About

Photo © Paul Ozarowski

Without a home of my own to return to, the Streets welcomed another lost soul to wander the barren wasteland littered with the broken hopes of countless other thrown-away lives. The landscape of cold, black rivers of asphalt would soon be replaced by razor-wire serpents crawling along the concrete walls and steel bars of the tombs reserved for boys barely grown, sent to be locked away lest their existence disturb the faultless facade finely crafted to conceal the truths that must not be confronted. We must not let them awaken from their American dreams…

I come from a background like millions of others—troubled financial circumstances led to my family losing our home and put me on the streets at the age of fifteen, where I got involved with a street organization (AKA “gang”) to survive. By the time I was seventeen years old, I was locked down in an adult maximum security prison, sentenced to serve many years behind the wall of the hellholes of the American prison system. Like too many other youth, this system offered me no greater purpose and no better fate than crime and punishment – a future of living and dying for nothing.

Once I was locked down behind the walls, I soon started to question what brought me—and all the other people there with me—to prison. And as conditions became more repressive, I began to develop an understanding of the historical and social forces that led all of us into the horrendous conditions of the American prison system.

Within a few years I was placed in segregation—solitary confinement—for an indeterminate period of time, and faced the prospect of languishing in isolation devoid of human contact in a concrete tomb until my release. It was in the midst of this—the pepper spray choking the whole cell house, the tactical team stomping down the gallery to drag someone out of their cell and beat them down, the constant agony of men straining against the solitude crying out for some kind of conversation or contact—that I first read Revolution newspaper.

Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund, which for more than 20 years has provided donated subscriptions to Revolution and other revolutionary literature to hundreds of prisoners across the U.S., sent me a donated subscription. And Revolution began to open my eyes to a whole other way that society could be organized and a whole other way of thinking. Instead of focusing intently on revenge and my own personal oppression or wrongs, I began to see that this capitalist-imperialist system is fundamentally based on the exploitation and oppression of the vast majority of humanity at the hands of the few within the ruling class who own and control the means of production. And that the basis exists to emancipate all of humanity from the oppressive relations of class society, and unleash people to flourish in ways undreamed of under the confines of this capitalist system.

Besides studying broadly and reading as much as I could get my hands on while I was locked up, I also began to develop as a writer. I had several pieces published in the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center‘s newspaper, The Public i, and in Words Through Bars: Poetry, articles and stories written by people in prison, published in 2006 by the Urbana-Champaign Books to Prisoners Collective. I also earned a paralegal diploma while personally litigating a federal civil rights lawsuit challenging prison policies. After being released in December 2006, I attended several semesters at the College of Lake County while I was still on parole. I am now employed as a paralegal at a law office in Chicago.

I have also continued to develop my understanding and break out of looking at things from the perspective of my own experience of oppression. Now my life is dedicated to the struggle to end all exploitation and oppression and getting to a world where people contribute what they can to society and get back what they need to live a life worthy of human beings.

As part of that struggle to liberate humanity, I’ve been in the streets opposing the wars for empire in Iraq and Afghanistan – both under Bush and Obama. I’ve worn an orange jumpsuit and black hood to bring home the reality of torture being committed by our government in our names at anti-torture demonstrations. I’ve spoken in classrooms to students around topics such as police brutality and the criminalization of youth to U.S. imperialism and torture. I’ve been out in the streets demanding gay marriage now, equal rights and liberation for the LGBT community, and I’ve marched with the immigrant community demanding an end to ICE raids, detention and deportations ripping apart families who come here yearning for a better life. And I’ve been on the front lines of the fight for women’s liberation and the right to abortion.

After nearly a year fighting an unrelenting political attack from the “Ethical” Humanist Society of Chicago, Skokie police, Cook County State’s Attorney, and judges who starkly exposed the “justice” system as the naked instrument of class suppression that it is, I recently spent two months under a 300 day sentence as a political prisoner in the Cook County Jail – with the increasingly growing support of many people outraged by this blatantly political prosecution. You can read more about the backstory of the political charges against me at www.dropthecharges.net. In one of the largest county jail’s in the country, I was locked down there with over 10,000 brothers and sisters who this system has written off as worthless – human beings who deserve a much better life than this system has for them and who have a vast potential to contribute to brining into being a radically different society.

Take a moment to seriously consider the fact that nearly two-and-a-half million men, women and children are imprisoned in an unrivaled and unparalleled racist gulag that stretches like a razor-wire scar across this so-called “land of the free.” The rulers of the U.S. imprison more people than any other country in the world. The U.S. “justice” system is fundamentally stacked against people from the bottom of society ensnared within its inhuman clutches, and its primary function is the suppression of whole sections of society in service of upholding the interests and power of the ruling class. One in eight young Black men are locked up – a higher rate of incarceration for Black men than apartheid South Africa – and there are more Black folks under the control of the U.S. “justice” system than there were slaves just before the Civil War. More women are incarcerated in American than anywhere else on the planet. Whole families – including young children – who come here from around the world seeking a better future due to the depredations of U.S. imperialism on their home countries are criminalized and locked up in immigration prisons. The vast majority of prisoners are warehoused for years in conditions devoid of any meaningful human contact, forced to endure constant threats and abuse from guards, and denied access to educational opportunities. Tens of thousands are held in extreme isolation and sensory deprivation in supermax and segregation units – conditions that amount to torture. This is the daily reality for millions upon millions of people in this so-called “greatest country in the world.”

That this system offers millions of people no greater purpose and no better fate than crime and punishment and a future of living and dying for nothing, just one horror of many that this criminal system perpetrates on the masses of people here and around the world – this alone is reason enough to sweep this system aside and struggle together to increasingly unleash people to transform the world as they transform themselves and each other. The masses of people have a vast amount of power and potential to wake up and shake off the oppressive and degrading ways of thinking and relating to each other that this system constantly indoctrinates us with, and to rise up in struggle to put an end to all of the crimes of this system and bring into being a radically different future for all humanity. But those who rule over this system will do everything in their power to prevent that – and to suppress those people and movements who are fighting to bring an end to the crimes and injustices of this system.

During my time held captive as a political prisoner, I spent my time in the Cook County Jail having many interesting and important discussions and debates with the brothers locked down there with me, such as around religion, the oppression of women, national oppression and the historical and social forces that lead all of us to be locked up there, and the possibility for radical and revolutionary change, as well as learning more about the daily lives and struggles of those locked down there with me and the cases they are fighting – a major recurring theme of which was lying-ass police.

I received many touching and heartfelt letters from across the country and abroad, from people who heard about my case and were outraged by it, as well as many who were inspired by my story of transforming my life from a youth caught up in the dog-eat-dog mentality of survival in the street life through many years in the dehumanizing and degrading conditions of America’s hellhole prison system into a dedicated revolutionary emancipator of humanity.

I immersed myself in study so that I can further contribute to fighting against the crimes and injustices of this system, and I brought a revolutionary communist vision that there is no permanent necessity for the world to remain this way, that there is a whole other liberatory future possible for humanity: that through unleashing the increasingly conscious actions of the masses to break down all of the oppressive and exploitative relations and ideas of class society, we can bring forth a world where everybody contributes what they can to society and gets back what they need to live a life worthy of human beings – a communist world.

Although the battle against this political prosecution is far from over, thanks to the support and contributions of many thousands of people, I am now out on appeal bond and able to more fully participate in my defense and towards defeating these charges, as well as to continue contributing to the broader revolutionary work that my life is dedicated to. In the face of this political prosecution and imprisonment, my dedication and determination to fight the crimes and injustices of this system and to the struggle for liberation has only increased.

My deepest thanks to all who have shared their love and support.

With Hope and Determination for a Liberated Future For All Humanity,

Gregory