Manumission: The Liberated Consciousness of a Prison(Er) Abolitionist

By Ralph C. Hamm III

Ralph gives two suggestions for the four pages required for the Xlibris website. The first one is from Lesson 2, Section C in Manumission. The second one is from the synopsis for the book, which I believe is the Introduction. For the time being Ralph is choosing the Synopsis (Introduction) for the Xlibris website. Here they are:

1 From LESSON 2, SECTION C

To B.A.N.T.U., and thus to the N.P.R.A., the single conscious force had to arise from partaking in, and understanding, the common ground upon which all of the ethnic groups in the prison stood. The creative collective had to be rooted within our common history. Be it benign or volatile, the truth had to be shared.

Connectioncommunication...consciousness.

It may have been true that the Irish were the single-most obstacle in the way of peace and unity in the prison, as they were during the cause of the abolition of slavery in the 1800s in this country and state, but it was the purpose of the collective we to reveal to them who was pulling their historical strings... the true anti-abolitionists (i.e., the institution of education, of justice, of government, and the media).

We had to pull ourselves away from the inhuman voices of our ancestors, so that we could have a new and constructive dialogue. This dialogue could not be about retribution, revenge, or reparations, because none of us were responsible. This effort had to be one of conscious reconciliation, and recognizing that whether we liked it or not our futures were tied together. We were reclaiming our lives from those who claimed to possess us ...exploiting us by perpetuating our ancestral pasts against our todays and tomorrows.

I spent a lot of time during the course of my day speaking with (educating) N.P.R.A. block representatives. I questioned them on the perception of the racial barometer (tension) in their respective cellblocks: Were the prisoners talking to one another more, as opposed to alienating and isolating themselves based upon their ethnicity? How often did the reps notice prisoners reading, and/or discussing our political situation -could they give a number, or gauge a percentage? What was the reps opinion on the impact of the race-relations seminars? Were there any prisoners whom they thought Larry and I should speak with on the matter of race and the importance of N.P.R.A. unity?

I also made it a point to frequent the prison visiting room, not simply to troubleshoot (as was every board members responsibility) but to answer any questions posed by visitors regarding the N.P.R.A. political struggle. I saw these impromptu appearances in the visiting room as an opportunity to subtly ask the visitors if they noticed any changes in the demeanor of the prisoner they had come to visit; especially in regard to his impressions on politics, knowledge of history, and concern about race relations in the prison. The N.P.R.A. garnered invaluable information about the awareness of our constituency (and what may need to be improved upon in the way our communication with the prisoner body) utilizing the aforementioned approach -making our jobs as negotiators and instructors much easier; as well as affording us the first impression ability to spread the abolitionist agenda and ideology to the outside community (bypassing garbled media accounts of the struggle).

Being a hands-on person, I always liked to follow the adage: if you want something done right, then do it yourself. In this manner, I knew that the job was accomplished to the best of ability, and the results were not being interpreted and relayed to me through a third or fourth party -having lost much in the translation, due to modification of the message and personal impression, in the retelling. One of the tactics that I u

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 29, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469168111

Ralph C. Hamm III

Ralph Hamm is serving a non capital first offence life sentence for ‘intent’, stemming from a criminal episode that occurred in 1968— when he was seventeen years old. During his 41 years of imprisonment he has aided in spearheading Massachusetts’ prison remorm movement, has earned degrees in liberal arts, divinity, metaphysics, and paralegal; as well as developed into a published poet, playwright, musician, and artist. In 2007 he was acknowledged as a contributor to the book, When the Prisoners Ran Walpole by Jamie Bissonette— a forerunner to Manumission.

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Copyright © 2012 by Ralph C. Hamm, III.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2012902876

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Introduction

In the early Spring of 1972, as I moved into my third year of service upon my court-ordered-1969-second-degree life sentence to the Massachusetts Correctional Institution (MCI) located in South Walpole, Massachusetts; I had the distinct honor and privilege to assist in the founding of Black African Nations Toward Unity (BANTU). I was not yet twenty-two years of age.

I, along with black prisoners Jack Harris, Henry Cribbs, Donald Robinson, Ronald Penrose, James Hall, James McAllister, Raymond White, Charles (2X) McDonald, Alphonso Pinckney, Sam Nelson, and Solomon Brown, comprised the cofounding internal board of directors of BANTU.

We had banded together to embark upon a historic mission to disseminate the life-saving benefits of black consciousness to the African American prisoners held captive within the walls of Walpole prison. Our singular mission was soon to evolve into an effort to resuscitate the entire Walpole prisoner population (black, white, and Hispanic) through an infusion/transfusion of cultural history and innovative educational concepts, utilizing the flexible format of the National Prisoners Reform Association (NPRA) as our springboard.

Later in the year 1972, I was fortunate to become one of the first internal board of directors for the MCI-Walpole NPRA via an election held by the general prisoner population. As a result of that election, I became one of the organization’s first co-vice presidents. At the outset, the NPRA was a prisoner-elected umbrella organization designed to channel human and other valuable resources to the various, and diverse, prisoner self-help programs existing within the prison.l The NPRA evolved into the recognized grievance negotiator for MCI-Walpole prisoners as well as their collective bargaining agency. The NPRA board of directors determined that the organization had to place itself upon equal footing with the prison guard’s union in an effort to be taken seriously in our transition from slaves to scale paid workers. So, toward that end, we moved to be certified as a worker’s union with the State Labor Relations Commission. But that is a previously told story.²

We of BANTU considered ourselves as abolitionists, but not in the traditionally recognized historical sense. We would embark upon a quest to deliver our brethren from the bonds of perpetual mental slavery. Prison abolition came later, by way of discussions with Reverend Edward Rodman,³ and in pursuit of NPRA’s ultimate ambition. This, then, is a true account of the state’s imprisoned black slaves and their search for their lost identity… for manhood and what my stance as a modern day abolitionist has taught me about my servitude.

To fully appreciate and understand the lessons that both BANTU and NPRA learned in Massachusetts as self-professed abolitionist organizations, and how I consciously evolved in particular as a runaway slave, I must go back to the beginning… to the lessons of history learned through my studies in the black history course mentored by David Dance⁴ in Walpole prison between the years 1972 and 1973. I have to return to 1638 in the Baystate, and to the origins of the slave trade in America, as well as return to the 1830s–1850s slavery abolition movement in this country. This is to afford a backdrop for Massachusetts’ role in creating, sustaining, and perpetuating that system of chattel slavery that has become the underpinnings for all of America’s prevailing institutions. I must also draw parallels to today. For only by way of tracing the steps back to the past could I obtain a clear view of the present and secure a proper outlook for the future.

In American society, a number of factors hinder the evolution of consciousness, or insight, toward a clearer vision of self. The method by which children are educated restricts their capacity to truly learn and hinders their creativity; the way that the young experience the struggle for material survival results in frustration and resentment. In adults, this leads to a variety of compensatory, addictive, and compulsive behaviors. The result is the persistence of social and political oppression, cultural and ethnic intolerance, and crime. This hindrance of consciousness-evolution is a critical aspect of the tracking system in place within American society, whereby those designated the underclass are channeled into delinquency, prison, and political/social death. It reduces human beings from subjects to mere objects in history.

This book speaks to a history of racial and ethnic domination in Massachusetts, as it intrudes upon the collective psyche of its citizens. It reveals a self-righteous veneer of white supremacy and manifest destiny as perceived through the jaundiced eyes of the European majority and inflicted upon the state’s ethnic minorities in the name of explicit capital gain through domination. It is about the creation of an atmosphere of uncertainty and fear,[1] as the means by which to crush opposition and suppress change. It is about the history of America and what underlies her present day domestic and foreign policies.

My becoming BANTU, in service to NPRA, was not a single or solitary lesson. Rather, it was an evolution—an awareness of self in history, even as history was unfolding around me.

Ralph C. Hamm, III

2008

Contents

Lesson 1:  From Plantation to Constitutional Sanction.

a. The birthplace of institutional slavery.

b. The Thirteenth Amendment: From plantation to prison.

c. Black illusions.

Lesson 2: The Truth Regarding the Massissippi Abolitionists.

a. Who were the real abolitionists?

b. Media resistance. (cf., 1850s to 1970s)

c. Anti-abolitionism vs. abolitionism, in Walpole.

Lesson 3: Massissippi Liberalism and the Caste System

a. White supremacy and racism.

b. Unconscionable denial.

c. Keep them in their place (a psychological profile).

Lesson 4: Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow.l

a. Recognizing domination.

b. Paolo Freire methodology/ABE in Walpole Prison.

c. Experimentation and success.

Lesson 5: Unequal Justice under the Law.

a. The implications of Dred Scott v. John Sandford.

b. Duplicity.

c. Disparate and exorbitant.

Lesson 6: The Prison-Industrial Complex.

a. Same game different name.

b. The economics of human bondage.

c. Profit sharing and propaganda.

Lesson 7: Preferences and Percentages in Massissippi Parole.

a. Attachment to the leash and lash.

b. Quotas and the race factor.

c. A design to failure.

Lesson 8: Rude Awakenings. (The Recapitulation.)

a. Another peek under the cowl.

b. Revelations.

c. Fading back and forth to black.

Epilogue On Becoming BANTU

Appendix

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Honorarium

An honorable mention is separately paid to Askia Touré—an unsung hero in Amerikkka’s black consciousness movement, the original black scholar—one who was either the mentor of, or left an indelible impression upon, the psyche of every black Ameriklan-made writer of the principal era spoken of within this book. Without Askia’s influence there may not have been such a prolific Sonia Sanchez… no formation of the Last Poets… no all-encompassing Sun-Ra… no Amiri Baraka… nor a host of other poets who lent their creative substance to the black consciousness movement in this country between the years 1960–1980.

Without the bards, the poets, the musicians, the storytellers, there would not have arisen significant black consciousness within the walls of Walpole State prison to found the black prisoner self-help organization called Black Africans Nation Toward Unity (BANTU): an organization that relied heavily upon every word and phrase uttered by Askia’s poet/ess class, as they took up the rallying call for us to unite and take the forefront in the struggle for prisoner and human rights when our so-called black political leaders left us hanging in the air or simply fell short of the mark.

Dedications

This book is dedicated to my companion and best friend Maria Dada Johnson without whose faith, courage, and love I would, in all probability, have succumbed to the forces of oppression many years ago.

To her daughters, Stacey, Tamara, and Stephanie, who are like my own; as well as to their husbands, Brian and Edwin, all of whom have welcomed me as a part of their extended family.

To the grandchildren of Dada: John, Darius, Damaris, Bria, and Braeden; five good reasons why the struggle against racism, ignorance, and repression are important—to secure a slavery-free future.

In Memoriam

To the loving memory of my sisters, Gladys Hamm and Verna Johnson, both of whom were victims of medical malevolence.

Finally, to the memory of Professor Dante Germanotta, one who truly understood the importance of the educational concepts of Paolo Freire and the vision of the NPRA, thereby adding his flavor to the sauce. For making abolition through creative education more interactive and a reality for not only the men confined within Walpole Prison, but also for his students from Curry College, who undertook the journey with him inside of the prison walls.

[Ralph]

Aluta continuaa!

Ralph C. Hamm, III

Acknowledgments

A special acknowledgment goes out to those men who have, as slaves of the State, shared this struggle with me in one form or another. The following names have either fallen in the direct cause of abolition, or in later years as a result thereof:

jerry funderberg, larry williams, frank parky grace, william royce, richard devlin, fred red williams, carmen gagliardi, joseph the pollack subilowski, joseph corriea, john kerrigan, donald kela robinson, jerry sousa, curtis johnson, sam hunt, roosevelt smith, james preston, giggie washington, albert de salvo, james the whale connors, william whitey hearst, joe gleason, herbert beaver jones, richard guppy, benny butler, ronald pelletier, robert big bob heard, steve john doe jenkins, david royster, herman hunt, harry ambers, sebastian pina, ronald casseso, stanely bond, alvin cambell, john gray, james gallo, mr. reddick, marshall o’brien, joseph j.j. josepatis, ray rich, richard baptiste, al little, henry tamileo, richard duarte, arnold butch jackson, dean lecain, bruce turner, andy pomerance, ronald stokes, luman funderberg, thomas royce, raymond lebeau, arthur gagne, elmo johnson, david thomas, charles smith, bradford boyd, leo greco, cocaine smitty smith, george pimental, walter nelson, charles holley, tiny dirring, richard washington, joshua gens, wayne montgomery, george pinto, eddie diaz, kenny star, thomas brown, vincent the bear flemmi, doug banion, perry hooks, miami lou alexander, lenny the coahog pardiseo, ronnie coleman, ed white, big bill white, james robuchaud, c-note’, bo burns, lucious aaron, leroy manning, peter enos, robert gonk gonsalez, robert bonds, lamont legs brewer, al king, paul king, robert thompson, charles hawkins, albert blake, william broadway bradford, arthur gauthier, frank coleman, roosevelt pickett, lawrence buddy" burnett, norman longville, john cochise, lebeau long, jimmy white… and to those former slaves of the state, whom I only know in spirit, that are interred within the graves of the Pauper’s cemeteries outside of the walls of several Massissippi prisons.

Special Thanks

To Jamie Bissonette, who has become more than a sister to me and encouraged me to write this book following the reception given to When The Prisoners Ran Walpole: A True Story In The Movement For Prison Abolition. For over the past six years, she has counseled, supported, and championed my cause for manumission.

To Richard Gawel-Cambridge, whose unselfish support in forwarding me the reference books and materials required to fulfill my work has been invaluable—in the sense that without his assistance, this book would not have been written.

The dialectic that introduces necessity as a support for my freedom expels me from myself. It shatters my impulsive position. [. . .] black consciousness is immanent in itself. I am not a potentiality of something; I am fully what I am. I do not have to look for the universal. There’s no room for probability inside me. My black consciousness does not claim to be a loss. It is. It merges with itself.

—Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, 1952

AMERIKLAN JUST-US (MASSISSIPPI-STYLE)

If they came for me

before first light

on thanksgiving day morning,

with their christian hypocrisy

reflecting their might…

would you question

their means of injustice?

Would you care

who was wrong or right?

Or would you cower

behind closed doors,

and drawn curtains,

afraid to confront

their collective sight?

Allow those crosses to burn,

and then maybe,

in turn,

they’ll come for you next

in the night.

Lesson 1:

From Plantation to Constitutional Sanction.

a.   The birthplace of institutional slavery.

Spring of 1972. What a year it was turning out to be. I had recently been released from my first stint in two of the State penal system’s infamous segregation units (i.e., Bridgewater Departmental Segregation Unit and Walpole Prison’s Block 10), after having had my head split open by Walpole Prison Superintendent Robert More Gas Moore accompanied by his twenty-guard goon squad¹ in 1970, only to find myself within the midst of a full-scale property damage riot on March 17.² I thought, What could happen next?

The Massachusetts Department of Correction had a new Commissioner, and amazingly, he was black. I had met with him on a couple of occasions since the March riot, as a newly elected member of the Walpole Prison Inmate Advisory Council. At those times, I felt like a fish out of water. I was truly out of my element (fire), as I did not know what to logically ask for in the way of grievances for the collective prisoner body, because I barely had two years of prison population life under my belt, and most of that time was not spent pondering the gripes of the entire population. I found it more comfortable to allow Bobby Dellelo³ do the talking as Council Chairman, while I sat back and observed everyone’s interactions. Bobby instinctively knew what was required to quell the madness, and I was to learn more from watching and listening to him.

As I observed the white prisoners airing their complaints to the prison administration and the Commissioner of Correction, basing their grievances upon rights secured by way of the US Constitution, I came to the realization that a void existed within my conscious mind. The white prisoners presented their issues upon a foundation of culture rooted within their history here in Massachusetts.

It became vividly clear to me that I did not know my true place in the history of this state nor in the world, which left me with no viable stake in the Massachusetts body politic. Not only was I viewing the evolution of my life through an opaque lens, but so too were all of the other black prisoners on the Council and within the general prisoner population. I immediately took an impromptu poll and discovered that blacks, as a segment of the prison population, could only trace our ethnic history (with any degree of certainty) back to the neighborhoods and city streets where we grew up through adolescence. I was shocked into the awareness that everything taught to me thus far in my life… everything that I retained as knowledge… was based upon European culture, and based upon a Eurocentric perspective. I knew nothing of myself, save that I appeared to be existing, except what my mother had passed onto me concerning her own mother, which left me ashamed, spiritually lost, and angry.

The Civil Rights Era of the 1960s, which I had just barely survived, had afforded me painful images of black people marching with signs and prostrating themselves upon city streets—to be fire hosed, beaten by police, attacked by dogs, shot at, tear gassed, and arrested. I had grown through my formative years within a state of psychological trauma, harboring an intense distrust and hatred for white authority figures, without any answers to my questions concerning why people of color (nonwhites) were being treated the way that they were in this country. I had no historical reference from which to draw a conclusion, nor any insight through which to filter what was personally happening to me—or what I was witnessing transpiring around me.

One day in mid-March 1972, a black prisoner named Henry Cribbs asked me if I wanted to be enrolled within a black history course that was scheduled to begin that Spring. He informed me that only twelve prisoners could attend at one time, and that he was seeking Brothers who were serious about learning their heritage—who would not waste the instructor’s time and energy. Due to the fact that I was one of the elected black prisoner leaders seated upon the Inmate Advisory council, we agreed that it would be in all of our best interest for me to attend the classes.

Our course instructor was David Dance, an undergraduate student of Harvard University’s Phillip Brooks House,⁴ and he had recently obtained permission from the Commissioner of Correction John O. Boone to bring a black history course to the Walpole Prison black prisoner population.⁵ David had enlisted Robert Big Bob Heard, a leading official of Boston’s Black Panther party,⁶ as his coinstructor. Together, over the course of the ensuing year, they would bring the history of my people alive and tutor this twelve-prisoner class upon the struggle for existence of nonwhite people around the world.

History, literature, prose, drama, sociology, psychology, science, religion, philosophy, art, and poetry were all afforded to me from an African perspective. I began to learn the truth underlying all that there ever was, and all that there ever will be—using clear vision and strong fingers to pull myself up and out of the grave of ignorance in which I had heretofore been historically interred. I had broken through the realm of darkness into the light of understanding… into the fresh air. I found myself within the transformation stage of evolving into a being of substance… a person