In
a 3-to-2 decision, the New Jersey Supreme Court overturned the
decision of the State Parole Board and granted
parole
on Tuesday to Acoli, 85, who had been convicted for the 1973 shooting
death of New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster and has spent 49
years behind bars. He was eligible
for parole for almost 30 years,
and yet, despite an excellent record, was denied parole time after
time since the 1990s and as recently as last year. Acoli, who has
dementia, will live with his daughter and grandchildren in Brooklyn,
N.Y.
While
some people have not heard of Sundiata Acoli, they may know his
co-defendant, Assata Shakur.
Born
in Decatur, Texas and raised in Vernon, Texas, Acoli graduated from
Prairie View A&M College of Texas in 1956 with a B.S. degree in
mathematics. He first worked as a computer analyst and mathematician
for NASA in California, and later worked in New York.
Sundiata
Acoli became involved in the civil rights and Black Power struggles
of the 1960s. In 1964 in Mississippi, he did voter registration work
with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). He joined
the Black
Panther Party
in New York in 1968, and on April 2, 1969 was one of 21 Black
Panthers—known as the Panther
21—arrested
on bogus
charges by the feds
for conspiracy to blow up police stations, the subway, the New York
Botanical Garden and other sites. Federal, state and city law
enforcement swept and raided Black Panther homes and offices. All 21
of the Panthers, including Sundiata, were acquitted
of all 156 counts against them.
But
we cannot understand what happened to the Panther 21 without
examining the war that was waged by the federal government against
the Black Power and civil rights movements, their organizations and
their leadership. Under FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover—who was
reportedly a Black
man passing for white,
according to Black people who claimed to be his relatives—the
Counterintelligence Program, or COINTELPRO,
was devised to monitor, infiltrate, disrupt and ultimately destroy
political and social justice movements—including the Black
Panther Party. Hoover’s operation was a criminal enterprise
running inside the government—covert and unaccountable.
The
Black Panther Party was loved by the people and hated by the
government. In an FBI memo,
Hoover directed his agency to “Prevent the rise of a ‘messiah’
who could unify and electrify the militant black nationalist
movement. Malcolm X might have been such a ‘messiah’…
Martin Luther King, Stokely Carmichael, and [Nation of Islam leader]
Elijah Muhammed [sic] all aspire to this position … . King
could be a very real contender for this position should he abandon
his supposed ‘obedience’ to ‘white, liberal
doctrines’ (nonviolence).”
Hoover
viewed the Black Panthers, with their community empowerment,
anti-police brutality and self-defense programs, as an existential
threat to America. Hoover found the Panthers’ Breakfast
for Children Program
problematic because it “has met with some success and has
resulted in considerable favorable publicity for the BPP” and
“represents the best and most influential activity going for
the BPP and, as such, is potentially the greatest threat to efforts
by authorities … to neutralize the BPP and destroy what it
stands for.” In 1969 alone, when Sundiata and the rest of the
Panther 21 were framed, 28
Panthers
were murdered, including Fred
Hampton and Mark Clark,
and another 749 were locked up or arrested. Some veterans of the
Black Power struggle like Acoli remain in prison to this day.
This
brings us back to Sundiata Acoli and the events leading to his
imprisonment. On May 2, 1973, Acoli, Assata Shakur and Zayd Malik
Shakur—all members of the Black Liberation Army– were
stopped by state troopers on the New Jersey Turnpike in East
Brunswick for a broken tail light. A shooting resulted, leaving Zayd
Shakur and State Trooper Werner Foerster dead, and Assata Shakur and
State Trooper James Harper wounded. Acoli had maintained the police
ambushed them,
and Assata Shakur said the troopers shot
her while she had her hands up,
and then from the back. Acoli and Shakur were captured and convicted
of murder. Shakur later escaped to Cuba, where she lives today.
In
1979, the International
Jurist
interviewed Sundiata and declared him a political prisoner.
Last
year, four Black
police organizations,
including the National Association of Blacks in Criminal Justice, the
Black Police Experience, Blacks in Law Enforcement of America and the
Grand Council of Guardians, Inc. had called for the release of the
veteran Black Panther. The groups even filed
an amicus brief
with the New Jersey Supreme Court calling for Sundiata’s
release, reflecting the racial justice aspects of this case.
Acoli
also contracted
COVID-19
while incarcerated, pointing to the oppressive health conditions that
take place in prisons.
“I
am deeply disappointed that Sundiata Acoli, a man who murdered
Trooper Werner Foerster in 1973, will be released from prison,”
said New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy in a statement.
“Our men and women in uniform are heroes, and anyone who would
take the life of an officer on duty should remain behind bars until
the end of their life.” A New Jersey state law passed two
decades after Acoli’s conviction provided for life imprisonment
for someone convicted of murdering a police officer.
“I
profoundly wish this law had been in place when Acoli was sentenced
in 1974,” Murphy said. “Our men and women in uniform are
heroes, and anyone who would take the life of an officer on duty
should remain behind bars until the end of their life.”
Sundiata
Acoli is a political prisoner and a freedom fighter. And while now he
will be free after 49 years, he should have been home a long time
ago. His story tells us a lot about the Black experience in America
and what happens when people fight for Black power.
This
commentary is also posted on The
Grio
