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<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2>Please note the corrected address
for Richard!<br><br>
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Dear friends, <br>
long-time political prisoner Richard Williams is in failing health. From
a letter from Sonja, a friend and supporter:<br><br>
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<dd>Richard </font><font face="arial" size=2>is off all treatment.
<dd>His doctors have told him he has a matter of weeks to live. His son
Netdahe is trying to arrange to be with him in his last hours, and he is
basically saying goodbye to folks. What he needs right away would be
cards and letters from folks....he cant do anything but lay in bed,
and it would mean a lot to him to know he's not forgotten. But the
letters need to come soon as he has very little coherent time left and he
is in a lot of pain and on an increasing amount of pain meds. He has had
Hep C for a long time, but he has a number of other complications that
surfaced after his cancer treatment last year ( possibly in part because
of the treatment) Richard still has his great story telling
abilities and humor intact........love to all
sonja</font><font face="arial" size=3> <br><br>
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<dd><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3>Richard Williams # 10377-016
<dd>Federal Medical Center
<dd>PO Box 1600
<dd>Old North Carolina Hwy 75
<dd>Butner, NC 27509-1600<br>
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</dl><h2><b><a name="about"></a>Richard Williams in his own
words</b></h2>
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<dd><font size=3>I am a single father and grandfather. I was born on
November 4, 1947, in Beverly, Massachusetts, which is a small coastal
city 25 miles north of Boston. My mother was a factory worker and
seamstress and my father was a machine operator. I have one sister
younger than me by six years. Just when the draft was getting heavy for
Vietnam I turned 18 years old and promptly received my notice. Like most
working class kids, white or Black, there was no easy way out of it.
Either get drafted, join, or hide. I chose not to go. At 20 years old I
was arrested for having marijuana, which in Massachusetts was a felony.
Given the choice of six months in jail or joining the army, I went to
jail in 1967 and became ineligible for the draft. <br>
<dd>I continued to have brushes with the law when in 1971 I was arrested
for robbery in New Hampshire and received a seven-to-15-year sentence. I
was 23 and faced five solid years in jail, at the least. I ealized at
that time that I was going nowhere fast, that I needed to change
somethingso I started with myself. I became involved with trying to
better the prison conditions I was in, which were deplorable. It was
1971, the year George Jackson was murdered, the year of the Attica
Rebellion. There was unrest in most prisons, because overall the prisons
were brutal and inhumane. I was elected chairperson of the New England
Prisoner Association. Inside, I met with legislators, and participated in
food and work strikes and protests for better conditions. I read a lot of
history and worked in political study groups. I was locked up, beaten,
and shipped out for my activities. I learned through study and my efforts
that the struggle was much larger than my then surroundings. I became a
communist. <br>
<dd>Upon my release I worked briefly with the Prairie Fire Organizing
Committee. I went to work for the New England Free Pressa radical,
collective print shopfor almost 2 years. Along with Barbara, Jaan, and
Kazi, I was part of The Amandla Concert in Harvard Stadium in 1979.
Featuring Bob Marley, Amandla was a benefit concert to provide aid to
liberation forces in Southern Africa. My role was as part of a People’s
Security Force which provided security for the concert. We also did
security work for the communitysuch as house sitting with people who
were under attack by racists. We went to Greensboro, North Carolina in
1979 to protest the killings of SWP (Socialist Workers Party) members by
the KKK. <br><br>
<dd>I went underground to join the armed clandestine movement in 1981 and
was captured in Cleveland on November 4th, 1984, my 37th birthday. <br>
<dd>I was convicted for five of the United Freedom Front (UFF) bombings
in 1986 in Brooklyn Federal Court. In 1987 I got a hung jury at the
Somerville, N.J. trial in the death of a state trooper during a shoot-out
with Tom Manning. Next I went through a two-year long trial in
Springfield, Mass., along with Pat and Ray Levasseur, in 1988 and 1989
for seditious conspiracy and RICO. The jury refused to convict us. In
December 1991, I was convicted of killing state trooper Lomonco in 1981
after my second trial on these charges in Somerville, N.J. I am to serve
45 years for the UFF actions when I finish serving my N.J. sentence of 35
years to life. As with all dedicated revolutionaries the government has
caught they have tried to bury my body away in prison, while being unable
to crush my spirit. <br>
<dd>I welcome correspondence from anyone who would like to write.
<br><br>
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<dd>Long Live Revolutionary Resistance to Imperialism and Capitalism!
<br>
<br>
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</dl><font size=3 color="#FF0000">The Freedom Archives<br>
522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br>
(415) 863-9977<br>
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