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In Memory of G. Ji Jaga
Some say they, "can't get no satisfaction", and sing a sad song
over trifles.
I too have grieved over trifles,
Yet though I am sad, I have some satisfaction
For I think vindication is precious,
And he was vindicated a decade and a half before he returned to our faith
filled ancestors.
I have some satisfaction,
For I witnessed an adamantine integrity,
(yes adamantine means diamond-like, hard, bright, unbreakable),
Set in a sterling character that valued humanity more than diamonds and gold.
Every effort to Free Geronimo was justified and rewarded by his conduct;
Everyone who joined the struggle to Free All Political Prisoners was renewed
and refreshed by his commitment to humanity and clean water,
Every where he went he left evidence of compassion and good deeds.
So, although I'm sad, I have some satisfaction,
Geronimo is free!
To
see my latest creations go to http://www.sistersheba.etsy.com
Thanks and God Bless!
Greeting Comrades,
When i received the news yesterday, about yet another, I was in
that poetic mode from having just returned from burying the dead and a visit
with the darn near dead, so I composed something else very similar to the one
forwarded in this email: It seem that we now have evolved to that place where
death is a common place,we are now more than our parents's keepers, we are
our parents. Our ancestors have treaded these grounds, and so we salute them
and ask them to receive our brother our comrade, our beloved commander,
"G". If any of you feel so moved, I would like that you help me
call their name by adding to this, help me make this a collective
..."Litany to Fallen Comrades. "
They are falling all around us
and we call their name
the list continues to grow with names
of the recent and the long bygones..and here
Today, here in the Sippi we laid to rest yet another
homegrown brother from the hood....
Must be our season to bear witness to the invitable unveiling
Re: Our Fallen Comrade..........
They are falling all around us;
having treaded those hallowed grounds of our ancestors,
those great heros and sheroes of our glorious past,
we seem to come more rapid to joining them in the after
life;
casting yet another bright star for a young generation,
leaving behind a burning torch for a young
generation to carry it on
carry it on, til victory is won.
Lift every voice and sing to THE SPIRIT OF
GERONIMO "ji Jaga" PRATT
Let our rejoicing rise let our heart feel THE PRIDE OF THE
PANTHER!!!!
Rest in Peace Our Brother, Our Mentor, Our Comrade
Sistah, Frankye (aka/Malika)
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My friend G passed away about 8 hours ago..........after his
lady called me at 1:30am, I rushed to his shamba and into his
bedroom and I found him laying there with a near smile on his face
as if he was aware of something we were not.
I cannot believe this!!!!!
Sunday we hung out after having a great lunch........and
today I send him to a mortuary!!
I have lost a dear friend and progressive forces have lost a
true revolutionary!.............Long live Geronimo!!!!
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Candlelight Vigil Set for Elmer ‘Geronimo’ Pratt in LA’s
Leimert Park
What: Candlelight Vigil in memory of Elmer “Geronimo” Pratt
When: June 3rd 2011
Time: 6:00 pm
Where: Leimert Park 3415. W.43rd place Los Angeles CA. 90043
Contact Najee Ali 323 275 8219
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Black Panther
Leader Geronimo Pratt Dies In Tanzania
 LOS ANGELES
— Elmer “Geronimo” Pratt, a former Black Panther Party leader who spent
27 years in prison on a murder conviction that was later overturned, has
died. He was 63.
Pratt died at his home in a small village in Tanzania, where he
had lived for at least half a decade, lawyer Stuart Hanlon, who helped Pratt
win his freedom, told The Associated Press from San Francisco on Thursday.
Hanlon said he learned of Pratt’s death through the former
activist’s family members. He did not know what caused Pratt’s death, but
said he had suffered from high blood pressure.
Hanlon said Pratt refused to carry any resentment about his
treatment by the legal system.
“He had no anger, he had no bitterness, he had no desire for
revenge. He wanted to resume his life and have children,” he said. “He
would never look back.”
The Los Angeles Times, which first reported Pratt’s death,
quoted a family member as saying he died Thursday.
Pratt was convicted in 1972 of being one of two men who robbed
and fatally shot schoolteacher Caroline Olsen on a Santa Monica tennis court
in December 1968. No one else was arrested.
Pratt claimed he was in Oakland for Black Panther meetings the
day of the murder, and that FBI agents and police hid and possibly destroyed
wiretap evidence that would prove it.
His lawyers, who included high-profile defense attorney Johnnie
Cochran, blamed his arrest on a politically charged campaign by J. Edgar
Hoover’s FBI against the Black Panthers and other perceived enemies of the
U.S. government.
Pratt’s belated reversal of fortune came with the disclosure
that a key prosecution witness hid the fact he was an ex-felon and a police
informant.
Superior Court Judge Everett Dickey granted him a new trial in
June 1997, saying the credibility of prosecution witness Julius Butler —
who testified that Pratt had confessed to him — could have been undermined
if the jury had known of his relationship with law enforcement. He was freed
later that month.
Cochran, best known representing such clients as O.J. Simpson
and Michael Jackson, called the day Pratt’s freedom was secured “the
happiest day of my life practicing law.”
Prosecutors announced two years after the conviction was
overturned that they would abandon efforts to retry him.
“I feel relieved that the L.A. DA’s office has finally come
to their senses in this respect,” Pratt said at the time. “But, I am not
relieved in that they did not come clean all the way in exposing their
complicity with this frame-up, this 27-year trauma.”
He settled a false imprisonment and civil rights lawsuit against
the FBI and city of Los Angeles for $4.5 million in 2000
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