5/8/02
Thanks to a righteous pardon by Bill Clinton, Kemba Smith has moved from triumph to tragedy. This week, Kemba will graduate from Virginia Union University! KUDOS TO KEMBA!!!!!!!
"...In memory of the many women she left behind in prison, who like her were victims of bad relationships and poor life choices, Kemba also travels around the country encouraging communities to become active and involved in the movement to rid their communities of disease of drugs and she's a strong voice in the movement for prison industry reform.
Kemba is the proud mother of a six-year-old son, William Armani. She is also an honorary member of the National Council of Negro Women. She has received proclamations from numerous officials and has been honored with several community activism awards since her release, for her courage and determination to keep the flame of hope and clemency lit. Miss Smith is also the recipient of the National Newspaper Publishers Association's True Voice Award. She recently received a proclamation from the Mayor of the City of Richmond at the annual Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration to welcome Kemba home and to declare January 15, 2001 as the day recognizing Kemba Smith as the honorary keynote speaker.
Currently, Kemba is completing her bachelor's degree at Virginia Union University in Social Work and will graduate May 2002. Her future plans include working with youth-especially at risk youth--and being of service to her community through leading advocacy and community organizing activities. She also works part time as a legal assistant for a local attorney and plans to attend law school in Fall 2002. Kemba plans to continue to be actively involved in up-lifting our community and accepts invitations nationally to lecture and speak about her experiences, urging people to get involved in the war against drugs-a war which very nearly ensured the destruction of her, her family and the community she hails from.
{excerpted from "THE TOTAL YOU TOUR"} ]
[After years of protests by her devoted rebel supporters, Bill Clinton has freed Kemba!...See the original column below...Congrats Kemba!!!...AB]
1/11/2001
Kemba Smith was granted clemency today at 11:30 a.m. by President Bill Clinton.
She has served 6 years in federal custody in route to her family in Richmond, VA.
The work of the Justice Project is not done, we will continue to advocate for justice and fairness under law, and Black truth for all women who are descendants of U.S.slaves and victoms of global white supremacy.
Thanks to all of you who supported Kemba in her struggle for justice.
BJ Peak-Graham
The Kemba Smith Justice Project
Every American should know about Kemba Smith. Her tragic life is a perfect illustration of the racist and elitist evil of the “war on drugs”, and the slavery of mandatory sentencing laws. The prison industrial complex is secured by the shocking sentences being meted out to young, long term, prison laborers.
Slavery is back in effect in America. The slave masters are corporations. The plantations are prisons. The slave ships are drug laws. Kemba has been captured....
Kemba was a model student and an ideal only child. She had no criminal record. To this day, she has never actually handled or sold any drugs. Yet, as you read this, she is serving 24 years in prison, with NO possibility of parole.
Kemba has been held accountable for a drug ring that began in 1989. It was created by a demonic young man she met in 1992. He seduced, abused, betrayed and forced her into his criminal life. Fortunately, he is dead. His death came as he deserved, quickly and violently. Unfortunately, Kemba’s life is dying slowly inside the belly of the Beast.
Racist and elitist martial law is a reality under the New World Order. Mandatory sentencing laws are RUTHLESS. Judges are forbidden to consider ANY extenuating facts of these cases. While the CIA’s drug dealers, money laundering international bankers, and other rich white drug kingpins live freely and deal drugs with impunity, Kemba and THOUSANDS of other young, Black pawns in the drug game do hard time.
Please help Kemba in ANY way that you can. Send a donation. Protest her incarceration. For more information, contact Kemba’s parents online via: http://www.oocities.org/capitolhill/lobby/8899
Or, contact the Kemba N. Smith Youth Foundation at POB 2455, Richmond, Virginia, 23218 (Phone: 804-730-1123/ FAX: 804-730-8901). Send Kemba your love and prayers. Contact her directly via: Kemba Smith, #26370-083, Pembroke Station #12, Danbury, CT 06811.
There are millions of young persons who have been tortured as Kemba. Teach your children to avoid such victimization and abuse. Teach them to be WARRIORS! From infancy, all young warriors should be taught the following:
1. Your parents are your best friends. Tell them everything that disturbs you. My mom is still my most intimate confidante.
2. Act upon ALL of your doubts. Better safe than sorry. Police records are easily accessible. My teenaged boyfriends nicknamed my mom "FBI". Investigations pay off, even when they uncover nothing except peace of mind.
3. Real friends are RARE. Choose them wisely. Quality is much more important than quantity. Substance is always far superior to style.
4. DO NOT be tempted by gloss! The shiniest apple may be full of worms. The least rich and beautiful people are often the most genuine and loyal. Never judge people by what they have. Judge them by who they are. Always look deep beyond their surfaces and inspect their characters. Only character counts in friends and lovers.
5. Be a tough interviewer. Truly get to KNOW the persons that you allow into your life. Criminals hate questions. Ask lots of them often. If you hear a rumor, check it out. What you discover may save your life.
6. Be a SECURE person. Love yourself more than anyone else. Learn to love your own company. Those who learn to become strong individually, will never blindly follow any “Greeks”. I never pledged any sorority. I declined many invitations to do so. I felt that these invitations were motivated by a desire to claim all of my extra-curricular campus titles, rather than any real affection for me. I was always anti-Greek. I refused to be hazed. I always quipped that my sorority was “Me Phi Me”. It kept Me out of a lot of trouble.
7. Be street smart! Read true accounts of street life. Watch documentaries. Watch realistically violent TV shows and movies. Vicarious experience is valuable.
8. Never wear a blindfold anywhere for anyone! (Read on...)
9. Adults pay their OWN bills, legally! Never be a banker, a human automatic teller, or a criminal accomplice for anyone.
10. Leave a lover the FIRST time he/she beats you! Press charges and get a restraining order immediately.
We must tell children the ugly truths to protect them from the evils of reality. Innocence and naiveté are fatal flaws in the real, ruthless world. Protection from evil outside begins inside the home. Even toddlers need to be made aware of pedophiles etc.
The real world is FULL of predators. Young, insecure women are their FAVORITE prey. All children are potential food for such monsters. We must teach them to avoid becoming easy prey. Kemba was fashioned into a lamb. She was devoured by a wolf named Peter...
I quote a superior article from a superior magazine. The May 1996 issue of Emerge magazine features an excellent cover story entitled “Kemba’s Nightmare: A Model Child Becomes Prisoner #26370-083 - Drug Sentencing Frenzy - Good Kids, Bad Choices”:
“...Kemba may not see freedom until at least 2016...It took less than three years for Kemba’s life to change. She went from outgoing high school student, to main “mule” (carrying money and weapons) for a drug dealer preying on students at Hampton University, to near-lifetime resident of the federal prison system.
“My mother never really talked with me about relationships with guys. In high school, I let guys take advantage of me. If they asked for money, and I thought they were in need, I felt the need to give them some money, especially if I thought they liked me.”
The summer before she moved to Hampton, three male friends, aware that she was short on street smarts, warned Kemba, “Don’t get hung up with these bad guys”... “They knew I was going to Hampton. They knew it was a party school, and they knew I was naive.”
“I had gone to predominantly white schools. In those settings, I thought I was pretty. When I went to Hampton, I didn’t feel I was equal to the next pretty girl because I saw them as more popular. I wasn’t sure of myself and my self esteem was low. I would just look in the mirror and wonder why people were not as attracted to me and why I couldn’t be as popular.”...Lost at sea without an anchor, Kemba became obsessed with trying to belong. It did not take long for the “bad guys” to find her.
“I felt I couldn’t talk to my parents about certain issues. They always felt I was a little girl. They were strict, and I was scared of their response. We didn’t have that much communication. We talked, but there wasn’t that much communication.”
By the end of her freshman year, Kemba was a failing student, a regular marijuana smoker, and a party girl who still perceived herself as unpopular. Though she had landed a boyfriend, Derrick Johnson, he was being trashed by her girlfriends. Derrick didn’t have a car, he wasn’t a flashy dresser, and he frequently didn’t have any money. That was just the opposite style of the fast company her girlfriends were keeping.
[Kemba] was swept off her feet by [Peter Hall’s] presence, the way he moved in a crowd, and his sexy Jamaican accent. Kemba remembers Peter as “articulate, fun, a charmer, self-confident, and crazy”...Few seemed to know that he had built a rap sheet at police stations in Newport News, Virginia Beach, and Hampton. Peter was buying cars under false names and selling drugs...He also was on the radar screen of federal drug agents.
...Peter called again, sweet-talked [Kemba] and soon she was en route to his apartment. She was scared, especially when he asked her to wear a blindfold on the way to his place. She complied anyway.
If Kemba was impressed with Peter, she was even more impressed with his apartment: “Better furniture, better music system, three TVs in one room, big speakers, a tri-level apartment with a garage. I guess it was just different from any guy’s I had been in before.”
“ I had seen the other girls that Peter had been involved with before. They were smart, pretty, dean’s list, and I just couldn’t believe he went out with me. I had heard he was dealing drugs, but hadn’t seen it. I didn’t question how he had all these things because it seemed like it as accepted by everybody.”
Peter began hitting and choking her. “When I held my hands up to try to stop him, he told me to put them down or it would get worse. Some people told me he was crazy, but I thought they meant crazy fun. But nobody had hit me like this before. Finally, it stopped and he went to get some ice. I was ashamed. He made me feel like I deserved that. I was dumb. I was wrong. I believed it.” She wore shades to hide her swollen eyes. He apologized and said it would never happen again. And, yes, she forgave him....“I was in love with him. Why?...I don’t’ know”
Peter told “Mr. Smith”, as he addressed Kemba’s father, that he had been jailed because he did not have a green card and that it was being straightened out. “My father didn’t talk much, but he noticed something wasn’t right. But he was going to give him the benefit of the doubt.”
“Peter beat me real bad. With a belt. With a brush. With his hands. And then he tells me to go sit in some bath water. I’m starting to swell. I’m shaking and crying...Eventually, he came in and told me to get out of the tub. Then he asked me to dance for him. I danced about 30 seconds...My legs looked deformed. That was the worst he had ever beaten me...I felt trapped. I loved him...I’m losing contact with my family.”
“Peter talked a lot and made sure he knew what you were thinking and tried to control how you thought.”
Kemba had a miscarriage. She called her father and told him she couldn’t take it anymore. Kemba asked him to wire $50 for a bus ticket home... went to the bus station and got on the bus..."By the time we were pulling out, Peter had run to the station and was blocking the path of the bus"...They got off the bus.
As money dried up and federal agents began getting closer, Peter the provider began asking Kemba for money. Over a period of two months, she withdrew about $1500 from a joint account she had with her mother and sent it to him. The other woman, who had moved to Atlanta with Peter, also was supporting him, with money drawn on her grandmother’s American Express card-nearly $10,000.
Kemba also didn’t know that Peter (sometimes known as “Khalif”) was wanted in connection with several murders in New York and Virginia, in addition to the killing of Derrick Taylor...[Kemba] didn’t know until much later just how many other women (at least three) also claimed to have had children by Peter during the time she was supposed to have been his girlfriend.
“I think he always thought my parents were responsible for this whole thing blowing up. That’s another reason why I felt I had to take the burden of everything-being miserable.”
Kemba woke up crying uncontrollably. She had dreamed that Peter was in her arms dying...Seattle police had located 31-year-old Peter Michael Hall in an apartment in the university district. He was dead of a gunshot wound to the head, apparently killed on the previous night-hours after Kemba had her dream.
According to court records, [Kemba] had carried and concealed illegal weapons; ridden in a vain carrying drugs from New York to North Carolina; carried money, strapped to her body like a mule, from Virginia to New York; obstructed justice when she rented apartments in her name; laundered money by forwarding it to Peter while he was on the run from federal authorities; forged birth certificates and other ID; and obstructed justice by denying (to federal agents) the knowledge she had about Peter’s whereabouts. On a personal level, she had betrayed herself, her parents and her future.
In December 1994, four months before her sentencing, Kemba gave birth to her son, William Armani Smith. She was allowed to breast-feed him once and to see him for only two days. That stay was a compromise the hospital forced upon the marshals, who wanted to return Kemba to prison an hour after she gave birth. Kemba and “Mani”, as he is called, have not been together since, except for an occasional prison visit.
The baby is being reared by Kemba’s parents, who are receiving $131 each month in public assistance to support him. [Kemba’s parents] Gus and Odessa’s life savings have been depleted by Kemba’s legal troubles. Lawyers fees have exceeded $25,000 and the meter is still running. Counseling costs for the family have run into the thousands. Keeping in touch with Kemba is also expensive, with long distance telephone bills reaching $500 some months.
24 year old Kemba’s sentence:..24.5 years in jail-one for each year of Kemba’s life. “How in the world am I ever going to explain this?” Kemba wonders, thinking about her son, who may be an adult before she is free... “I want to take care of my child. I made some bad decisions. I don’t put the blame on anybody.”
Kemba: May God bless you and your family...and may your son grow to be a warrior who makes wiser decisions.