Protesters in Texas demand Justice for Sandra Bland!

HEMPSTEAD, TX.—From two to three hundred protesters marched from the Waller County Jail here in Hempstead, Texas to the Waller County Courthouse demanding “No Justice, No Peace!” in the jailhouse murder of 28-year-old Sandra Bland.

An hour and a half rally followed where a number of speakers addressed the crowd in the near 100 degree heat.

Bland, an African woman from Chicago had come back to Prairie View A&M University, her alma mater where she had secured employment and was scheduled to start on Monday, July 13, the day they found her lifeless body in a Waller County jail cell. She had been brutally arrested and thrown in jail that Friday.

But Sandra Bland was not the ordinary African. She was an activist who consistently decried the police assaults and murders of her people.

She was a vocal opponent of the colonial police. As such she was also a vocal opponent of the police personally abusing her.

So she spoke out against her own mistreatment at the hands of the police and for that she was targeted. The white police have martyred our sister Sandra Bland.

As usual, the police have absolved themselves of any responsibility in Sandra’s death.

They say they are not guilty despite the fact that the world saw them wrestle Sandra to the ground and viciously arrest her for what they claim was an “unlawful lane change.”

Also, as usual, once they had assaulted her, they then charged her with assaulting police.

This is what they do. But we know that Sandra was alive and well before she came in contact with the colonial police and like so many others of us ended up dead.

The march to the county building was militant and the mostly young people in attendance were super attentive at the rally.

They wanted answers as to why a perfectly healthy 28-year-old African woman could go into Waller County Jail alive and end up dead.

Speaker after speaker denounced the “suicide” finding of the Waller County Coroner. Sandra’s sorority sister Tricia Dean gave a powerful statement on Sandra’s character as she is convinced that the police are responsible for her death.

Other student activists also spoke of police involvement and urged young people to get organized.

Omowale Kefing, representing the Uhuru Movement and African People’s Socialist Party, spoke of the necessity to unite behind the Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations call for Black Community Control of the Police.

He also reminded the Prairie View students that it took them a decade of struggle just to win the right to vote in Waller County.

Other speakers included Kofi Taharka, National Chair of the National Black United Front and Robert Muhammad of the Nation of Islam.

Hundreds of Black Community Control of the Police flyers were passed out in addition to selling The Burning Spear newspaper.

LONG LIVE SANDRA BLAND!