Date: Friday, May 3, 2013
Time: 7pm
Venue: The DiMenna Center for Classical Music (450 W 37th Street, New York, NY 10018)
Ticket: $20.00 (includes a copy of Maroon the Implacable: The Collected Writings of Russell Maroon Shoatz)
Featured speakers
Soffiyah Elijah, former Harvard Law Professor and anti-incarceration activist;
Ben Chaney, brother of martyred student activist James Chaney
Featuring performers
Gary Bartz, Grammy-award winning saxophonist
Rebel Diaz, acclaimed hip-hop group and community activists
Judith Malina, founder of the Living Theatre
Jamal Jospeh and IMPACT Repertory Theatre Performance Company, a renowned youth activist-performance group;
EmCee Majesty, rapper and collaborator with Immortal Technique
Hosted by Matt Meyer and Iyanna Jones
The national book launch and speaking tour, is sponsored by Scientific Soul Sessions
On May 3, 2013, from 7pm-9pm, the first ever collection of writings by former Black Panther and political prisoner Russell “Maroon” Shoatz – entitled Maroon the Implacable – will be officially released at New York’s DiMenna Center.
Shoatz, who has spent close to 30 years in solitary confinement in the state of Pennsylvania, is an important symbol in the growing movement against the long-standing practice of solitary, which amounts to unconstitutional torture under international human rights law.
His case, under review by the United Nations, will come under local scrutiny on April 8, when his Pittsburgh-based legal team presents the state of Pennsylvania with a Demand Letter, giving the Department of Corrections authorities 30 days to move Shoatz into general population, or face litigation for violating Shoatz’ constitutional rights.
The NYC launch of his anthology, which has been described by poet and Black liberation activist/scholar Amiri Baraka as “that very funky instruction manual on how to make revolution against imperialist America”, comes at the end of a national speaking tour by Shoatz’ daughter and a 30-day pressure campaign to win his release into the general prison population.
The evening will feature an all-star lineup of artists and thinkers, coming together to build a unified national movement to end torture and solitary confinement.
Speakers include:
With performances by:
The May 3 event, and the national book launch and speaking tour, is sponsored by Scientific Soul Sessions, a multi-generational group united by the drive to pre-figure a new society free of imperialism, colonization, racism, heteropatriarchy, and capitalist exploitation. An explicitly revolutionary political/cultural organization, Scientific Soul stands against all forms of social inequality, and stands for the dignity and self-determination of oppressed peoples. The leadership for this movement will first and foremost be women and oppressed nationalities, and is based on both excellence and experimentation. For more information visit: www.