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Yeah, you coulda been a leader for a people who will lead themselves, a real synonym for black power, the anti-nigga machine, the Moses for the massive, the true king (and better) of New York. Man, you was beautiful, full of innovation and inspiration, rebellion and redemption, energy and possibility, but never beyond belief. Because you were something to believe in, in a world with nothing left to believe in.

I hope you don't get it twisted, cuz I still got made love for you. How could I not? We been to the mountaintop and the project rooftop together, we rode and wrote on the subways and highways before we went our separate ways. We saw a promised land of free meals, free lands, free minds, free hands, and back then we really gave a damn. I still remember how we held our boom boxes and ghetto blasters high as our head and wherever the beat fell was our traveling autonomous zone. And we did it all on our own. Now that was fame. Remember?

Peace,
Walidah Imarisha
and Not4Prophet

David Gilbert 83A6158
Clinton Correctional Facility
Box 2001
Dannemora, NY 12929

Dear Dad,

Happy birthday. Though Clinton Max is one of the last places I would like you to celebrate turning 60, I take solace in the fact that your circumstances are largely a product of your own commitment to progressive political change and to the inherent value and equality of all human life. I deeply respect your commitment to your principles, your willingness to sacrifice yourself in the hopes of creating a better world for future generations of children, including me, your only son, even while you're staring a life sentence in the face. I am proud of you for standing up for your antiracist and anti-imperialist politics.

However, your decisions had real human costs, including the murders of three fathers and husbands, and the traumatic disruptions of untold children's lives, my own among them. When you and my mom, Kathy Boudin, were arrested for the 1981 Brinks robbery, I was just 14 months old. I know that politics motivated your participation, but the action was nothing to be proud of. I was too young to fully understand what it meant when you were sentenced to 75 years to life and my mom to 20 years to life, but we were already on a journey together. I, too, would become an activist.

Twenty-two hard years later, in September 2003, I was in your prison on a visit when we celebrated the news that Kathy was released under parole supervision. We were both jubilant. For you, I know, it was a moment of pure, unadulterated ecstasy. For me, the knowledge that you will not be eligible for parole until you are 112 years old made the joy bittersweet.

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