal news in the United States</span>

Racial biases are a form of implicit bias, which refers to the attitudes or stereotypes that affect an individual's understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner. These biases, which encompass unfavorable assessments, are often activated involuntarily and without the awareness or intentional control of the individual. Residing deep in the subconscious, these biases are different from known biases that individuals may choose to conceal for the purposes of social and/or political correctness. Police officers have implicit bias, regardless of their ethnicity. Racial bias in criminal news reporting in the United States is a manifestation of this bias.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vicki Garvin</span> American activist (1915–2007)

Victoria Garvin was an American political activist, Pan-Africanist, and self-described "working class internationalist." While growing up in a working-class family during the height of the Great Depression, Garvin was exposed early on to the realities of both proletariat and racial exploitation. Garvin became a prominent organizer in the Black Left during the height of McCarthyism, before traveling to Nigeria, Ghana, and China. In Ghana, Garvin was a member of a committee who received Malcolm X and created his itinerary, since Garvin had previously met him in Harlem. As a lifelong activist and radical intellectual, Garvin created direct links between Black Power politics, Pan-Africanism, and Third World liberation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Traditionalist Worker Party</span> Defunct neo-Nazi and white nationalist American political party

The Traditionalist Worker Party (TWP) was a far-right neo-Nazi political party active in the United States between 2013 and 2018, affiliated with the broader "alt-right" movement that became active within the U.S. during the 2010s. It was considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center's list.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Redneck Revolt</span> American far-left political group

Redneck Revolt is an American far-left socialist political group that organizes predominantly among white working-class people. The group supports gun rights and members often openly carry firearms. Its political positions are anti-capitalist, anti-racist and anti-fascist. Founded in Kansas in 2009, members were present at several protests against Donald Trump and against the far-right in 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Safiya Bukhari</span>

Safiya Bukhari was an American member of the Black Panther Party. She was also the co-founder of the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC), the Jericho Movement for U.S. Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War, and was the vice president of the Republic of New Afrika.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Political prisoners in the United States</span>

Throughout its history and into the present, the United States has held political prisoners, people whose detention is based substantially on political motives. Prominent U.S. political prisoners have included anti-war socialists, civil rights movement activists, conscientious objectors, and War on Terrorism detainees.

References

  1. Kunerth, Jeff (January 22, 1989). "March Sets Off Protest In Atlanta. A Few White Supremacists Draw About 1,000 Opponents". Orlando Sentinel - Orlando, Fla. p. A.11. Retrieved 2009-11-05.
  2. "Snow Muffles Threat of Rally Violence // Protest Crowd Estimated at 300 to 350". The Pantagraph - Bloomington, Illinois. January 17, 1994. Retrieved 2009-11-05.
  3. Stipends to Class-War Prisoners—Revival of the ILD Tradition