[Even in the darkest of times, in the most hopeless of places,
Eddie’s commitment to organizing for liberation was unwavering. And,
despite the unimaginable toll that 44 years of incarceration had taken
on him, Eddie’s organizing did not stop when he walked out of
prison. ]
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EDDIE CONWAY (1946–2023)  
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TRNN
February 14, 2023
The Real News Network [[link removed]]


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_ Even in the darkest of times, in the most hopeless of places,
Eddie’s commitment to organizing for liberation was unwavering. And,
despite the unimaginable toll that 44 years of incarceration had taken
on him, Eddie’s organizing did not stop when he walked out of
prison. _

,

 

_“Do your little part. Do whatever you can to help change these
conditions. Because we’re moving into a critical period of history,
not just for poor and oppressed people, Black people, but for humanity
itself. So you need to engage. Do whatever little bit you can, but you
need to do something.”_

_—Eddie Conway in 2019, celebrating five years of freedom_

It is with the heaviest of hearts that we announce the death of our
friend, co-worker, and comrade Marshall “Eddie” Conway. 

Eddie joined the ancestors on February 13, 2023
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surrounded by family and loved ones. After falling ill nearly a year
ago
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while still dealing with the immeasurable toll nearly 44 years of
incarceration as a political prisoner took on his body, Eddie had been
hospitalized and fighting valiantly to recover. That is who he is, who
he was, and who he always will be: a fighter. After a lifetime of
fighting, though, the time has come at last for our dear Eddie to
rest—and for all of us to carry on his fight. 

Eddie was born on April 23, 1946, in a deeply segregated Baltimore—a
city shaped by blockbusting, white flight, and the organized
disinvestment from Black communities. At 18, he enlisted in the US
Army, an experience that would prove to be politically formative for
Eddie, throwing into sharp relief the contradictions of a country
founded on slavery, structural racism, and genocidal violence that
nevertheless professed to defend “democracy” with bombs, guns, and
endless war. 

Returning home to Baltimore, Eddie confronted the pervasive evils of
racism head-on. He was working in the medical sector and at Bethlehem
Steel when, in 1968, the city erupted like so many others following
the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr.—an explosion of rage and pain
and need for action that brought Eddie into the orbit of the nascent
Black Panther Party, in which he became a core member of the
newly-established Baltimore chapter.

The Baltimore BPP chapter, with Eddie’s support and leadership,
built strong community ties through efforts like a free breakfast
program, a system of robust internal political education, and an
increasingly widespread local distribution network for the national
BPP newspaper—despite near constant police harassment, and even
high-level infiltration of the branch. This was the era of COINTELPRO,
in which local police forces were enlisted by the national security
state to crush the successful systemic challenge the Panthers and
other associated revolutionary groups were posing to America’s
racist, exploitative status quo. It was at the height of this era that
Eddie was framed for the 1970 killing of a Baltimore police officer,
convicted, and sentenced to life in prison in 1971, after a heavily
politicized trial in which Eddie was denied proper legal
representation.  

Even in the darkest of times, in the most hopeless of places,
Eddie’s commitment to organizing for liberation was unwavering.
Within his first weeks inside the Maryland penitentiary, he had
already emerged as a leader of the incarcerated chapter of the BPP.
Despite constant, dehumanizing, and often violent pushback from prison
authorities, he would go on to play a lead role in creating
organizations like the United Prisoners Labor Union and the Maryland
Penitentiary Intercommunal Survival Collective, organizing with fellow
incarcerated people to build collective power for self-determination
and self-defense. While incarcerated, Eddie worked relentlessly to
protect and expand prisoners’ rights to communication and education;
for instance, he helped organize the “To Say Their Own Word”
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developed as a way to cross-pollinate radical thought inside and
outside the prison. He was also instrumental in the founding of Friend
of a Friend, a mentorship program designed to help young incarcerated
men prepare for reintegration into their communities upon release.

Year after year, decade after decade, Eddie carried on not only with
the tremendous bravery needed to contest America’s brutal system of
mass incarceration while he was himself confined within it, but also
with an enduring and perhaps surprising commitment to modesty. As he
wrote in his autobiography, published in 2011: 

Organizing is my life’s work, and even though I initially balked at
becoming a prison organizer, that is where most of my work has been
done. Friends and family tell me that I have influenced hundreds of
young people, but I don’t know. I simply see the error of this
society’s ways up close and feel compelled to do something about it;
I have tried my hardest to avoid getting caught up in the cult of the
personality that often develops around political prisoners. I have
walked the prison yard and seen admiration in the eyes of others, but
had to remind myself, as I straightened my posture, that it is about
something bigger than me. Prisons are the place where society dumps
those who have become obsolete, and at present there are perhaps no
other people who have become more dispensable in this country than
African-descended people. The minute that we began to stand up and
hold this country accountable for the many wrongs done to us, the
prisons began to swell with black women and men. It is as if the
entire justice system is a beast that consumes black bodies, and
prisons are the belly.

Eddie’s loved ones and supporters never gave up on him, keeping a
decades-long solidarity movement going and agitating persistently for
his release, but it was only in 2014—after a 2012 decision by the
Maryland Court of Appeals that invalidated many historical verdicts
due to faulty jury instructions—that Eddie was finally able to
secure his freedom.

Despite the unimaginable toll that 44 years of incarceration had taken
on him, Eddie’s organizing did not stop when he walked out of
prison. He became our beloved colleague at The Real News Network,
where he continued his passion for education and media-making in the
service of the fight against mass incarceration as Executive Producer
and the host of _Rattling the Bars_
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He also played a key role in the formation of Tubman House, which, in
the wake of the Baltimore Uprising, seized vacant property and land
for community needs in Sandtown-Winchester—the neighborhood where
Baltimore police killed Freddie Gray.

Eddie never left the struggle he had been waging for so long, even as
his health declined. We are endlessly grateful to him for that. And we
are grateful that this incredible man, who endured so much, was also
able to find years of joy, love, and solace in his marriage to
Dominque Stevenson, a true comrade and freedom fighter who supported
him inside and outside of the prison walls. 

He will be missed—by everyone here at The Real News, by the city
that loves him, and by all those around the world who were touched by
his light. We will miss his voice, his revolutionary clarity, and his
unbreakable commitment to fighting on the side of the oppressed. We
will carry on that fight, because that’s what Eddie would do. We are
heartbroken that he is gone, but we are grateful that we were lucky
enough to know him, and we are sending all our love and solidarity to
his family. 

In memory of Eddie Conway, 

The Real News Network

_THE REAL NEWS NETWORK (TRNN) MAKES MEDIA CONNECTING YOU TO THE
MOVEMENTS, PEOPLE, AND PERSPECTIVES THAT ARE ADVANCING THE CAUSE OF A
MORE JUST, EQUAL, AND LIVABLE PLANET. We broaden your understanding
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_We are rigorous in our journalism and dedicated to the facts, but
unafraid to engage alongside movements for change, because we believe
journalism and media making has a critical role to play in
illuminating pathways for collective action. _

_That’s why we make media engaging people not as a passive audience
of consumers and spectators, but as active—or soon-to-be
activated—participants in the struggle for a better world. Our
platform highlights the voices and ideas not just of academics and
pundits, but grassroots participants in social movements for change:
the people on the frontlines of fights against injustice_.  DONATE
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