Earlier this month, the San Jose Peace And Justice Center hosted the Free ALL Political Prisoners! Benefit and fundraiser for attorney and recently-released political prisoner Lynne Stewart, who is currently battling breast cancer. A number well-known speakers and activists attended the event to show their solidarity with Stewart and political prisoners around the world, including Ramona Africa, Jeff Mackler, and Karen Lee Wald. The San Jose Peace And Justice Center is proud to share the following clips from the event, where these respected and venerable freedom fighters share their stories, their struggles, and their support for the rights of all.
"I want us all to really savor this rare moment of victory, because we don't get a lot of victories these days,” began Lynne Stewart with a wry grin. “This was truly a people's victory.”
While her story may not contain the mythic dimensions of someone like Mumia Abu-Jamal or Leonard Peltier, Lynne Stewart's accomplishments merit enormous dignity and praise. A true defender of the underdog, Stewart has been representing the dispossessed and the disenfranchised for decades now, at the forefront of nearly every major American social justice movement. While her unwavering commitment to justice may be thing that landed her in prison, it's also been the rallying point around which her freedom was achieved. Now that she's been released from prison, and despite her struggles with breast cancer, she shows no signs of slowing down. “I am going to keep on fighting for the rights of people to come home to their families the way I came home to mine,” she proudly stated at one point, to resounding applause.
“I can say there's not one person I met in prison that wasn't there because of something other than economic circumstance, or by forces in their lives that made them into a criminal,” she continued. “They were there, forced by a relentless, heartless society, a 99% and a 1%, that actually put them in prison. And maybe everybody doesn't go to prison, but far too many do, and far too many don't need to be there.” She went on to say that these disparities are most keenly felt by prisoners with families, and to condemn the double standards that protect and insulate our society's elites. “A woman with four or five children who goes to jail because she worked for one of those bogus income tax places...they needed the money, they needed it for their kids. And maybe that doesn't justify everything, but I don't know why it should justify everything for guys who pollute our skies, for guys that kill our land, and not for poor women who are on the street and desperate to have enough money to take care of their children.”