[Ppnews] Political Prisoner - Eddie Conway's Story

Wed Apr 27 11:56:42 EDT 2011

http://www.counterpunch.org/jacobs04272011.html

April 27, 2011

Eddie Conway's Story

A Doomed Man?

By RON JACOBS

"The first lesson a revolutionary must learn is that he is a doomed man."

--Huey Newton

For as long as I can remember, Baltimore has had the reputation as a 
corrupt and tough town. City Hall is known as a cashbox for the 
thieves that run it.  The cops are no-nonsense and care little about 
the Bill of Rights, especially when dealing with the city's poor and 
non-white residents.  Neighborhoods are closed societies that one is 
hesitant to walk through unless he is a resident.  The demarcations 
between the wealthy and poorer neighborhoods are enforced, often 
quite forcefully, by the police.  When I worked at an IHOP in the 
mid-1970s about twenty miles outside of Baltimore I would 
occasionally end up in a certain after hours club in one of the 
city's rougher sections.  I was often the only white male in the 
room, although there were often several white women.  The guys I was 
hanging with made sure that nobody screwed with me, but my safety (or 
anyone else's) was never guaranteed.  There was a fellow I drank with 
there who I used to talk politics with.  He claimed to be a former 
member of the Baltimore Black Panthers and talked a lot about Panther 
member Marshall Eddie Conway,  who had been in prison since 1970 on a 
very questionable conviction.

It was with this memory in mind that I recently read 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1849350221/counterpunchmaga>Marshall 
Law: The Life and Times of a Baltimore Black Panther.  This memoir 
describes Conway's early life in Baltimore, his introduction to the 
Black Panthers, his eventual arrest and conviction for murder, and 
his life in prison since then.  The details of the case, like so many 
cases against Black Panthers, are sketchy and based on the testimony 
of an informant who was only brought in when the prosecutor saw how 
weak the case against Conway was.  In fact, Conway's arrest was the 
result of a tip from an informant who was never identified and whose 
existence has never been verified.  At the time of his arrest Conway 
was working at the US Post Office.  The Baltimore chapter of the 
Panthers had already been the target of intense law enforcement 
surveillance and infiltration under the aegis of the COINTELPRO 
program.  A show trial based on the indictments drawn up from this 
surveillance resulted in no convictions and the dismissal of the 
charges.  During Conway's trial for murder, no physical evidence was 
ever presented that linked him to the crime scene.  Police officers 
at the scene could not positively identify Conway and he was denied 
representation by a lawyer of his choice.  The prosecution relied 
primarily on a supposed jailhouse confession that Conway claims did 
not occur.  He maintains his innocence to this day.

There is another aspect to this story.  It is Conway's commitment to 
revolutionary struggle, self improvement and the betterment of others 
whose lives and circumstances have brought them to prison.  Unlike so 
many Americans, Conway has always opposed drugs, in large part 
because they destroy communities and lives. His politics have enabled 
him to stay free of drugs and the associated business.  This story of 
a young black man railroaded into prison because of his race and 
politics does not end with that sentence.  The reader is presented 
with Conway's life inside the Maryland prison system.  Lockdowns, 
fires, riots and the daily grind of so much of one's physical 
activity being controlled by others.  While reading Marshall Law I 
was constantly reminded of Bob Dylan's lines from the ballad "George 
Jackson": "Sometimes I think that this world/Is one big prison 
yard./Some of us are prisoners and some of us are guards."  As Conway 
learned and explains through his tale, freedom is not only a physical 
concept but also an existential state.

In prose both concise and personal, Eddie Conway's memoir is 
essentially a story about hope.  Here is a man who has been in prison 
for forty years for a crime many people are convinced he did not 
commit, yet he maintains a realistic optimism in his situation and 
that of the world.  The hope he maintains is not one based on some 
pie-in-the-sky scheme.  Instead, it is based on a practical 
understanding of the merits and rewards of political organizing.  As 
Conway tells the reader, those merits are not only seen in the 
programs and other results brought to life by political organizing, 
they are also seen in the personal meaning they give to those doing 
the organizing.  From the Black Panthers community breakfast programs 
he was involved in to the various programs he helped organize in the 
Maryland prison system, Conway proves the values of organizing again and again.

Marshall Eddie Conway remains in prison.  His case is one of many 
that is supported by a number of prisoner support organizations 
including the <http://www.thejerichomovement.com/>Jericho 
Movement.  Many of the prisoners involved are considered political 
prisoners since the circumstances of their arrests and convictions 
are the result of their political activities.  Indeed, some are 
clearly the result of frameups by law enforcement.  Most of these 
prisoners have spent considerably more time in prison than other men 
and women serving time for similar crimes but not known for their 
political convictions.  It is clear from reading Marshall Law: The 
Life and Times of a Baltimore Black Panther that should he achieve 
his freedom, he will not compromise his beliefs to do so.  This may 
be why he remains locked up.

Ron Jacobs is author of 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1859841678/counterpunchmaga>The 
Way the Wind Blew: a History of the Weather Underground and 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0977459098/counterpunchmaga>Short 
Order Frame Up. Jacobs' essay on Big Bill Broonzy is featured in 
CounterPunch's collection on music, art and sex, 
<http://www.easycarts.net/ecarts/CounterPunch/CP_Books.html>Serpents 
in the Garden. His new novel is 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0983206309/counterpunchmaga>The 
Co-Conspirator's Tale. He can be reached at: 
<mailto:rjacobs3625 at charter.net>rjacobs3625 at charter.net

Freedom Archives
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415 863-9977

www.Freedomarchives.org  
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