Lorenzo - Hijacker And Prison Activist From issue 3 of YearZero, reprinted in issue 9 of Do Or Die. L I was a member of the Chattanooga branch of the BPP. Various law enforcement agencies were obviously concerned to shut the BPP down, so they started fabricating charges against people. They could never get one against me. So, what they did was to call me a 'material witness' against another member of the BPP. They can hold 'material witnesses' for up to five years and this is what they said they were going to do to me. But there was no way they were going to get me... So what happened? L I hijacked a plane, and I took it to Cuba. Did you think it would be a safe haven? L A safer one, maybe. But that is where I found out about that sort of state socialism. People like to paint Cuba as a kind of paradise. Now obviously the embargo by the US has warped everything, but the Cubans didn't want the heat. For me, that was the start of realising the truth about state socialism and statist politics in general. But they kept me there for a while, then they packed me off to Czechoslovakia. And of course the Americans were hunting for me. It was the time of the uprisings in Prague and Dubcheck's government were inclined to be a little more helpful to the West. In the end it was the West Germans who found me, and a combination of things led to me being shipped off to Germany, and from there back to the US. And what happened? L I served 15 years. In what sort of conditions? L Maximum security a lot of the time. The hardest prisons they had to offer. You can imagine what that is like as a young man with the constant threat of being killed. There were plenty of white supremacists in jail would like to have killed me. Not to mention other people. I did nine years in solitary. 1969 to 1984 was the time I was in. I survived though. I did a lot of legal work for other prisoners, and eventually I had a few successes. Getting people off charges, telling them what they were entitled to under law. Advising a lot of prisoners. After that, they kept moving me so that I couldn't carry on telling people what their rights were. Not the sort of thing they want people to know of course. It was there that I read more about anarchist thought. One of the organisations that supported me through my term was the Anarchist Black Cross, from Amsterdam. But I guess, looking back now, the changes were centred around the ideas of leadership and the cadre movement within the BPP. Having seen state socialism, as it's called, at work, it wasn't the best... I dunno... State socialism being Capitalism B and capitalism being Capitalism A. The same system, basically, just two different versions. That sort of thing? L I guess that's a good way of putting it. Back to Anarchism And The Black Revolution