Produced by the Black Panther Commemoration Committee, NY and Maysles Cinema

THEME: No. 8 of the 10-point party platform
We Want Freedom For All Black Men Held In Federal, State, County And City Prisons And Jails. We believe that all Black people should be released from the many jails and prisons because they have not received a fair and impartial trial.

Voices of Three Political Prisoners: David Gilbert
Claude Marks and Lisa Rudman, 2002, 30 min

David Gilbert is among the longest held anti-imperialist prisoners in the world. As a teenager David began working against the Vietnam War and for Black civil rights, and later became a leader of the Columbia University student strike and Students For A Democratic Society. He was an organizer at a time of great social upheaval. In 1969, 120 cities burned in Black uprisings, and in the same period 400 campuses organized student strikes against the Vietnam War. In the 1970s he joined the Weather Underground Organization and worked underground for more than a decade. He was arrested in 1981. Along with others, he was convicted on a conspiracy charge for his participation in a Brinks truck hold-up aiming to raise funds for the Black Liberation Army. David is serving a sentence of 75 years to life, without possibility of parole.

In prison for almost 40 years, David has continued his work for social justice. Very early, he called attention to the AIDS epidemic in oppressed communities in the U.S. and organized prisoner peer education programs on AIDS. He is an advocate for the rights of prisoners, a prolific writer and a devoted father and friend. This 30-minute video was edited in March 2002 by Claude Marks and LIsa Rudman, and is based on an interview done in July of 1998 at Great Meadows Prison, Comstock, New York by Sam Green and Bill Siegel.

800 Years
Deggra Stratton, 24 min

Eyes On the Rainbow: The Story Of Assata Shakur
Gloria Ronaldo, 1997, 45 min

Eyes on the Rainbow deals with the life of Assata Shakur, the Black Panther and Black Liberation Army leader who escaped from prison and was given political asylum in Cuba, where she has lived for close to 15 years.  This film also covers Afro-Cuban beliefs and culture, including the Yoruba Orisha Oya, goddess of the ancestors, of war, of the cemetery and of the rainbow.

Panel to follow.

This program is in partnership with the Seventh Art Stand: Uplifting Black Voices which is a national film screening and discussion series which utilizes film to bridge communities and create new inroads for civil rights discourse. This series enters its second installment with Uplifting Black Voices Now and Then focused on the continually relevant need for films that empower African-Americans.
Seventhartstand.com