Jointly organised by Legal Action for Women  &  Women of Colour @ GWS

Monday   25 June 2012   6.30pm

Crossroads Women’s Centre

 25 Wolsey Mews London NW5 2DX

Disability access        Entry by donation

A timely, must-see one hour documentary from Freedom Archives exploring the history of COINTELPRO,  a covert and often illegal surveillance project run by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in US from the 1950s to the 1970s. It infiltrated, sabotaged, discredited and disrupted community organisations fighting for racial, economic and social justice. Hundreds were killed and imprisoned as a result, including the extraordinary 21-year-old Black Panther leader Fred Hampton. Mumia Abu-Jamal and Russell Maroon Shoats are just two of those still incarcerated and fighting for justice.   TODAY, in the US and UK people of colour, and other activists (including in the Occupy movement) face similar tactics. 

Claude Marks, is the director of the Freedom Archives in San Francisco which aims to record, preserve and promote radical political history. He was forced by FBI surveillance in the 80s to go underground with his wife and children, and was imprisoned for four years for his movement activities.

The film includes interviews with:

·         Kathleen Cleaver—former Black Panther Party leader.

·         Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz—Long-time Native American activist and educator.

·         Geronimo Ji-Jaga Pratt— Black Panther Party leader falsely imprisoned for 27 years (now deceased).

·         Lucy Rodriguez—Puerto Rican Independentista and former political prisoner.

·         Ricardo Romero—long-time Chicano/Mejicano activist and Grand Jury resister

“COINTELPRO is both a formal program of the FBI and a term frequently used to describe a conspiracy among government agencies—local, state, and federal—to destroy movements for self-determination and liberation for Black, Brown, Asian, and Indigenous struggles, as well as mount an institutionalized attack against allies of these movements and other progressive organizations. Its continuing impact is absolutely central to understanding the government’s wars and repression against progressive movements.” Freedom Archives

Legal Action for Women   law@allwomencount.net

Women of Colour @ GWS   womenofcolour@globalwomenstrike.net

 www.globalwomenstrike.net   Tel: 020 7482 2496