By Chris Macleod
Then the judge called the sinners to
answer for their crimes
Valley justice is swift; it didn’t
take much time
And the judge said guilty, 99 to life
And the sinners were black, the courthouse
white
¾ from
“A Valley Tale,” by Brad Carter, Tulia Friend of Justice
At
Now, on
the second anniversary of the bust,
The
buses drove eight hours to
At
Maybe so. The thermometer had long since surged past the century mark, and we sautéd in our own sweat. When we finally got back on the bus, the funk was palpable.
So on
to Tulia we went, pulling up to
As it turns out, they need not have worried. Part block party, folk festival, revival meeting, and political protest, the Tulia rally unfolded peacefully, even as speakers stripped away the veneer of decency shielding those responsible for the Tulia sting and others like it.
Will Harrell, Executive Director of the ACLU of Texas, spoke directly to the Tulia officers as the event began.
“The police who are circling and videotaping us right now need to know that we’re not going to leave Tulia, ever. We are going to make an imprint on the culture of this town for evermore. We physically may not be here tomorrow, but in spirit we are. The 46 people who were busted on the word of one unscrupulous man by the name of Tom Coleman, their spirit too goes with us.”
Harrell also underlined the federal government’s complicity in the Tulia fiasco. The feds fund the regional narcotics task forces like the one that funded the sting in Tulia, giving police agencies an incentive to trample on citizens’ constitutional rights.
“It is strictly a game of numbers,” Harrell said. “The federal government does not care how you make the arrests or how you make the seizure. They simply want to see the numbers. So by the end of every year, each of the task forces that wishes to stay in business has to produce numbers – by any means necessary. We have to resist that – by any means necessary.”
Harrell echoed a theme hammered at over and over again by speakers and demonstrators: Tulia is not an isolated incident.
He noted that, “we’ve identified
situations such as that of Tulia in at least eight other towns:
Alan Bean of the Friends of Justice stressed the human cost of punitive drug policies.
“The most important thing that I want people to come away from this meeting with is an understanding that the men and women we are putting behind bars are people,” Bean said. “People with little boys and girls, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, lovers and friends. We want to put a personal face, not just on what happened in Tulia, but on what is happening across our nation.”
Bean read a letter written by a
female victim of the Tulia bust, who described the circumstances of her arrest
on the morning of
“When they put me in the holding tank, I actually realized that I was in jail,” she wrote. “I had never been in trouble or in jail before. I was the first one arrested, but as I was sitting there, they started bringing all the blacks that I knew in. I was tripping out because half the people they arrested barely had a place to live. That’s when I knew it was a setup.”
She says that her faith in God has sustained her throughout the ordeal, and she believes that justice will be done.
“The devil likes the kind of work that Tom Coleman is doing, but Tom Coleman doesn’t realize that the battle is not ours, but the Lord’s,” she wrote.
Many drug reform activists joined
the civil rights and civil liberties advocates who traveled the 10 hours to
Tulia. Tracey Hayes of the Texas Network of Reform Groups organized the freedom
ride, and says she hopes the furor over the raids will spur a reassessment of
drug policy in
“Due to the serious nature of the circumstances in Tulia and the obvious and blatant injustice, I couldn’t call myself a drug policy reform activist without contributing to these efforts,” Hayes said.
Despite her own agenda, however, Hayes said her main motivation has nothing to do with political abstractions.
“This changed the genetic makeup of the town,” Hayes said. “That’s shocking. There was no drug evidence or significant amounts of cash found. That’s shocking. That they got 20 to 300 years, that’s shocking. That they were ripped away from their families, that there are over 50 children who don’t have parents due to incarceration, that’s shocking.”
Karen Heikkala, the November Coalition National Vigil Project Coordinator, helped Hayes organize the ride, said that she came to Tulia not to demonize the townspeople, but to make a broader point.
“It really isn’t just this town, although it’s an egregious example of what’s going on all across the country,” Heikkala said. “It’s poor people, vulnerable people, people who have been targeted and easily swept away behind bars.”
Heikkala hopes the rally will open some eyes, but wonders whether people unscathed by the Drug War will be able to identify with those snared by policies that overwhelmingly target poor minorities.
“They’re isolated in their world of convenience and privilege, and it’s difficult for them to see outside,” she said.
Not all of the out-of-towners came
from
Gaines went to prison for refusing
to testify against an acquaintance of her ex-husband. Like many women sentenced
for alleged drug crimes, she just didn’t have any information to give. The only
evidence against her was the testimony of witnesses trying to bargain down
their sentences, but that was enough to convict her and jail her for 20 years.
She served six before then-President
Pointing to a display of photos showing everyday Americans imprisoned on drug charges, Gaines said, “This time last year, my picture was on that wall over there. Today I am free because I never stopped fighting my case.”
Gaines said only a long-term commitment by the assembled activists will overturn the crimes committed by police and prosecutors in Tulia.
“Do not let this be the last day that you come together,” she said. “Everyday you’ve got to fight and pound this wall, and eventually those 42 people will walk out of prison.”
The speeches that began at
“We can look at the criminal justice system and say ‘it’s them,’” Sanders said. “But it’s also us. And until we’re willing to deal with the ways in which we end up being the perpetuators, the ways that we end up being the ones who carry in so many subtle and unappreciated ways the stuff that is the baggage of racial fragmentation and division, we’re not going to be able to paint that new picture.”
As Sanders’ booming voice carried throughout the park, those who had drifted off throughout the rally recongregated beneath the tent as Sanders urged them not to succumb to frustration.
“One of the ways in which I find myself getting caught up way in which this vicious system which seems to be loosed to undermine and destroy the fabric of our communities and of the people of this nation. It’s something that too often sucks me into a posture where I have a retaliatory spirit, where I feel that you have to wage a war against the war. But one of the things that’s so important to realize is that we can -- rise -- above it. Because God is on our side.”
After Sanders spoke, we grabbed
candles for the final event of the evening – a candlelight vigil on the steps
of the
***
I can’t speak for everyone, but
when the rally broke up minutes later, I didn’t feel like talking. I wondered:
Will we one day remember this as a seminal event, a catalyst of real change? Or just another feeble protest against a system too powerful to
reckon with? Cynicism is usually seen as a poison that accumulates over
time and cannot be purged; that morning, I would have agreed. But I boarded the
bus back to