All justice-loving people should be overjoyed at the news that Ruchell Magee, the world’s longest-held political prisoner, is being released from his imprisonment in California Medical Facility. Magee is an 84-year-old man who has lived a long life in pursuit of justice and the end of white supremacist oppression. He has spent 67 of his 84 years in one prison or another, from Louisiana to various parts of California. Magee has dealt with extreme mistreatment, harassment and abuse from various prison and court authorities from his first arrest in 1955 in Jim Crow Louisiana to his re-capture after the Marin County Courthouse Rebellion in 1970 and more.
The Coalition to Free Ruchell Magee was founded in 2019 with the sole purpose of raising awareness about Ruchell and supporting him in his struggle for freedom. Many organizations including the Party for Socialism and Liberation have demanded freedom for Ruchell Magee across the years, so the coalition was made of both elder activists who fought for Ruchell’s release in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as young activists who were inspired by the more recent upsurges in socialist and Black liberation consciousness.
As a 22-year-old organizer in 2019, this writer got involved in this work through PSL’s commemoration of Black August and through hosting letter-writing sessions for political prisoners. Thus I learned from the struggles of prisoners such as Malcolm X, George Jackson, Jonathan Jackson, Angela Davis, Assata Shakur, L.D. Barkley, W.L. Nolen, Nelson Mandela, Fidel Castro, Vladimir Lenin, Eugene Debs and countless others who dealt with imprisonment because of their political beliefs and actions. Together with other organizers, we decided to make the leap from letter-writing sessions and educational events to creating a coalition that could strategize toward Magee’s release.
On March 17, 2021, Ruchell Magee’s 82nd birthday, the coalition to Free Ruchell Magee went public in two ways: the launch of the coalition website and three rallies across California: Los Angeles, San Rafael, and Sacramento. From there, the work continued: strategy meetings, reaching out to organizations for endorsements, running social media accounts, creating simple ways for people to write to the California Governor and the Los Angeles District Attorney, joining progressive radio and online news interviews, and the day-to-day work of bringing people together and learning about Magee’s case. The coalition had several meetings with the offices of decision makers to explain the case and push for commutation of his sentence.
On July 15, 2021, the parole system unjustly denied Ruchell Magee parole for the 13th time since his first parole suitability hearing in 1981. On December 18, 2021, the coalition held a press conference outside of CNN Los Angeles to mark 40 years of these unjust parole denials and demand that mass media pay attention to the plight of this prisoner and prisoners in general. Speakers at this event included the artist Noname, journalist Abby Martin and leading coalition organizer Harold Welton.
On March 19, 2022, the coalition hosted a monumental virtual rally with speakers including Angela Davis, Eugene Puryear, Jalil Muntaqim, Jonathan Jackson Jr., Fred Hampton Jr., Jared Ball, Robin D.G. Kelly, and more. This was an important stepping stone toward raising awareness and showing the broad set of voices for justice that united for Magee’s cause. Later that year, a billboard was placed in Los Angeles to help raise awareness for masses of people.
For the PSL, the struggles for the release of political prisoners are a vital part of our work. The U.S. government pretends it has no political prisoners and constantly attacks countries like Cuba or China by labeling their prisoners as “political prisoners” or “freedom fighters.” At the same time, the United States has historically treated its prisoners from the Black liberation movement, the American Indian Movement, the Puerto Rican independence movement and other movements for justice with the utmost brutality — including torture, solitary confinement and unfair sentencing practices. Prison brutality extends far beyond the “political prisoners” to any prisoner who stands up for themself, refuses to be treated like a slave or catches a prison guard on the wrong day.
George Jackson — a Black communist, revolutionary, author, Field Marshal of the Black Panther Party and co-founder of the Black Guerrilla Family — spent seven and a half years of his last 11 years of life in solitary confinement. Ruchell Magee was denied parole 13 times across 40 years, even into his 80s. The prisoners of Attica were massacred by the government for fighting for basic demands of sanitation, health and human dignity. The plight of prisoners in this country is always tied to the lives of those outside because every imprisoned person leaves a mark on the families and communities they leave behind. If we do not pursue the freedom of our political prisoners, then our movements set the stage for the current generation of activists to become the next political prisoners.
Tragically, we have had to send our condolences to the families of political prisoners who have died in the time since we founded this coalition. The losses of Romaine “Chip” Fitzgerald, Mutulu Shakur, Delbert and Chuck Africa and other freedom fighters inspired us to work with more urgency.
We must continue to support political prisoners in the United States and around the world, like Walid Daqqah, a 62-year-old Palestinian writer who has been unjustly imprisoned for 37 years in Zionist jails. Organizers in the Palestinian Youth Movement have launched a petition to demand his release due to the illegal nature of his imprisonment and the denial of proper treatment for his bone marrow cancer diagnosis. The struggle to free political prisoners who are incarcerated for fighting injustice has no borders.
Although we celebrate the release of Ruchell Magee, by no means is the work completed. In fact, this work cannot be “complete” until we have achieved a new system in which all of our political prisoners are free, the social and economic needs of Black and working-class communities are met and our prisons are not filled with working-class people who were arrested for so-called “crimes” of survival.
Political prisoners from Palestine’s prisons to California’s prisons must be freed, and the true criminals in the Pentagon, the White House, and Capitol Hill must be stopped. All progressive and revolutionary people should extend their full solidarity and deepest congratulations to Ruchell “Cinque” Magee, and continue the fight until the future we need is achieved. Long live Cinque!
