I spoke to Jamie and Gladys Scott today at a press conferences in Jackson, Mississippi at the state NAACP HQ. The two sisters were freed last week after 17 years in prison for being alleged accomplices to an $11 armed robbery in 1993. I spoke at a protest against their imprisonment and wrote about it here.
More below the fold on how Jamie and Gladys are reacting to their freedom.
At the Masonic Temple on Lynch Street in West Jackson, just one floor below the state NAACP office where Medgar Evers headed up the fight for civil rights in the South, an excited crowd gathered. All of the big national media outlets were there; ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN. The local folks like me were there, too. All around us were Nation of Islam security guards; big black guys in black t-shirts wearing big gold chains shaped like Africa stood around menacingly, their burly arms folded across their expansive chests, sporting hats with red, yellow and green stripes.
Just a little after 2, there was commotion in the back of the room; all of the folks on press row looked back to see an entourage of security, press and VIPs walking toward the front of the room. Jamie and Gladys Scott walked with Ben Jealous, national president of the NAACP, and Jackson City Councilman Chokwe Lumumba, their attorney.
Jamie and Gladys were dressed in their Sunday best, probably a very foreign feeling to them after being clad in prison orange for 17 years. They sat solemnly at the card table that had been set up onstage for them next to the podium. They couldn't do one-on-one interviews because Jamie had a scheduled doctor's appointment; her kidney failed while she was in prison, and they were released on the condition that Gladys donated one of her kidneys to her sister. Someone asked Gladys about that precondition for release. She responded, "I would have given up a kidney for my sister even if I had to do it in jail." The two didn't know of their release from the Central Mississippi Correctional Complex in Rankin County until they saw it on TV just last week. Chokwe Lumumba called them and told them they were free. Jamie described the phone call:
"You mean we're free?!?"
"Yes sister, you're free."
"Oh...say that again."
"You're free, sister."
Jamie said she was "screamin' and hollerin'" after that phone call. And that she's still screaming and hollering to this day. She thanked everyone in the movement who came together to spread the word about their injustice, and even Gov. Barbour for releasing her and her sister. She answered a reporter's question about any bitterness she still possibly held.
"I'm not bitter, I'm just thankful that we're free."
The Scott Sisters were imprisoned in 1993 for allegedly stealing $11. So the story goes, they were driving two other men to an undisclosed location in the woods, where the two young men pulled a gun on two victims, where any amount between $11 and $200 was given up at gunpoint. The two men who actually did the robbery gave up the identities of their alleged accomplices in their plea agreement, and have been walking free for years. Because armed robbery in Mississippi has a maximum penalty of life in prison, and very likely because Jamie and Gladys were two black women in Mississippi, they were each sentenced to life in prison. The two had never once committed any prior crimes.
That's Jamie Scott, speaking to reporters with tears in her eyes. She and her sister had each left behind family while serving their time, including three infant children who are now fully-grown adults. She says that she and her sister plan on going to Pensacola to spread their story and to also share the stories of women they met in prison, who they say are also serving time for crimes they didn't commit. And unlike Jamie and Gladys, these women never had thousands of people marching in the streets to be their voice.
Today was a victory for Jamie and Gladys Scott, but it was also a victory for grassroots organizing and the shared passion of thousands of committed individuals who believed in justice. I know we're all outgunned by the right; they have two oil billionaires in Edward and Charles Koch to fund every astroturf group that buses them out to protest their own economic self-interests, a corporate-dominated SCOTUS that lets those same right-wing oligarchs undermine Democracy and buy elections, not to mention their own media network to spout their propaganda 24/7.
But we have Truth, Justice, and Democracy on our side. We have history on our side. As much as the right may try to fight the eternal forward flow of progression in society, eventually, progression always overcomes the outdated and irrelevant status quo. Jamie and Gladys are walking free today because for 17 years, people back home never stopped fighting for them, refused to give up, refused to stand down.
I asked Jamie and Gladys about their initial reaction to Gov. Barbour releasing them, not pardoning them, because they were "no longer a threat to society." They were both teary-eyed and silent for a moment. Chokwe Lumumba took the mic and said, "We're of the opinion that they were never a threat to society in the first place."
Well said, Chokwe. And enjoy your freedom, Jamie and Gladys.