Vol. 80/No. 15 April 18, 2016
Celebrate life of political prisoner Mondo we Langa
We Langa, 68, formerly known as David Rice, died in the Nebraska State Penitentiary in Lincoln on March 11 after a long illness.
“Ed and Mondo helped organize protests against police violence that Omaha’s Black population suffered in the 1960s, which continues nationwide today,” said Tariq Al-Amin, president of Nebraskans for Justice. The group has fought for many years to free the men known as the Omaha Two. Nebraskans for Justice will “continue the work to free Ed Poindexter,” Al-Amin said.
We Langa and Poindexter were leaders of the Black Panther Party, which organized protests against police brutality, including the 1969 killing of 14-year-old Vivian Strong. They were railroaded to prison in 1970 on trumped-up charges of killing a police officer, who died after being lured into a home where a suitcase bomb exploded. Both were sentenced to life imprisonment.
The jury was never informed that the two were targets of the FBI’s Cointelpro spying and disruption campaign directed against Black rights organizations, anti-war groups, socialists and others. Witnesses placed them elsewhere at the time of the bombing, and the prosecution’s “physical evidence” linking them to the case was dubious at best.
The celebration of we Langa’s life, held at the Malcolm X Memorial Foundation, included cultural performances and more than a dozen speakers. Messages were received from Africa, Australia, United Kingdom and from across the United States.
Freelance journalist Kietryn Zychal, who has been investigating the frame-up of the Omaha Two, introduced a recorded message from Poindexter. After being in separate prisons for 26 years, Poindexter said, he returned to the Nebraska State Penitentiary and found “Mondo was still serving the people.”
“Mondo was an inspiration and a mentor to fellow prisoners at the state penitentiary,” said Linda Kennedy of the Harambee African Cultural Organization, which meets weekly at the prison. “He explained, ‘I have no time to be bitter to the government frame-up, I have a life to live.’”
Other speakers included Angela Davis, who in 1970-71 was a Communist Party member framed up and imprisoned for her activity defending inmates at California’s Soledad prison. Davis called for continuing to fight to free other political prisoners, including Leonard Peltier and Mumia Abu-Jamal.
For more information and to get involved in the fight to free Ed Poindexter, contact Nebraskans for Justice at P.O. Box 11725, Omaha, NE 68111.
Letters can be sent to Ed Poindexter, #27767, P.O. Box 2500, Lincoln, NE 68542-2500.
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