Post by Books for prisoners on Nov 22, 2005 8:12:21 GMT -5
11/22/05
Dear friends,
long-time political prisoner Richard Williams is in failing health.
From a letter from Sonja, a friend and supporter:
Richard is off all treatment. 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
Richard Williams # 10377-016 Federal Medical Center PO Box 1600 Old
North Carolina Hwy 75 Butner, NC 27509-1600
Richard Williams in his own words 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.
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 something so 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.
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.
I went underground to join the armed clandestine movement in 1981 and was captured in Cleveland on November 4th, 1984, my 37th birthday. 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.
I welcome correspondence from anyone who would like to write.
Long Live Revolutionary Resistance to Imperialism and Capitalism!
Dear friends,
long-time political prisoner Richard Williams is in failing health.
From a letter from Sonja, a friend and supporter:
Richard is off all treatment. 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
Richard Williams # 10377-016 Federal Medical Center PO Box 1600 Old
North Carolina Hwy 75 Butner, NC 27509-1600
Richard Williams in his own words 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.
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 something so 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.
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.
I went underground to join the armed clandestine movement in 1981 and was captured in Cleveland on November 4th, 1984, my 37th birthday. 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.
I welcome correspondence from anyone who would like to write.
Long Live Revolutionary Resistance to Imperialism and Capitalism!