Blacks in Trouble and Biting Helping Hands
Blacks in Trouble and Biting Helping Hands
If I responded to all the lies that I hear on talk radio, I would be immersed in ink. The reason why we are still enslaved is our tolerance for fictions, myths and lies including the acceptance of the revision of our history and our culture.
Lying is a defense mechanism. No Black person has ever been imprisoned, disciplined, tortured, lynched, or executed for lying on another Black person. Our survival has been centered around telling the white man what he wants to hear. Of course, lying on whites is out of the question.
I must respond to an outright and willful lie that Rev. Al Sharpton told on this past Sunday’s “Sharptalk. The reason for my response is to protect rather than to denigrate those hundreds of persons who have sacrificed financially for the defense of Tawana Brawley.
Rev. Sharpton claimed that no one has made a greater contribution to me, and of necessity to Tawana, than his alleged financial contributions and his speaking truth to white power. He made this statement in response to a caller questioning his commitment to my cause.
If this is so, it explains why I have been suspended for fifteen years. This protracted suspension is an embarrassment to all Blacks. During the trial of a 67-count indictment in which I was representing Rev. Sharpton, pro bono the legal system demanded that I violate the attorney-client privilege to convict him. This was a Catch-22. I chose to sacrifice my legal career.
My silence here would belittle the contributions of hundreds of persons who have regularly or intermittently supported Tawana Brawley and also my efforts on her behalf including my own reinstatement to the practice of law. If a person has a right to tell a lie, I certainly have an obligation to speak the truth.
The list of contributors over the years is substantial. I will not attempt to list, for fear of breaching any confidentiality, the names of the contributors. Suffice it to say that if I had compiled a list of the top one thousand contributors, Rev. Sharpton would not make the list.
If you just looked at the period from November 1997 to August 1998, it covered the longest civil trial in New York history. I incurred monthly expenses well in excess of $20,000. Food alone was more than $600 daily for just five days. We were feeding approximately twenty persons daily for up to 3 meals.
Hotel rooms monthly was more than $8,000. We had several persons who aided the defense. They had living expenses. There were also various rentals. There were also transcript fees. We were engaged in a full scale war and we only had one bite at the apple.
Like the Black community, C. Vernon Mason did make some contributions in defraying some of the trial expenses. Rev. Sharpton, on the other hand, missed most of the defamation trial. He refused to establish a sinking fund.
In late 1997 and in my presence and in the presence of Johnnie Cochran who hosted the Court-TV program, Eliot Spitzer commanded Sharpton to generally stay away from his upcoming defamation trial. He was not, at that point, the state attorney general. I was shocked, shamed and appalled at the control Spitzer displayed over Rev. Sharpton.
Spitzer was on the television program to debate me about Brawley. He has always been anti-Brawley. He and I go back to the days when he worked for Robert Morgenthau. I was a target of Morgenthau’s office and Spitzer was one of his bloodhounds.
In all fairness, all Black elected officials in New York and most high-profile preachers serve on Spitzer’s influential plantation. This is why every Black elected official refused to support my reinstatement to practice law. Rev. Sharpton went AWOL from “Sharptalk” for nearly 8 months and during the time of my 2003 motion for reinstatement. He also refused to write a letter to the grievance committee pursuant to Spitzer’s injunction.
After the defamation trial, I did ask Rev. Sharpton to help defray some of the outstanding, common expenses of the trial. We were engaged in a full-scale war in Dutchess County and we had to support an army. Every law firm comes to court with an army. If the expenses had been apportioned, his obligations would have exceeded $70,000.
I made this demand after Rev. Sharpton was giving thousands of dollars to activists who had previously called for his head before the trial of 67 counts and during the trial. Two were members of the December 12th Movement. One of the beneficiaries came out of prison during the trial to publicly call for Sharpton’s conviction.
Rev. Sharpton ended up, only by a fraction, footing some of the trial expenses. Of course, this was only a moral obligation since Rev. Sharpton signed no contract pledging to support the defense of Tawana Brawley. We were unable to wait on him for assistance.
In the future, the Black community may have to sign a binding contract before anyone attacks the system. The question is whether the expenses incurred should be personal obligations or community obligations. In the future, the Black community may have to sign a binding contract before anyone attacks the system.
To understand the current and mounting incidents of police criminality, brutality and misconduct, you must comprehend the kidnapping and rape of Tawana Brawley which was also a case of police criminality. The culprits were acting under color of law. Brawley is the last case against the police that has been fought unscripted and the only case in history involving the attack and rape of a Black woman by white men.
A pacification program has been installed in New York to deflate the emotions that naturally arise from a police killing or beating. The state attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, is obligated to stop police criminality and brutality. Through Black buffers, he is getting away with turning a blind eye to it.
The pacification program is designed to keep criticism away from his doorsteps. Criticism would hurt his gubernatorial bid once blacks learn to knock on the right door, talk to the right people and ask the right questions. Spitzer is counting on our ignorance.
A cottage industry, in which profits would be available to mercenaries for the pain and suffering of victims, has been established in police killings. Personal injury lawyers get huge, hush money settlements. Activists and elected officials get commissions and media attention.
Spitzer’s in the driver’s seat. He needs no resistance to his gubernatorial bid. No civil case will ever go trial. All Democrats must line up behind him. Every political party has a slave driver to keep its elected members in tow as well as sycophants.
In short, no incentive exists to stop police brutality. The Black community will continue to march around the mulberry tree. Judas goats are leading the sheep. The difference between a human rights lawyer and a personal injury lawyer is that the former seeks justice while the latter seeks cash. Some people are living large off of Black pain and suffering.
In June 1989 when Rev. Sharpton was indicted, no lawyer would touch him with a ten-foot pole. If I had behaved in June 1989 like Rev. Sharpton has behaved toward me since my suspension, he would still be doing time behind bars. I would, on the other hand, still be lying and making excuses.
Other than a concern for Tawana Brawley and my ethical obligations to Black people, no reason existed for me to represent him. Before I ever met Rev. Sharpton, I had already established a reputation as one of the top trial lawyers in the country.
The white media was regularly advertising Rev. Sharpton as a “buffoon.” Black activists, including Councilman Charles Barron, were in accord with this assessment. They were all advising me to stay away from Sharpton. They characterized him as a “snitch.”
No lawyer in New York including C. Vernon Mason, Michael Hardy and Sanford Rubenstein volunteered to represent Rev. Sharpton. Unlike today, the government wanted Rev. Sharpton for sundry reasons. Any lawyer who represented him would have to turn him in or play possum during the trial. I hope you can read between the lines.
There was also the issue of money. Rev. Sharpton never offered a dime to pay for his legal defense. I had to borrow since begging would have been an exercise in futility. The trial was four months. The costs and expenses exceeded $100,000. The legal fee alone for a competent lawyer for a 70-count indictment would have exceeded $200,000.
In late May 1990 and after the May 21, 1990 suspension, the Black community rallied at Bethany Baptist Church and collected a generous donation. Every dime of this donation had to go to Rev. Sharpton’s defense. His trial ended about six weeks later. Similarly, CEMOTAP held a rally the following week. Its generous donation also was used to pay for Rev. Sharpton’s defense.
It took a lot of contributions to finally pay for his successful defense. Afterwards, considerable expense were incurred to fight the disciplinary proceeding against me and to prepare for the defamation trial which was the most expensive civil trial in New York history. While I was headed for the poor house, Rev. Sharpton was sitting on his hands and lying.
Rev. Sharpton is Exhibit A as to why Blacks and their children are headed to concentration camps. Blacks need leaders with the character of Fannie Lou Hamer, Callie House, Ida B. Wells, Nat Turner, Denmark Vesey, Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X and Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. to name just a few ancestors.
Unlike in 1988, Rev. Sharpton is now the best thing for white America. Since his trial, he has been seeking “atonement” from white America. It proves one point, politics and white acceptance corrupts. Black leaders are eliminated or exiled. This is why every other community keeps their leaders sheltered.
Glenda Brawley asked me to represent Tawana within three days after Tawana was found. She was dissatisfied with her legal representation from the NAACP. My condition was that the Black community had to make financial contributions to defend her. I knew it would be a difficult and protracted struggle.
Instead, my defense, the defense of Rev. Sharpton and the defense of Tawana Brawley have become my personal obligations with some members of the Black community providing some relief. As Frederick Douglass warned, “If there is no struggle there is no progress.” We must stop financing our oppression and start financing our liberation.
The Black community, including Min. Louis Farrakhan, rallied in New burgh, New York on December 12, 1987. A commitment was made on that date to support Tawana to the hilt and to support any fallout on the road to justice. This is the significance of December 12.
The record will reflect that I waited until after December 12, 1987 to inform Glenda that I would represent the family. I knew that I could get in a legal jam but I never expected a financial jam because of a lack of community support. The white man always shoots the target that raises its head.
This letter is being written in honor of those persons who have continued to support my efforts. Nobody, including Rev. Sharpton, should be allowed to disparage their efforts. Rev. Sharpton should be honest to the Black community.
The struggle for justice for Tawana Brawley continues in federal court. Today, the entire struggle stands on my shoulders. In the interim, the sacrifices have been great including the loss of my law license for refusing to work against Rev. Sharpton during his trial.
If I had defaulted on my obligation to the Brawley family, the case would be history. With my resistance, the case is still alive. I hope the calvary arrives in time for us to secure complete victory. The bugle is blowing.
Even with community support, the struggle has intensified. At this very moment, a massive effort is afoot to evict me, simultaneously, from my home and my office. All of this is happening because I refused to turn my back on a fifteen year-old rape victim on behalf of the Black community and a person on the verge of going to prison, Rev. Sharpton.
The power structure is bent on defeating me. Like on plantations, the slaveowner is unable to permit any Black person to be unbought and unbossed. There are very few Blacks activists and leaders who fit into this category. Those who fit in this category are now in hot pursuit.
If I responded to all the lies that I hear on talk radio, I would be immersed in ink. The reason why we are still enslaved is our tolerance for fictions, myths and lies including the acceptance of the revision of our history and our culture.
Lying is a defense mechanism. No Black person has ever been imprisoned, disciplined, tortured, lynched, or executed for lying on another Black person. Our survival has been centered around telling the white man what he wants to hear. Of course, lying on whites is out of the question.
I must respond to an outright and willful lie that Rev. Al Sharpton told on this past Sunday’s “Sharptalk. The reason for my response is to protect rather than to denigrate those hundreds of persons who have sacrificed financially for the defense of Tawana Brawley.
Rev. Sharpton claimed that no one has made a greater contribution to me, and of necessity to Tawana, than his alleged financial contributions and his speaking truth to white power. He made this statement in response to a caller questioning his commitment to my cause.
If this is so, it explains why I have been suspended for fifteen years. This protracted suspension is an embarrassment to all Blacks. During the trial of a 67-count indictment in which I was representing Rev. Sharpton, pro bono the legal system demanded that I violate the attorney-client privilege to convict him. This was a Catch-22. I chose to sacrifice my legal career.
My silence here would belittle the contributions of hundreds of persons who have regularly or intermittently supported Tawana Brawley and also my efforts on her behalf including my own reinstatement to the practice of law. If a person has a right to tell a lie, I certainly have an obligation to speak the truth.
The list of contributors over the years is substantial. I will not attempt to list, for fear of breaching any confidentiality, the names of the contributors. Suffice it to say that if I had compiled a list of the top one thousand contributors, Rev. Sharpton would not make the list.
If you just looked at the period from November 1997 to August 1998, it covered the longest civil trial in New York history. I incurred monthly expenses well in excess of $20,000. Food alone was more than $600 daily for just five days. We were feeding approximately twenty persons daily for up to 3 meals.
Hotel rooms monthly was more than $8,000. We had several persons who aided the defense. They had living expenses. There were also various rentals. There were also transcript fees. We were engaged in a full scale war and we only had one bite at the apple.
Like the Black community, C. Vernon Mason did make some contributions in defraying some of the trial expenses. Rev. Sharpton, on the other hand, missed most of the defamation trial. He refused to establish a sinking fund.
In late 1997 and in my presence and in the presence of Johnnie Cochran who hosted the Court-TV program, Eliot Spitzer commanded Sharpton to generally stay away from his upcoming defamation trial. He was not, at that point, the state attorney general. I was shocked, shamed and appalled at the control Spitzer displayed over Rev. Sharpton.
Spitzer was on the television program to debate me about Brawley. He has always been anti-Brawley. He and I go back to the days when he worked for Robert Morgenthau. I was a target of Morgenthau’s office and Spitzer was one of his bloodhounds.
In all fairness, all Black elected officials in New York and most high-profile preachers serve on Spitzer’s influential plantation. This is why every Black elected official refused to support my reinstatement to practice law. Rev. Sharpton went AWOL from “Sharptalk” for nearly 8 months and during the time of my 2003 motion for reinstatement. He also refused to write a letter to the grievance committee pursuant to Spitzer’s injunction.
After the defamation trial, I did ask Rev. Sharpton to help defray some of the outstanding, common expenses of the trial. We were engaged in a full-scale war in Dutchess County and we had to support an army. Every law firm comes to court with an army. If the expenses had been apportioned, his obligations would have exceeded $70,000.
I made this demand after Rev. Sharpton was giving thousands of dollars to activists who had previously called for his head before the trial of 67 counts and during the trial. Two were members of the December 12th Movement. One of the beneficiaries came out of prison during the trial to publicly call for Sharpton’s conviction.
Rev. Sharpton ended up, only by a fraction, footing some of the trial expenses. Of course, this was only a moral obligation since Rev. Sharpton signed no contract pledging to support the defense of Tawana Brawley. We were unable to wait on him for assistance.
In the future, the Black community may have to sign a binding contract before anyone attacks the system. The question is whether the expenses incurred should be personal obligations or community obligations. In the future, the Black community may have to sign a binding contract before anyone attacks the system.
To understand the current and mounting incidents of police criminality, brutality and misconduct, you must comprehend the kidnapping and rape of Tawana Brawley which was also a case of police criminality. The culprits were acting under color of law. Brawley is the last case against the police that has been fought unscripted and the only case in history involving the attack and rape of a Black woman by white men.
A pacification program has been installed in New York to deflate the emotions that naturally arise from a police killing or beating. The state attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, is obligated to stop police criminality and brutality. Through Black buffers, he is getting away with turning a blind eye to it.
The pacification program is designed to keep criticism away from his doorsteps. Criticism would hurt his gubernatorial bid once blacks learn to knock on the right door, talk to the right people and ask the right questions. Spitzer is counting on our ignorance.
A cottage industry, in which profits would be available to mercenaries for the pain and suffering of victims, has been established in police killings. Personal injury lawyers get huge, hush money settlements. Activists and elected officials get commissions and media attention.
Spitzer’s in the driver’s seat. He needs no resistance to his gubernatorial bid. No civil case will ever go trial. All Democrats must line up behind him. Every political party has a slave driver to keep its elected members in tow as well as sycophants.
In short, no incentive exists to stop police brutality. The Black community will continue to march around the mulberry tree. Judas goats are leading the sheep. The difference between a human rights lawyer and a personal injury lawyer is that the former seeks justice while the latter seeks cash. Some people are living large off of Black pain and suffering.
In June 1989 when Rev. Sharpton was indicted, no lawyer would touch him with a ten-foot pole. If I had behaved in June 1989 like Rev. Sharpton has behaved toward me since my suspension, he would still be doing time behind bars. I would, on the other hand, still be lying and making excuses.
Other than a concern for Tawana Brawley and my ethical obligations to Black people, no reason existed for me to represent him. Before I ever met Rev. Sharpton, I had already established a reputation as one of the top trial lawyers in the country.
The white media was regularly advertising Rev. Sharpton as a “buffoon.” Black activists, including Councilman Charles Barron, were in accord with this assessment. They were all advising me to stay away from Sharpton. They characterized him as a “snitch.”
No lawyer in New York including C. Vernon Mason, Michael Hardy and Sanford Rubenstein volunteered to represent Rev. Sharpton. Unlike today, the government wanted Rev. Sharpton for sundry reasons. Any lawyer who represented him would have to turn him in or play possum during the trial. I hope you can read between the lines.
There was also the issue of money. Rev. Sharpton never offered a dime to pay for his legal defense. I had to borrow since begging would have been an exercise in futility. The trial was four months. The costs and expenses exceeded $100,000. The legal fee alone for a competent lawyer for a 70-count indictment would have exceeded $200,000.
In late May 1990 and after the May 21, 1990 suspension, the Black community rallied at Bethany Baptist Church and collected a generous donation. Every dime of this donation had to go to Rev. Sharpton’s defense. His trial ended about six weeks later. Similarly, CEMOTAP held a rally the following week. Its generous donation also was used to pay for Rev. Sharpton’s defense.
It took a lot of contributions to finally pay for his successful defense. Afterwards, considerable expense were incurred to fight the disciplinary proceeding against me and to prepare for the defamation trial which was the most expensive civil trial in New York history. While I was headed for the poor house, Rev. Sharpton was sitting on his hands and lying.
Rev. Sharpton is Exhibit A as to why Blacks and their children are headed to concentration camps. Blacks need leaders with the character of Fannie Lou Hamer, Callie House, Ida B. Wells, Nat Turner, Denmark Vesey, Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X and Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. to name just a few ancestors.
Unlike in 1988, Rev. Sharpton is now the best thing for white America. Since his trial, he has been seeking “atonement” from white America. It proves one point, politics and white acceptance corrupts. Black leaders are eliminated or exiled. This is why every other community keeps their leaders sheltered.
Glenda Brawley asked me to represent Tawana within three days after Tawana was found. She was dissatisfied with her legal representation from the NAACP. My condition was that the Black community had to make financial contributions to defend her. I knew it would be a difficult and protracted struggle.
Instead, my defense, the defense of Rev. Sharpton and the defense of Tawana Brawley have become my personal obligations with some members of the Black community providing some relief. As Frederick Douglass warned, “If there is no struggle there is no progress.” We must stop financing our oppression and start financing our liberation.
The Black community, including Min. Louis Farrakhan, rallied in New burgh, New York on December 12, 1987. A commitment was made on that date to support Tawana to the hilt and to support any fallout on the road to justice. This is the significance of December 12.
The record will reflect that I waited until after December 12, 1987 to inform Glenda that I would represent the family. I knew that I could get in a legal jam but I never expected a financial jam because of a lack of community support. The white man always shoots the target that raises its head.
This letter is being written in honor of those persons who have continued to support my efforts. Nobody, including Rev. Sharpton, should be allowed to disparage their efforts. Rev. Sharpton should be honest to the Black community.
The struggle for justice for Tawana Brawley continues in federal court. Today, the entire struggle stands on my shoulders. In the interim, the sacrifices have been great including the loss of my law license for refusing to work against Rev. Sharpton during his trial.
If I had defaulted on my obligation to the Brawley family, the case would be history. With my resistance, the case is still alive. I hope the calvary arrives in time for us to secure complete victory. The bugle is blowing.
Even with community support, the struggle has intensified. At this very moment, a massive effort is afoot to evict me, simultaneously, from my home and my office. All of this is happening because I refused to turn my back on a fifteen year-old rape victim on behalf of the Black community and a person on the verge of going to prison, Rev. Sharpton.
The power structure is bent on defeating me. Like on plantations, the slaveowner is unable to permit any Black person to be unbought and unbossed. There are very few Blacks activists and leaders who fit into this category. Those who fit in this category are now in hot pursuit.
posted by Attorney Alton Maddox at 9:21 AM
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