Political Prisoner w/ Marshall "Eddie" Conway

Our guests tonight will be Sis. Dominque Stevenson and Political Prisoner and former Black Panther Marshall "Eddie" Conway.


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Dominque Stevenson is the mother of four children. An activist who speaks extensively about political prisoners and the prison industrial complex, she is currently the director of the Maryland Peace with Justice Program of the Middle Atlantic Region of the American Friends Service Committee in Baltimore, Maryland. She coordinates prisoner run mentoring projects in Maryland prisons. The program, A Friend of a Friend, helps foster healing, and connects young men with prison mentors who help them develop the skills necessary to navigate violent situations, and prepare for a successful return to their communities.

She is the co-author of Marshall Law: The Life and Times of a Baltimore Black Panther, and has written a novel, Blues Before Sunrise. Marshall ''Eddie'' Conway is a former member of the Baltimore chapter of the Black Panther Party. In 1969, he uncovered evidence of the FBI's infiltration of the Panthers as a part of the COINTELPRO initiative, and found himself locked away one year later, convicted of a murder he did not commit. Currently into his fourth decade of incarceration in a Maryland correctional facility, he has played a leading role in a variety of prisoner support initiatives, including the formation of the Maryland chapter of the United Prisoner's Labor Union, and the ACLU's Prison Committee to Correct Prison Conditions as well as the American Friends Service Committee's A Friend of a Friend program. Mr. Conway is the author of two books, The Greatest Threat: The Black Panther Party and COINTELPRO, and his memoir, Marshall Law: The Life and Times of a Baltimore Black Panther. He has a Bachelor's Degree in Social Science from Coppin State University.

Ending the Drug War w/ David M. Long of LEAP

As an idealistic University of Pennsylvania Law student and young intern in the United States Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia during the 1980s, David witnessed first-hand how the lives of young men and women were drastically changed as they were sentenced to decades in prison as a result of their involvement in drugs. David also remembers hearing the misgivings of a particular assistant U.S. attorney regarding the impact of the “War on Drugs.” Years later, as a federal agent, David began to see the unmistakable link of how the drug trade fueled, funded, and helped to facilitate crimes he investigated. It became clear to David that many of the weapons and much of the money funding these crimes could be traced to the illegal drug trade. Later, as a professor of criminal justice and legal studies, David became convinced that the “War on Drugs” is an unsound policy and is, in fact, doing great harm to our society in many ways. Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) is a non-profit organization -www.CopsSayLegalizeDrugs.com - formed by cops, judges and others in the criminal justice system who believe the War on Drugs has been an expensive failure that has only made our nation's tragic drug problem worse.


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