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[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1155]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
COMMENDING THE WORK OF THE PEOPLE'S LAW OFFICE
______
HON. BOBBY L. RUSH
of illinois
in the house of representatives
Tuesday, September 17, 2019
Mr. RUSH. Madam Speaker, today I rise to celebrate the 50th
anniversary of The People's Law Office. Founded in August of 1969 in
Chicago, the PLO has championed many important struggles against
official racism, police violence, and mass incarceration over the past
50 years.
The first important case taken on by the PLO was the Fred Hampton
Black Panther case. My friends and fellow students of the struggle,
Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, were killed by 14 raiding Chicago police
officers under the command of Cook County State's Attorney Edward V.
Hanrahan on the early morning of December 4, 1969. After 13 years of
hard-fought court battles in the wake of Fred's death, the PLO and
their clients in the Illinois Black Panther Party proved that Fred was
murdered in his bed as part of the FBI's COINTELPRO initiative. As the
founder of the Illinois Black Panther Party, I was privileged to have a
front-row seat to the commitment, diligence, and resilience of the
PLO's lawyers. Together, we won a victory for justice and
accountability, and made sure that Fred's death was not in vain.
The PLO was also an early pioneer in fighting against the inhumanity
of America's prisons both in Illinois and nationally. Its lawyers were
instrumental in fighting for justice for the men who were murdered,
tortured, and unjustly prosecuted in the 1971 Attica prison rebellion.
They also fought for years for justice in the Marion Federal
Penitentiary and several Illinois prisons, including Pontiac,
Stateville and Dwight. Together with other Chicago lawyers and
activists, the PLO obtained the acquittal of 16 Pontiac prisoners
wrongfully prosecuted for capital murder after the Pontiac Prison
rebellion in 1978.
In my district, as well as the greater city of Chicago, PLO has
fought for more than 30 years to expose and bring to justice a ring of
racist police torturers, led by police commander Jon Burge, who
tortured more than 125 suspects of color from 1972 to 1991. Their work
in uncovering the scope and breadth of this officially sanctioned
scandal has been instrumental in freeing numerous men who were
wrongfully convicted as a result of torture, winning money settlements
for many of those men, helping to end the death penalty in Illinois, in
obtaining the firing and conviction of Burge, and in obtaining from the
City of Chicago a historic and wide ranging package of financial and
non-financial reparations for many of the survivors of police torture.
PLO lawyers also fought for justice in Greensboro, North Carolina,
in a case brought by the families of five anti-Ku Klux Klan
demonstrators who were massacred by KKK and Nazi members in 1979.
The PLO continues to champion cases that advance the civil rights
and civil liberties that uphold the very foundations of our government.
The PLO has represented many generations of protestors, Puerto Rican
independence and Palestinian activists, victims of police brutality,
and other forms of official violence and abuse.
Madam Speaker, I congratulate the PLO on fifty years of fighting for
truth, justice, and accountability. I wish them another fifty years of
success in protecting the civil rights of my fellow Chicagoans.
____________________
