Louisiana

Kicking Jim Crow

Greetings, Everyone,
My name is Kenny Zulu Whitmore; call me Zulu. I was wrongfully tried and convicted by a Jim Crow-era jury verdict of 10/2 [10 jurors voted me guilty; 2 jurors voted me not guilty]. I was found guilty for the August 15, 1973 armed robbery and second degree murder of the mayor of a rural northern community in East Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

I am being housed in the Louisiana State Plantation at Angola. For the forty-eight plus years that I have been incarcerated, thirty-seven of those years was spent in solitary confinement.

*Zulu with blue sky, designed by Bev, a longtime friend of Zulu*

I love to work out; it helps me to deal with the abnormal life of being incarcerated. I work out with weights, do push ups, jump rope, stair climb, and I run the yard. While in solitary I used to run for the full hour I was allowed out of my cell. I ran four or five days a week. Running is the best because I can mentally free myself. I run from one side of “town” to the other, — from one side of the exercise yard to the other.

Louisiana and Oregon are the only two states in the United States that allow felony convictions based on a Jim Crow-era, non-unanimous jury verdict of 10/2 or 11/1. In other words, all 12 jurors are not needed to vote guilty in order to get a conviction. In 2016, this racist jury verdict system was challenged in Oregon and Louisiana.

During this period in 2016, I started to kick a soccer ball around the yard. I named my soccer ball “Jim Crow” in solidarity with the jury verdict challenge in the courts. I ran five days a week, trying to kick Jim Crow off life support that Oregon and Louisiana had it on since 1898. I would kick and kick old Jim Crow, never allowing the ball to stop rolling. Die, Jim Crow, die.

In 2018 the Louisiana legislators put the unconstitutional Jim Crow-era laws on the ballot. Louisiana voters would decide whether to continue on with the racist jury system or end the practice of 10/2 or 11/1 jury verdicts that could convict. Louisiana voters overwhelmingly outlawed the practice, declaring the law unconstitutional, and amended the Constitution to end the discriminatory law forever.

In 2020, the US Supreme Court , in the case Ramos v Louisiana, declared Louisiana’s non-unanimous jury verdicts both unconstitutional and historically racist.

However, the Louisiana legislators tricked the voters into voting for a non-retroactive amendment, leaving 1,500 Louisiana prisoners without benefitting from the changes and left them without a legal conviction or sentence. I am in this group of prisoners.

So for now I will continue to kick Jim Crow ‘s racist ass around the yard until this racism is eradicated from the Louisiana and Oregon judicial systems, respectively. Free all of the 1,500 men and women in prison under the unconstitutional historical racist law.

The Louisiana Supreme Court was presented with the issue of correcting its 120 year old racist scheme to incarcerate its citizens. The court, on October 23, 2022, in a 6-1 decision, denied retroactivity. The Louisiana Supreme Court and legislators saw fit to keep the racist practice around for a while longer. Oregon’s state supreme court, on December 30, 2022, in a 7-0 decision, reversed the convictions of every defendant convicted by a non-unanimous jury verdict, thereby eradicating Jim Crow practices from their state system for good.

When I am physically free from this plantation I will continue to kick Jim Crow and I will get the kids in my community to kick Jim Crow so they will know of the 120 year old racist judicial practice intended to incarcerate them. We will work together so this will never be allowed to happen again. So kick that rascal, Jim Crow, kick him good.

Kenny Zulu Whitmore

DOJ: Louisiana DOC keeps people in prison beyond their release dates!

Zulu has been kept in prison long beyond setting a parole date for him. The LDOC gave him a date to apply for parole that was long after he was entitled for parole. Now the Department of Justice has said that Louisiana Department of Corrections (DOC) keeps people beyond their parole or release dates, and has known about this for more than 10 years.

Not only is this against what the courts have ordered, and it is against the prisoners and their families, it is unethical, but if that was not enough, it is also against tax payers, because they have to pay for the extra money it costs to keep paroled and officially released prisoners in jails (they are moved from the prisons to the jails). Does the State of Louisiana also receive money per prisoner held?

This is from a report on WAFB Channel 9 (CBS), Jan. 25th 2023:

“DOJ announced that it believes that the LDOC has kept people in prison past the dates when they are legally entitled to be released from custody.”

“The US Department of Justice announced on Wednesday, Jan. 25, that it believes the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections (LDOC) has violated the Fourteenth Amendment by “routinely” keeping people in prison past the dates when they are legally entitled to be released from custody.”

Read and watch the news item here.

Almost 50 years ain’t enough? Free Kenny Zulu Whitmore!

Published in: SF Bayview, 26 June 2022

by an anonymous supporter

I recently read an article on May 10, 2022, where elderly political prisoner Sundiata Acoli, 85 years of age now, was ordered released by a New Jersey Supreme Court after serving more than 49 years in the belly of the Beast.

And on Wednesday, May 11, 2022, Kerry Shakaboona Marshall walks out of prison after being held captive for 34 years into the arms of his mother who was known as Mama Pat. Patricia Vickery worked tirelessly for her son’s release. This made me think of Kenny Zulu Whitmore, Political Prisoner in Louisiana.

Kenny Zulu Whitmore was “captured by the modern-day slave catchers,” as he once said, in February 1975, for the August 15, 1973 robbery and murder of the mayor of a rural town in the Parish of East Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Zulu was 18 years of age at the time, and racial tension was, as it was around the country in 1973, high and violent. Zulu has maintained his innocence of the robbery and murder. At the time of his arrest in February 1975, he was held incommunicado by E.B.R.P.D. for three days, taken out of jail into a heavily wooded area beaten and tortured, refused food and drink by his captors, until they beat a false confession out of him.

Zulu was tried and convicted of armed robbery and second-degree murder and was sentenced to Life Without the Possibility of Parole (LWOP), plus over 100 years in prison.

Shortly afterward, Zulu was transferred to the notorious Louisiana state plantation better known as Angola. Upon his arrival to Angola, Zulu was immediately placed into CCC/Close-Cell Restriction, known around the country as solitary confinement.

In solitary, Zulu met members of Angola 3 and joined the Angola chapter of the Black Panther Party for Self-defense. Our beloved comrade would spend the next 37 1/2 years in solitary confinement. He is now being housed in general population.

Currently, Zulu’s case is pending in the district court awaiting a ruling by the judge. Zulu has been incarcerated 47 and a half years. We cannot forget our Elderly Warrior in his struggle for justice. As more legal updates become available, I will pass them on. Let’s show our brother some love and light.

Kenny Zulu Whitmore

Send our brother some love and light: Kenny Zulu Whitmore, 86468 Cypress #3, Louisiana State Prison, Angola, LA 70712.

Let’s not forget Zulu!

Two tyles in ceramic art made for Zulu

Hello, I am Annabelle, chairperson of the Free Zulu European Team.

I recently heard where brother Jalil Muntaqim, aka Anthony Bottom, was released from a New York plantation/prison after serving nearly 50 years for the 1971 double police murder in Harlem, NY in 1971; his co-defender Herman Bell was released on parole in 2018. Political prisoners, like the Move 9, and others.

And this got me thinking about our beloved brother Kenny Zulu Whitmore, who himself is a part of those Black Liberation Radicals who were convicted in the 1970s. Zulu has been incarcerated for 46 years as of today, being falsely accused of a political murder of the Mayor of a small rural community in the Parish of East Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

LET’S NOT FOGET ZULU!

Like the legal lynching of brother George Floyd, who was born on October 7th, 1973, as was brother Zulu (who was born on October 14th, 1954), the system/racist policemen put their knee on George Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, they have had their knee on Zulu’s neck for 46 years, trying to choke the life out of brother Zulu.

George Floyd was taken away from his beautiful daughter, who now has to grow up without her father. Zulu’s son was only 13 months old when Zulu was kidnapped by the modern-day slave catchers, as he calls the racist police who helped to frame him for murder, but both George’s daughter and Zulu’s son had to grow up without their father because of the unjust judicial system, the criminal justice system of America.

And as we protest in the streets around the world for all of the Black & Brown men, women and children who were murdered by the police, we must not overlook the many Black&Brown men, women and children who are incarcerated in the many children’s homes, reformatories, child-prisons, ICE-camps and prisons and penitentiaries across America, as part of the mass incarceration of African Americans, People of Color.

We must raise our voice for the immediate release of our brother Kenny Zulu Whitmore, who continues to be held down with the system’s knees on his neck for 46 years now on a wrongful conviction of murder and armed robbery. He was taken from his family at the age of 19. He has just turned 66 on October 14th, so let’s send our brother lots of love and light, because he will never surrender hope.

Free Zulu!

Website: Freezulu.org

Instagram: @Freezulunow

Zulu is now back at Cypress #, so his address is:

Kenny Zulu Whitmore
86468 Cypress 3
LA State Penitentiary
Angola, LA 70712
U.S.A.

You can also send him a Jpay mail via Jpay.com.
Zulu is NOT allowed greeting cards!

Zulu is making facemasks!

Zulu’s first photo after being released from solitary confinement 2015

We just received a phone call from Zulu, who told us that he is a volunteer making facemasks for first responders in Baton Rouge!

He is staying in the gym with 18 others, where he also sleeps, and each day they make facemasks from cloth that comes from the teeshirt-factory at the prison. They sew the masks together before they are going to the first responders in Baton Rouge.

Zulu said he had volunteered to make the masks, after he was called into the office of a prison director and was asked whether he wanted to participate. Zulu had already made himself a facemask from a handkerchief, because he was housed in a dorm with 86 others. He had also on a daily basis made sure the shower area was clean by using a bleach dissolution.

Zulu lets us know his health is alright, but with so many people packed in dorms there is a big risk of the COVID-19 spreading, so he is glad he can participate in the effort to make facemasks for the prisoners as well as for first responders, and that he can do so in a more spaceous area. They work every day as volunteers.

Zulu said the internet reception to send and receive Jpay emails is not good in the gym, so he cannot write or receive Jpay mails as quickly as usually.

We want to say thank you Zulu and others for caring for everyone during this pandemic.

CDC: How to make a cloth face mask sew and no sew

Please also sign this petition: Life-saving Measures to Protect Louisiana Prisoners from Covid-19

D.A. again does not produce test results and is threatened with Contempt of Court

We spoke with Zulu after the Court Hearing of October 2nd, and he said: “We did not get the ruling that we wanted yesterday, but the Judge was angry with the D.A’s delay in the case.”

The Judge gave the D.A. within 30 days to produce the test of the finger- prints that were taken from the crime-scene, or he will be held in Contempt of Court & fined.

So now we are waiting for the District Attorney to finish the work that should have been done so many years ago, which is: work with the court to make Justice happen.

Meanwhile: Please send Zulu a POSTCARD (not a greeting card, they are no longer allowed in) for his upcoming Birthday on October 14th!

Kenny Zulu Whitmore

Zulu holding the SF Bayview, June 2017

86468 – Cypress#3
LA State Prison
Angola, LA 70712
U.S.A.

Thank you!

Pack the Courtroom Oct 2nd!

We thought Friday 20th of September there would be another Courthearing, the same as was ordered in April to take place on July 22nd, which was postponed. Please check here for the first announcement.

But it is now October 2nd, at 9:30 AM!

Free Zulu!

Zulu with blue sky, designed by Bev, a longtime friend of Zulu

Sweet Land of Liberty – America the Beautiful

Zulu and Emundo’s article that was originally submitted to this site in April of 2019, was published in the SF Baview of August!

Article in SF Bayview of August 2019 by Zulu and Emundo

Zulu and Emundo’s article in the SF Bayview of August 2019, originally submitted to this site in April.

Let’s Show Love to Zulu as Justice is again being delayed!

From the Free Zulu European Campaign Chairperson:

Once again justice is being delayed for our Brother Zulu Whitmore, who had an evidentiary hearing coming up on July, 22, 2019, when the State was supposed to have everything tested by that date, because it was agreed to in open court that there would not be anymore extension in this case.

However Judge Erwin in the 19th judicial district court granted the State another 60-day extension without Zulu’s lawyers being present in court.

A statement from his legal team says, this is not over by a long shot, and they ask that all of Zulu’s supporters show him some love at yet another delay.

Myself and the Free Zulu European Campaign say: show our brother some love with letters of support.

ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE

Annabelle Parker

Free Zulu European Campaign

Freezulu.org

You can reach Zulu here to send him support:

Kenny Zulu Whitmore
86468 – Cypress#3
LA State Prison
Angola, LA 70712
U.S.A.

Or via Jpay.com

Zulu is waiting patiently

We wanted to update you on Zulu’s whereabouts.

In the beginning fo February, Zulu was moved to another building within the Louisiana State Pen, in Angola, LA. He is now in the Main Prison compound, Cypress#3 dormitory.

This is where the largest number of modern day slaves are housed: around 3,500 or more. Zulu was last housed in this area in 1985, when it had killings nearly every week, and stabbing every day, but not so much now. He also said there are a lot of kids down here who just don’t know.

What we learned is that the old solitary confinement buildings are being closed down at the moment, as they were becoming very old.

For the rest, Zulu is patiently waiting to hear from the court, and he is waiting to hear when he will come up for parole, as in Louisiana those prisoners who have been incarcerated the longest, from the 1970s, will be called up for parole! The order in which they are called up is by their number.

Here are some pictures of a visit by Zulu’s son and grandaughter, from November of last year!

Zulu’s new address is:

Kenny Zulu Whitmore
86468 Cypress#3
LA State Prison
Angola, LA 70712
U.S.A.