An Old Enemy of Ours Resurfaces
Judge Royce Lamberth is in the news. He ruled for a contempt charge against the two top officials of the DC Department of Corrections accusing them of abuse and Civil Rights violation of a January 6th prisoner, "because he is a January 6th prisoner."
(Link to Daily Beast coverage here:)
In a raving unhinged rant, Lamberth demanded a DOJ investigation for systemic Civil Rights violations of this person and all other such jailed defendants, fueling the Donald Trump and Right Wing terrorist/insurrectionist narrative that these prisoners are being unfairly treated, and are victims of persecution.
I. Know. This. Guy. Too well.
In April of 1993, Lamberth sentenced two friends and collaborators of mine and Martha to seven days in jail in Washington DC. Their crime? Statue climbing. Wait until you hear this bullshit.
The two individuals jailed were Rev. James Bevel, and Anton Chaitkin. Rev. Bevel was renowned as the Direct Action Coordinator for Martin Luther King, a leader of SNCC, originator of the Birmingham Childrens March, and a leader of the Selma Voting Rights campaign. (He is portrayed by Rapper and actor Common in the recent film about Selma) He was with Dr. King in his Lorraine Hotel room when he was shot. Rev. Bevel stayed with Martha and I in our home when he came to Philadelphia for various campaigns in the 90's, and we worked with him throughout the decade on a number of organizing initiatives.
Anton Chaitkin is a historian, author and former political candidate who Martha and I have known since the 70's. He wrote a best seller entitled "The Unauthorized Biography of George Bush", (41) documenting the sordid history of the Bush family in funding the rise of Adolf Hitler and the cause of racial Eugenics.
At issue in their trial is that based on Chaitkin's research, we launched a campaign to remove the Statue of Confederate General and war criminal, Albert Pike from Judiciary Square in front of the Treasury Department in DC. Pike, in addition to being a traitor, was a founder and leader of the post Civil War Ku Klux Klan, who actually wrote the poem which is the KKK Anthem. Needless to say, the presence of that Statue in our Capitol (in which he is cited as a poet and statesman on the statue's base) is an abomination.
Additionally, Pike was the leader of the Southern Jurisdiction of the Scottish Rite of Freemasons, which was closely affiliated with the antebellum terrorist group, "Knights of the Golden Circle", infamous as the leadership body of the future Confederacy, and which attempted multiple kidnapping and assassination attempts against Abraham Lincoln. The Scottish Rite was the umbrella organization for both the KGC, and its later iteration, the KKK. Prominently commemorated at the Scottish Rite HQ across from the Statue are the mausoleums containing the remains of both Pike, and his fellow Scottish Rite Member and KKK sympathizer, J. Edgar Hoover, former FBI director and life long opponent of Civil Rights.
So we worked with 100's of veterans of the Civil Rights movement to remove that Statue, including Amelia Boynton Robinson, (Selma) Revs. Fred Shuttlesworth, and Hosea Williams, among others. We succeeded in circulating a nationwide petition and introducing and passing a resolution by several groups including the National Conference of Black Mayors to take that obscenity down.
Every week, we organized demos in front of that Statue, where we were joined by activists, religious leaders of many faiths including the Nation of Islam from DC, and others.
One night, several of our younger and more athletic members rappeled up the Statue and put a giant scale KKK Hood and Robe over it, which remained for several days until removed.
Eventually the National Park Police charged Rev. Bevel and Tony Chaitkin with Statue Climbing, because they were the leaders of the rallies, though both were well into their 60's and incapable of climbing anything.
Judge Lamberth presided, despite the fact that as a young man he was inducted as a member of the Albert Pike Chapter of the Scottish Rite Freemasons, Southern Jurisdiction. He refused to recuse himself, heard the case and issued the sentences for Chaitkin and Bevel to do seven days in jail, where both were at risk due to Nazi/Aryan Nations gangs in jail. They were protected by our friends from NOI during their sentence, but it was a serious situation.
So, that is who Judge Royce Lamberth is, the current advocate for the protection and Civil Rights of the January 6th terrorists. Do you think that Martha and I are surprised to hear of him throwing an apoplectic fit in which he takes one sketchy case of mistreatment, to demand the Attorney General investigate systemic abuse of ALL of the January 6 prisoners? Not. One. Bit.
The important thing here is that it gives you an insight into what you are actually fighting. Those who think the 19th Century has no bearing upon today need to stand in the shoes of people still living whose great grandparents were either slaves, or the children of slaves. Or to see the struggle of today through the eyes of those people who risked everything 60 years ago to break the back of Jim Crow, and redeem the sick and twisted souls of their White brethren while in the process of gaining the Constitutional rights so long denied them. Think about it. It's not always all about greed and money. There is something much uglier driving the current conflict, which needs to be faced.
Epilogue-- In the Summer of 2020, during the most intense phase of the nationwide protests against the murder of George Floyd, finally a group of protesters pulled down the Albert Pike Statue. When informed of this, then President Trump threw a tantrum and demanded arrests, Federal prosecutions, and invoked Executive Orders declaring defacing of Federal monuments and buildings to be a serious crime punishable by 10 years in jail. It was then that he militarized Federal Law enforcement and deployed them to cities like Portland to arrest protesters, in the name of protecting Federal Property. He also ordered the Pike Statue repaired and replaced, where it still stands today in Judiciary Square as of the last time I inquired.
Don't try to tell me that Trump is so stupid that he doesn't know who Albert Pike was, and who our friends were that started the campaign to remove the Statue. He knew, because the Confederacy is his identity, and his Father Fred was a Klan activist. Rev. Bevel passed some 15 years ago under tragic circumstances. Chaitkin is still living, and his book on the Bush family still available. (BTW, significant research by Martha going back to the 70's on the history of Eugenics went into that book)
And Judge Lamberth still is on the Federal bench, defending racist insurrections and traitors, making a mockery of the United States founding documents in plain sight. When can we say we have had enough, and expose these types that operate in the shadows?
