An American Radical

by Susan Rosenberg

  My heart hardened, even though my rational mind had expected the outcome. There was no end in sight, and I remembered a quote from Franz Kafka: “There is hope, but not for us.” Still, the magic elixir of hope and possibility had taken hold even in that stone-cold concrete box. From that process, I had learned that fighting for freedom is a constant and that in the fighting itself comes the energy and will to carry on. I learned that freedom has many meanings and levels to it, and that I could be chained to ideas as tightly as to any cell. And I learned that hope is a fantastic dream in its most shining beauty and its profound dangerousness. Hope can pump blood through frozen veins. Hope can stir the near dead.

  But all of life cannot be lived on hope. So amid the turmoil of this defeat, I again turned to think about what I did and didn’t believe. I had to ask the question: “Why am I here?” “What is my worldview?” For the first time since I had been arrested, I began to reassess my own views and most deeply held beliefs. Then, over a period of many months, all long in the making, a series of earth-shattering events took place, one after another. Though external, they penetrated even our prison within a prison. The Berlin Wall fell and the Velvet Revolution brought new governments to Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Hungary. At the same time, the winds of glasnost carried in perestroika and shook the foundations of the Soviet Union. The revolutionaries in Central America, in El Salvador and Guatemala, laid down their arms and began peace negotiations. Peace processes began in Northern Ireland, in South Africa, and even in the Middle East.

  I watched it all on CNN World News, a weekly two-hour show that used international news service feeds and that was my primary connection to the outside world. I was watching people assert themselves in many different ways to fill their long-unmet needs. I was witnessing the victory of the United States in the fifty-year-long cold war. I was seeing revolutionaries who were my contemporaries recognize the stalemate that their national liberation processes had led them to. I saw them choose to stop the death of innocent people by entering negotiations and renouncing political violence.

  I sat in that basement heartbroken because I could see even from that isolated basement, the idea of an alternative world based on socialism and the collective was slipping away, and at the same time I was in awe. Socialism and revolution had failed, but millions of people were demanding—and gaining—greater freedoms, economic and political justice, and above all peace.

  I was not awed by the power of my own government’s role in all of this, though I understood it to be crucial. As an avid student of history and current affairs, I knew all about which corporations controlled which policies and which financiers were profiting from war, and the military industrial complex. Rather, I was awed by the very simple idea that people do make history and that the old saying was still true—that the power of the people is the force of life. And I remembered what it had felt like in the late 1960s and 1970s to be a part of that power. It was a far cry from the isolation of the Lexington High Security Unit. Now I began in earnest to rethink not only my beliefs, but also my whole ideology, the very framework that had driven me to act all through my adult life.

  Chapter 8

  Litigation

  ALEX, SILVIA, AND I understood what was happening to us. We understood that sensory deprivation and isolation were harming us. We knew that we had to resist if we were going to emerge out of there with our minds and bodies intact. This was getting harder every day. A 1979 study done by Amnesty International on German political prisoners found small-group isolation to be “cruel, inhuman, and degrading.” It was also found to be in violation of Article 5 of the United Nations’ Declaration of Human Rights. After lengthy stays in conditions similar to ours, people had killed themselves.

  The local COs were trained never to speak to us and to deny every request we made. The guards for the most part had been so successfully brainwashed about us that there was no communication. A German prisoner had described her experience in similar conditions as one of constant confrontation. It was true. The remedy was to ask for less. After weeks of asking for hot water and always getting the same “not now” as an answer, I simply stopped asking.

  Because the HSU was brand new, the BOP showed it off to everyone they could. There were weekly tours of judges, police agents, state troopers, and correctional officers. As each tour passed, we would hold up handwritten signs saying, “This place violates human rights,” “We are women, not animals,” and “We are political prisoners.” The visitors didn’t know how to react. All they knew was what they had been told—that we were terrorists, dangerous and crazy, and that the place was clean, quiet, and white. It was unlike any prison they had seen before. People trained in prisons might reference Marion Federal Penitentiary, the all-male, super-max prison, where a sentence could last years and years with no human contact except with fully loaded security personnel. Once in a while when a visitor was touring, they would say, “It’s a control unit, isn’t it?” But the staff was instructed only to mouth certain answers and would always say, “No, it is just high security.”

  One day in the early spring of 1987, Silvia and I were in the day room. We were drawing the watchful eye of the ever-vigilant head CO, Ms. Marshall. She was watching us through the glass view. The other prisoners of the HSU were in their cells. We heard the elevator and then the gates pop open. Lieutenants and a visitor were talking as they got out of the elevator. We heard a voice with a thick Irish accent. The men went in the other direction and their voices receded. After about fifteen minutes, they returned to the front and we heard a lieutenant explaining the features of the cameras. As the group passed through the gate into the day room, the visitor said, “This looks just like the dead wings.” Silvia said, “It certainly is. We call it ‘the tomb.’ “ The visitor, a small wiry blond, was dressed casually and held a cap in his hand. He nodded. He asked if he could talk with us. It took a few minutes for a decision, but then the lieutenant looked at his watch and said, “Fine, a few minutes. I’ll be back.” He left us alone.

  Then the visitor did something we were no longer used to: he pulled up a chair and sat down with us. I stood up, watching him. He said, “Sit down, sit down, it’s fine. There is no problem.”

  Silvia asked, “Where are you from?”

  “Derry, I’m from Derry, in Ireland.”

  “Yes, I know Derry is in Ireland. I’ve been there, to Derry,” I said.

  “Really?” he said.

  “Yes, I did a bike tour there years ago. It is very beautiful.” I sat back down.

  “What are you here for?” Silvia asked.

  “I’m a recreation specialist, you see.”

  We didn’t see. “A prison rec specialist?” I said.

  He nodded. “I see you’re recreating.” He pointed to the drawings. We all laughed. It seemed so stupid, the two of us drawing.

  “This is a control unit, you know—there is no outdoor recreation. Did you ask to see the outdoors?” Silvia continued.

  “I work in the Maze prison. I’m doing a tour to get ideas for our program there. But then I heard about this unit and requested a look-see.”

  We just sat there and said nothing at this news. The Maze was infamous for holding the IRA prisoners. It was where Bobby Sands and numerous others had died on hunger strikes for political recognition. “So you recreate the IRA, do you?” I said.

  “You know about the Maze, do you?”

  “Of course we do,” I said.

  “And you’re Irish. How can you do it?” Silvia asked quietly.

  The rec specialist went into a long explanation about how his job was to foster peace between the Provos and the Ulster boys so they could get out and live together. He had them playing soccer, and that was better than fighting. Didn’t we agree?

  We didn’t argue with him. Somehow both of us felt that we would rather talk to him than have him leave. He commented that the unit looked like a part of the Maze. He called it small-group isolation. As we were talking, several officers
had congregated at the window and were watching us. They looked surprised that we were all sitting and talking. The lieutenant came back and the fellow got up and shook our hands and thanked us.

  Everyone was taken aback. As they walked out, one of the guards said, “You talked to them.”

  “Of course,” the Irish visitor answered. “The politicos are the easiest to talk to.”

  Silvia and I looked at each other and laughed. It was a sad comment on how devastated and lonely we were that we had enjoyed talking to him, but what was sadder still was that we could never have had a similar conversation with any of the guards or officials responsible for us. We were from a different planet. Still, that conversation made us less crazy.

  We knew that we had to bring a lawsuit against the BOP if we were going to close the unit down. We also knew that we had a lot of different issues to resolve, and steps to take in order to even get the argument right. The first question was: Who would bring the action? Filing a lawsuit challenging prison conditions always faces enormous legal hurdles. Yet Alex maintained that she was a prisoner of war and didn’t accept the jurisdiction of the U.S. government, so she wouldn’t be a hypocrite and sue in a U.S. court.

  That left just Silvia Baraldini and me. For the most part, Silvia had the best case. She had been convicted of conspiracy in New York in the black liberation movement case that included the freeing of Assata Shakur and the Brink’s robbery. The circumstances of her transfer from the California prison to the HSU supported the argument that Silvia was with us at Lexington because of her political beliefs.

  The next problem was how to frame the suit. We knew that because the HSU was clean and looked brand spanking new—and because it contained a miniature facsimile of things other prisons had, such as a Ping-Pong table and of course the TVs—it would be difficult to get the courts to agree that the treatment was cruel and unusual and therefore a violation of our Eighth Amendment rights. We had to show that the rules, policies, and practices as designed and carried out amounted to psychological torture. We had to convince some prisoners’ rights organization that we were worthy of their intervention. We had to convince them that this was the beginning of a whole new and heightened level of politically motivated and unconstitutional punishment. Above all, somehow we had to break through the layers of government propaganda that defined us as the “most dangerous.”

  In truth, the three of us had not killed anyone through our own acts. Silvia, in fact, had been acquitted of participation in any violent acts (except the freeing of Assata Shakur, during which not a shot was fired). But all of us had supported and engaged in activities that used political violence and armed struggle. I believed that guerrilla movements that came out of national liberation struggles were legitimate and just. I believed that the right to self-determination of oppressed people included the right to armed self-defense and the right to use arms to gain liberation. I believed that the U.S. government was both directly and indirectly responsible for global violence in the form of military intervention, control, and manipulation of other governments for U.S. corporate influence and profit. I believed that as an American citizen, I had a responsibility to oppose all those things. Further, I believed that the only way the endemic white supremacy and four-hundred-year legacy of racism could be changed was for a black revolution to lead a challenge against the U.S. government’s power.

  And so, in keeping with all my beliefs, I pursued a path that seemed to me a logical step beyond legal protest: the use of political violence. Did that make me a terrorist? In my mind, then and now, the answer is no. I say this because no act in which I was involved ever had violence against persons as its object or consequence. The point was not to kill or maim innocent people, nor was it to create fear and terror. It was to underscore the demands of people in motion who were organizing against the system. It was to attack the structures of power that contributed to the death and destruction of people resisting U.S. intervention. It was to stop the U.S. war machine. I believed that legal protest alone could not always confront power.

  Because I believed all that, did it make me a terrorist who could not be controlled even in prison? Would we be able to make a nuanced argument to the court that our beliefs and convictions in the courts were not equivalent to each other and in fact, there was no danger of our using violence against our captors? Should we be kept in experimental small-group isolation for things that we might do while living in prison? Did we have any rights of due process left or, because of the government label, did it not matter how we were treated?

  Up until that point within the U.S. prison system, prisoners were put in indefinite lockdown (segregation or isolation) only if they committed infractions while in prison. Those who committed serious infractions also had to go through a behavior modification program (the most well-known and active program was then at the maximum-security penitentiary in Marion, Illinois). Through good behavior, prisoners could work their way out of isolation, back into general population. While Silvia and I were trying to talk all this out, people on the outside were way ahead of us.

  In March, The Nation did a cover story about the High Security Unit at Lexington. At the same time, the General Board of the Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church began inquiries and requested a tour of the unit. The National Prison Project of the American Civil Liberties Union also wanted a tour. Congressman Robert Kastenmeier, then chairman of the House Subcommittee on Courts, Civil Liberties, and the Administration of Justice, and Congressman Ron Dellums wrote to BOP director J. Michael Quinlan, asking why there was such punitive treatment of us. In May, Amnesty International wrote a letter of inquiry to the BOP about the reported conditions in the HSU, asking for an explanation of the conditions there. The BOP denied the entire set of questions that Amnesty posed. Amnesty’s main contention was that there was no basis for our being kept in the HSU other than our beliefs. The BOP’s response was that Alex, Silvia, and I were there because outside groups might try to free us. They had not a shred of proof that such an action was probable or even likely, but they held to this as their rationale.

  One day in July 1987, a SWAT team of ten men charged through the gates of the tier. A BOP SWAT team is made up of the biggest guys on staff, all of whom are armed with plastic shields and clubs. They usually are dressed all in black with helmets and high combat boots. This SWAT team was no different. They did a shakedown like none before. They progressed cell by cell, throwing things into the hall and searching the walls with metal detectors. Finding nothing, they confiscated a lipstick that one of us had gotten through the commissary. Then they came back with wooden bulletin boards measuring about a square foot and told us to put them up on our “desks”—the metal shelf that was attached to the wall and served as desk, table, eating place, and so on. Then they wanted us to put up family pictures on the bulletin boards. They had forgotten that we didn’t have any.

  That night I found a line from a poem that I had copied from somewhere and stuffed inside my legal papers. It was by Nazim Hikmet, the unofficial poet laureate of Turkey who had been imprisoned for seventeen years for being a Communist. It was the last line of the poem: “Capture is beside the point, the point is to never surrender.” I put it on my bulletin board.

  The next day, Alex’s lawyer and longtime advocate, Jan Susler, a passionate and committed supporter of Puerto Rican independence, a calm, clear-thinking, and warm woman, and a member of the People’s Law Office in Chicago, was scheduled to come to see her. Jan was one of the lawyers with Mary and others to challenge the BOP and our treatment. She also represented other prisoners of war in other prisons. Jan had become a de facto advocate for us all.

  But the cells weren’t opened in the morning, and no one came to get Alex for her visit with Jan. Hours went by, and we yelled and banged with no response. Then our new unit manager (the replacement for Mr. Ogden, who had done such a good job with us that he had been promoted to run witness protection programs) walked down the tier, accompanied by the unit
guard. We had names for them both: the manager, R. Sigman, was “Sig,” and the guard was “Lurch” (named for the Addams family butler). Lurch was tall and dark, his prognathic lower jaw protruded in front of his face. He unlocked our cells and we charged out, yelling about being locked down for no reason, wanting to know where Alex’s visitor was, and complaining to him about the SWAT team’s abusive search from the day before.

  Sig stood there with his tie askew and his jacket open over his large belly. He was beginning to look like a sausage whose skin was about to burst at the seams. When he had taken over “managing” us a few months earlier, he’d been just a stocky man who still had that ex-military look of thickening middle age. He had served in the Marines and had retired to the BOP. Every other sentence he uttered was a variation on the theme of how much easier it had been for him when he was working with men: “Men don’t argue. They may try to bust your face, but they don’t argue.” We always told him not to worry, that even he would get a promotion from all this; after all, everyone else had—it was considered “hazardous duty.” He was implementing the program, but we were driving him to massive anxiety-induced overeating.

  “You’re having visitors, all of you,” he shouted over our noise. “Your side is coming.”

  “Who?”

  “I want to see that you have your bulletin boards up, and are dressed in uniform.” That meant in khaki skirts and shirts, which we never wore as part of our general protest. Instead, we wore gray sweatpants and T-shirts, or blue hospital pants.