Library - Reading Room
Supporting Materials for Sir! No Sir!
They Can Jail A Revolutionary, But They Can't Jail The Revolution
The Ft. Lewis Six was split in half on November 12, as Paul Forrest, Carl Dix and Jim Allen were spirited away to Leavenworth to continue serving their sentences. Larry Galgano and Manuel Perez are still in the Ft. Lewis stockade, while Jeff Griffiths was released after serving one month.
The three men were hustled away after two weeks of harrassing the brass in tle stockada. Before the first week was out, they had organized into the Ft. Lewis Stockade Liberation Front and had made the following demands: -
"We demand our political, moral and constitutional rights to freedom of speech and assembly. The democratic right to organize and air grievances is essential to a free society. You, the officers and enlisted men of the stockade have taken an oath to uphold and defend the constitution of the United States. HOW can this oath be taken so lightly as to deny us, citizens of the U.S., this important and sacred privilege. For this reason, we reassert our demand for the right to assemble and speak freely without intimidation. If this demand is not met, you, the country, and the constitution will be made a mockery for all free loving people to scorn.
We demand the right to freedom of the press. The necessary facilities for a newspaper are already present. Major Nagle himself on many occasions has said he would not restrict the prisoners right to whatever they wanted to read. Was this just another meaningless statement on his part? We therefore reassert our demand for freedom of the press.
The expansion of the library with a committee of prisoners empowered to make the final decision on literature to-be placed in the library.
The release of all political prisoners from maximum security cells.
The right to have a committee to represent prisoners in all disputes with the stockade. \
The right to hold a weekly press conference.
Until these demands are met, we will not legitimize illegal authority -by following it. As an act of solidarity with other liberation fronts, the Popular Front for the Liberation of the Ft. Lewis Stockade refuses to eat until their demands are met.
Long live the Afro-American's struggle for liberation.
Long live the people of the world's struggle for liberation.
When the three began to rebel against the denial of their rights, they were first threatened, then thrown into administrative segregation calls in B Block. Visiting privileges were withdrawn and only immediate family were permitted to see them. This was still another violation of Dept. of Defensedirectives and Army policy that the men's religious counsel can not be barred from seeing them.
When the brass got wind that a demonstration of clergymen and civilians was being planned to protest this treatment of prisoners, they decided to rush the three to Leavenworth immediately (faster than the regulations allow). As Jim wrote from Leavenworth, "Now what made us so damned special? Could it be that we had dared to be so insolent as to stand up to the army and say 'No'? Could it be that we dared to speak out against the army and in so doing against America? Could it be that we were rebellious enough to demand our, and the peoples of the stockade, Constitutional and most of all human rights? ... Isn't this a little too blatant in the show of the Command Influence that is so well known at Ft. Lewis as related to war resistance? . . . Do-three men who are locked up in your jail in six by eight by eight cages without anything but their voices scare you that much?" Indeed, they must!
He and the others are still fighting, too Carl, Jim and Paul are in the same European history class now with Zels Johnson and Willie Williams, and you can bet they're using their opportunity to gel together to good advantage.
Fed Up!, vol. 1, no. 3