The following letter was written to Rashid upon learning of his torturous conditions at the Snake River facility in Oregon. Rashid has since been transferred to Texas. For an update on his condition, check out his support site. Rashid is a gifted artist and Marxist political theorist who serves as the Minister of Defense of the Black Panther Party Prison Chapter. I urge anyone reading the letter he sent to Anthony and feeling bewildered to write to Rashid and check out his support site for ways you can help.

Dear Rashid,

I just received from Anthony a letter he published of yours from 4 March describing your intolerable situation at Snake River. I’m sending a copy of that and this letter to friends at seanswain.org for publishing along with your contact information.

I hope your situation I better now and I want to urge you, despite how the fascist pigs may work to destroy you, that you treat Rashid Johnson according to his true worth and value. I cannot imagine that you would give Huey P. Newton a possible overdose of pills; or that you would force razorblades down the throat of George Jackson; or that you would dehydrate Malcolm X to the brink of death. I remind you that this revolutionary named Rashid Johnson is the only one of those four to so far survive the deliberate genocide that has take the lives of the other three.

Many people are depending on you. They have placed faith and trust in you. You are not alone because thousands stand with you. The eyes of the world are watching.

The future belongs to us. As Che Guevara said, we are walking on pure history—and we know it.

Your torturers know it too. They feel their system unravelling. They smell the smoke. They sense the colonial death machine grinding down.

They feel fear.
Stay alive. We’re getting to the good part.
I promise, we are.
Stay dangerous.

Freedom,
Sean