From Drew Phillips: 1)
NYC: 4/16 Reverend Billy blessing and exorcising Kimmel Center, commemorating Take Back NYU!'s February Occupation Take Back NYU! welcomes the Stop Shopping spiritual sensation (and NYC mayoral candidate!) REVEREND BILLY to NYU for a sermon on free speech and dissent outside the Kimmel Center. The sermon will commemorate the hundreds-strong show of support for Take Back NYU!'s February occupation, and exorcise spirits that led to the pepper-spraying and clubbing of demonstrators in the streets the night of 2/19. The sermon will be held at 7:30 on Thursday 4/16 outside NYU's Kimmel Center at 60 Washington Square South. He will begin speaking at 6:30 in Jerry H. Labowitz Theater at 715 Broadway and then will move to Kimmel at 7:30. 2) NYC: 4/16 talk by one of the Angola 3 (pushed back to 8.30 pm!) "I was born in the U.S.A. Born black, born poor. Is it then any wonder that I have spent most of my life in prison?" -Robert Hillary King FROM THE BOTTOM OF THE HEAP A Talk by Robert Hillary King, the Only Freed Member of the Angola 3 In 1970, a jury convicted Robert Hillary King (formerly known as Robert King Wilkerson) of a crime he did not commit and sentenced him to 35 years in prison. He became a member of the Black Panther Party while in Angola State Penitentiary, successfully organizing prisoners to improve conditions. In return, prison authorities beat him, starved him, and gave him life without parole after framing him for a second crime. He was thrown into solitary confinement, where he remained in a six-by-nine foot cell for 29 years as one of "the Angola 3." In 2001, the state grudgingly acknowledged his innocence and set him free. The conditions King endured in Angola almost defy description, yet King never gave up his humanity, nor his tireless work towards justice for all prisoners. That work continues to this day, now "from the outside" - as he speaks out against the failures and inequities of the criminal injustice system, and fights to free his Angola 3 comrades Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox, who have been behind bars for 36 years, most of them in solitary confinement. Robert King's story is one of inspiration, courage, and the triumph of the human spirit. Says Malik Rahim, co-founder of Common Ground Collective (in post-Katrina New Orleans): "For a person to go through 29 years in one of the most brutal prisons in America and still maintain his sanity and humanity, that's what makes people want to listen to Robert." Co-sponsored by African Cultural Union and Students Creating Radical Change Thursday, April 16, 8:30 p.m. (NOTE THE TIME CHANGE!) Kimmel Center, 60 Washington Square South, Room 405. Free and open to the public --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to Mark Crispin Miller's "News From Underground" newsgroup. To unsubscribe, send a blank email to newsfromunderground-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com OR go to http://groups.google.com/group/newsfromunderground and click on the "Unsubscribe or change membership" link in the yellow bar at the top of the page, then click the "Unsubscribe" button on the next page. For more News From Underground, visit http://markcrispinmiller.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
