About 20 days ago, the Scott sisters captivated national headlines.
Gladys and Jamie Scott of Jackson, Mississippi are two African-American sisters who were incarcerated for 16 years – sentenced with two double-life sentences – for allegedly robbing two men of a few hundred dollars. (Some argue it was only $11.)
But on Jan. 7, Chokwe Lumumba, a councilman and attorney from Jackson who led the legal battle for their release, watched them walk out of prison.
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour suspended the women’s sentences on Dec. 29 with the condition that Gladys, 36, donate a kidney to Jamie, 38, within one year of their release.
Lumumba told listeners at the Organization for Black Struggle’s 31st anniversary celebration in St. Louis on Saturday that their coalition was able to free the sisters because they understood politics.
“We didn’t go around saying that ‘Haley Barbour was a good guy. He’ll let them out,'” Lumumba said in his speech. “People knew he wasn’t a good guy. Haley Barbour knew he wasn’t a good guy.”
But when the Republican Party started putting Barbour up as a potential presidential candidate, then the coalition knew they had some political leverage.
“We knew he was a redneck governor from the hills of Mississippi,” Lumumba said. “We knew he couldn’t stand that baggage he had in Mississippi – one was the Scott sisters – if he was talking about having a presidential run.”
The Scott sisters’ alleged crime occurred on Christmas Eve of 1993. Court documents state that Gladys and Jamie – then 19 and 21- took a ride with two men after meeting them at a MiniMart. A car of three male acquaintances followed them.
At one point, Jamie complained of nausea and asked the driver to pull over. Then the men who were following behind came up to the car with a shotgun and robbed the two men. According to court documents, Jamie held the shotgun at one point. No one was injured, and the gun was never found. The sisters deny being involved in the crime.
“These women were lingering in prison for over 16 years while Barbour had pardoned five murderers, five men,” Lumumba said. “Four of them killed their wives or girlfriends, and the other one killed a 90-year-old person. All the men were white except for one.”
The Scott case is an example of applying reality to the black struggle, Lumumba said. To have an impact, those in the black struggle have to look at their situation realistically and decide how to apply reality to it, he said.
“When we are talking about taking power, we are talking about economically, politically and within the social system,” he said.
“So when we have local areas that we can control, we need to control them at the election box. But we also need to control them by getting our people to put together funds so we can build businesses. That is important.”
Throughout his life, Lumumba has worked to defend the rights of embattled African Americans. He has defended Assata Shakur, the Pontiac Brothers, Tupac Shakur, Geronimo Pratt and Lance Parker, who was accused of assaulting Reginald Denny during the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
In May of 2009, Lumumba won the seat of city councilman in Jackson.
“Elections mean that we have to move intelligence,” he said.
“People ask me why I won my office in Mississippi. I won my office because I was in a ward that was 25,000 people, and all of them were black except for 700. I wasn’t going to run in a place that was 90 percent white and say that I was sending a message.”
Besides being a leader in the city of Jackson, Lumumba is the national chairperson and co-founder of the New Afrikan People’s Organization and cofounder of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement.
“As we move along in this struggle against white supremacy, it is necessary to understand that black power properly manifested will not only change our situation but it will change the world,” he said.
“Everywhere we look in the world, the same people that are oppressing people of the world are oppressing our people right here.”
Currently Lumumba is working to get a full pardon for the Scott sisters, and the NAACP and medical ethicists say that the condition to donate a kidney is unenforceable.The family cannot afford the procedure, and the sisters had not been tested to see if their blood type and immune systems are sufficiently close for a transplant operation when Barbour made the stipulation.
