Youth and students must get together and take a stand and speak out against racial and economic injustice and the rising tide of repression that our young sisters and brothers face in' society. This is the challenge of these words by our young brother and slain rap artist Tupac Shakur:

My case demonstrates the nature of the repressive criminal prosecution system, which itself is a tool of social control and national oppression. Our youth and students must be taught to understand the true function of prisons and the true underlying economic motive behind such massive prison construction. Why do prisons exist in such numbers and why are even more on the drawing board? Why is it that so many of our young sisters and brothers cannot find dignified paying jobs in the community and are forced to survive on the streets the best way they know how? Why are jails and prisons a profitable multi-billion dollar business? Is this a way of legally perpetuating slavery in this country?

Sisters and brothers we must come to understand and see that the prison problem is a political expression of the severe economic problem of oppressed communities and of the fact that a disproportionately large number of Black males have been forced into idleness by the gross inequities of this quasi-colonial system which believes that our Black youth--especially our young Black males--should be eliminated and exterminated rather than nurtured and habilitated and educated.

"Each generation," Franz Fanon once wrote, "must out of relative obscurity discover its mission, fulfill it, or betray it." During these troubling times when opportunistic politicians and the enemies of oppressed people are busy proposing the construction of more jails and prisons and calling for more state-sanctioned executions as the "Final Solution" to societal ills, our youth and students and our community must come to see that this practice is a wasteful exercise and begin to stage protest demonstrations to demand that the leaders of our community and elected officials work to implement social programs that address the root causes of crime and violence in society and not merely symptoms. A positive and constructive alternative solution is dignified paying jobs for our youth and students, better education, better recreational facilities and mentoring programs for our young sisters and brothers. Until there are real alternatives, crime and violence will continue to increase along with social disorder and repression. Political incarceration and executions are not the solution. Youth and students must work to stop the violence in the community and protest to pressure the government to stop the executions.

The AFRICAN AMERICAN PEOPLE'S ORGANIZATION believes that we must seek to actively involve all of our youth and students--elementary students, junior high, high school, and college students--in building and constructing a powerful SOCIAL JUSTICE AND HUMAN RIGHTS MOVEMENT, demanding fundamental social change and national liberation. Looking around the world we see that it is the young people and the students who are the powerful dynamics actively involved in changing and transforming decadent and repressive societies into new progressive nations. I believe that it is among our youth and students where our emerging movement will find energy, sacrifice and idealism.

I urge and encourage all of our youth and students including all gang members and all gang leaders to support our movement and work to stop the violence in the community and protest to pressure the government to stop the executions. We must recognize and understand that the gangs in our society are products of racism and discrimination and inequality. And in many instances our young sisters and young brothers who are associated with or believed to be members of gangs are treated unfairly by the police and the criminal prosecution system. Today's gang members are prime, targets for becoming tomorrow's death row prisoners if we do not now unify the young sisters and brothers and work to stop the violence in the community and protest and intensify the pressure on the government to stop the executions.

All of our youth and students must develop a critical consciousness of the power that each of you possesses to impact change in society. Each of you must become actively involved in community meetings or activities or progressive organizations that function in the interest of our community. Instead of contributing to the destruction of our communities, our young sisters and young brothers must begin to help uplift and buildup our communities and help to protect and defend the sisters and brothers and the people of our community, and protect and defend the leaders of our community, as brother Malcolm X often instructed: by any means necessary.

Actor Danny Glover, who has helped to championed my cause for justice, made the following comments in an article which appeared in USA TODAY:

I changed my name from Gary Graham to Shaka Sankofa as a way of reflecting my African heritage. There is more momentum now around the death penalty than in recent times. The international campaign to stop my execution has played a critical role in this important development and has brought together diverse and wide groupings of people who have one message in common: we will take a stand and defend social justice and human rights because we care about human life and human dignity.

Eighteen long years ago, when I was a seventeen-year-old juvenile, I became the victim of poor legal representation and a racially biased prosecution system that is more often criminal than just. I was wrongly convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in spite of the overwhelming and compelling evidence of my innocence. My trial was a travesty of justice.

A strong people's movement supported and mobilized by our youth and students is the only hope to prevent my legal lynching and to stop my execution. I place my life and fate not in the hands of the racist white men on the Supreme Court but in the united and powerful hands of our youth and students and our sisters and brothers and the people. Stop the violence--Stop the executions!

Youth and students can write directly to Shaka on Texas Death Row to express your support and solidarity: