This
morning I spoke with Lynne Stewart’s husband, Ralph Poynter, at
their home in Brooklyn, N.Y. We managed to do the call via video
camera, where Ralph and the family were surrounding Lynne, who had
just had a second series of mini-strokes that rendered her unable to
speak but able to hear what were perhaps my last words of love and
solidarity. Lynne opened her eyes in acknowledgment, bravely trying
to muster a smile.
Lynne’s
cancer has now spread throughout her body, including her brain. Ralph
explained that her days are numbered and she is unlikely to make it
to her next scheduled medical appointment on March 16.
Lynne
and I go back some 63 years, to 1954-58 when we were students at
Jamaica High School in Queens, N.Y. We relished singing the Jamaica
High School song together at many a solidarity meeting. Decades
later, we taught school in NYC, and were union activists in the late
1960s, when we opposed the 1968 racist school strike led by the AFT’s
reactionary leader, Albert Shanker. In those days, young Lynne, now
77, was often seen unconventionally riding on the back of Ralph’s
motorcycle, on her way to this or that protest.
Another
several decades later, when Lynne faced frame-up charges of
conspiracy to aid and abet terrorism stemming from her issuing a
press release on behalf of her client, the famous blind Sheik
Omar Abdel Rachman, we engaged once again to try to win her freedom.
After a long legal battle, when I headed Lynne’s defense committee
on the West Coast, Lynne was cruelly sentenced to 10 years in a Texas
prison, after vindictive federal prosecutors appealed a federal court
judge’s sentence of some 18 months.
After
she had served three years in prison, we mounted a campaign that won
the support of 70,000 social activists across the country. Lynne,
cancer ridden, was finally granted “compassionate release”
following her prison doctors’ diagnosis that she had less then a
year to live. Lynne beat the odds and spent almost three years in
freedom, continuing her lifelong commitment to defending all those
victims of capitalist injustice.
Lynne
was among [unjustly imprisoned political activist and writer] Mumia
Abu-Jamal’s most ardent supporters. Lynne’s court cases included
some of the seminal Weatherman cases in the 1970s as well as an
amazing victory on behalf of Larry Davis, who defended himself
against a multiple cop shooting invasion of his house, where
a number of the shoot-first police were killed.
Pilloried
by the corporate media, who mocked her every success in the rigged
criminal “justice” system, Lynne never bent to her accusers’
contempt for an attorney for those on the other side of the
class line, as Lynne aptly described it, no matter how
unpopular her client.
Lynne’s
life was one of dedication to all the people’s causes. I valued her
friendship, her humor, her sparkle, and her hatred for all that is
evil and yet love for all that is beautiful. Only Lynne began or
ended her speeches by reading from one of the world’s great
poets, whose universal appeal to what is best in all of us, rang
true.
No
doubt we will remember Lynne well when we in the Bay Area plan to
memorialize her lifelong achievements. Meanwhile, her family is in
dire need of financial support as these last days painfully proceed
and the months before. Here’s an appeal by Ralph and the family’s
long-term friend, Betty Davis.
Please
send your generous contribution as per the information below.
In
solidarity and with the greatest admiration for a comrade and friend
whose life set the bar high for all of us who cherish human freedom
and dignity.
Jeff
Mackler is the past West Coast coordinator of the Lynne Stewart
Defense Committee and director of the Mobilization to Free Mumia
Abu-Jamal.
From
Ralph and Betty:
Once
again the clock is ticking for Lynne Stewart. She has been in a state
of medical crisis for a week and all of the expenses are
mounting. We urgently need her supporters and all concerned
‘spirit warriors’ of ‘good will’ to check out the
INDIEGOGO Appeal or send a donation ASAP to the: Lynne Stewart
Organization, 1070 Dean St., Brooklyn, NY 11216-1st fl. (make
checks payable to Lynne Stewart Org.)
A
message from Bob Lederer:
Please
forward widely and share Facebook
post to
encourage donations. Ralph
Poynter told me the following very sad news last night, and has
authorized me to distribute it publicly: Our beloved People’s
Champion (and WBAI Local Station Board member) Lynne Stewart suffered
a major stroke last Wednesday, the latest complication from the
cancer that has now spread throughout her body and invaded her brain.
She is resting comfortably at home and is not in pain, but can only
speak sporadically. Her doctor has said she does not have much time
left.
Ralph
and Sister Betty Davis are of course taking good care of her, as are
her doctor-daughter Zenobia Brown and long-term friend of 63 years
Virginia Gernes.
Ralph
welcomes your emails:
(at mailto:ralph.poynter@gmail.comralph.poynter@gmail.com ). Because
of the high expense of Lynne’s ongoing care, Betty has launched
an online
fundraising campaign.
Please
donate generously.
I
learned all this minutes after Ralph accepted an award for Lynne at a
major public event by the Malcolm X Commemoration Committee, which
honored a large group of lawyers and doctors who have supported U.S.
political prisoners. As we know, for years Lynne went out of her way
to provide strong representation to a pantheon of dedicated radical
activists facing prison — before she herself suffered a similar,
cruel fate.
Let’s
all send Lynne, Ralph & Betty our hugs, love, and best wishes for
this final journey. Such a heroic fighter—Lynne, we love you!
P.S.
Ironically, her latest stroke occurred hours after a
New York Times article appeared
based on an interview with her, which noted that she had survived 3
years beyond the compassionate release granted her (on Dec. 31,
2013), following a statement by her prison doctor that she would not
likely survive beyond 18 months: Ms. Stewart said in
a 12-page handwritten letter to the judge in 2013: “Isolated, in
hospital, as I now am, I have time to contemplate life and death. I
do not intend to go ‘gently into that good night,’ as Dylan
Thomas wrote. There is much to be done in this world. I do know that
I do not want to die here in prison — a strange and loveless place.
I want to be where all is familiar — in a word, home.”
This
is a fitting reminder of that people’s victory 3 years ago, brought
about by Lynne’s will of steel, Ralph’s indefatigable
barnstorming, and the movement’s rallying behind her.
>> The article above was written by Jeff Mackler and is reprinted from Socialist Action.
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