We have a number of brothers left in the prisons, about 15 of them. And for the most part, they're in bad condition. Most of us are getting older, you know. I believe all of them is 60 years or older. They've been in prison for long periods of time. Many of them should have never been in prison at all. They were framed and illegally convicted.
I'm proud to be associated with the liberation of Assata Shakur.
People don't even know that we have political prisoners.
The same things that we hurray and support in other places, like people like Nelson Mandela, our prisoners were doing the same thing, and they were captured and convicted of the same things. And we should remember them and treat them like the heroes they are.
What kind of motivated me to join the Black Panther Party was that I, along with some of the comrades that I was working with in New York, had heard about the Black Panther Party, and they were doing things that we wanted to do in New York, and we thought that would be a better vehicle than the vehicle that we had going on in New York. They were better organized, and they already had their Ten-Point Platform and Program, and people already heard about them. So we decided that we would join the party, when given a chance.
This country maintains that there is no political prisoners, that everybody is criminals, but it's just not true.
I had been attracted by Malcolm X when he was still a member of the Nation of Islam.
I'm sure that those - well, I know for a fact that the prisoners, the political prisoners in the federal system, is asking [Barack Obama] for clemency or for some kind of release.
