Keynote 6:
"Imagining a non-incarceral state"
Saturday 17 April 2021 ~ 11:50 - 12:50 pm Pacific
with ASL interpretation
Jalil Muntaqim
Jalil Abdul Muntaqim is a former member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army, and is one of the longest held political prisoners in the world. He participated in NAACP youth organizing during the civil rights movement and as a high school student was a leading member of the Black Student Union. At 19 years of age, Muntaqim was captured in a midnight shoot-out with San Francisco police. When he was arrested, he was a high school graduate and employed as a social worker.While in prison in 1976, Muntaqim launched the National Prisoners Campaign to Petition the United Nations to recognize the existence of political prisoners in the United States. The petition led to an International Commission of Jurists convening to investigate, and the Commission found that the United States did in fact have political prisoners. In 1997 Muntaqim initiated the Jericho Movement to demand amnesty for US political prisoners on the basis of international law. After many years of being denied the opportunity to attend college, he graduated with Bachelor degrees in Psychology and Sociology. He has filed numerous lawsuits on behalf of prisoners. After over 50 years of incarceration, Muntaqim was released from prison in 2020.