Anita L. Wills - Speech
| Bio
EXPERIENCE:
MEDIA AND LECTURE: • July 10, 2004, King Arthur’s Black Descendants, History News Network, http://hnn.us/articles/6343.html • June 2003, Band of Warriors: A Descendant Traces Her Roots, Journal of African American Historical Society, Author Anita L. Wills. • August 2003, Richmond Here And Now, News Journal, Article about ancestors who resided in Colonial Virginia, Co writer Anita Wills. • April 23, 2003, Talk History Radio, The Roots of Racial Profiling; Commentary for University of Missouri Radio Program, Author, Anita L. Wills. • September 30, 2000, Coordinator event Colonial Yorktown to commemorate Native & African American Revolutionary War Soldiers. • December 23, 2002, History News Network; Racial Profiling: Then and Now. • October 9, 1999 coordinated Event with the National Park Services to commemorate Indentured Servants, Mary & Patty Bowden of George Washington Birthplace. • October 2, 1999, Guardians of the Past: A 20th-century
Black Family Finds its Origins on a
• June, 9, 2004 - Bay Area People Television Show, Oakland CA. • October 10, 1999 - The Richmond Times Dispatch, Richmond VA ; • October 16, 1999 - Alexandria Virginia 250th Anniversary Presentation; presented paper, Ambrose Lewis: Virginia’s Son 1740-1834, Alexandria VA; • February 3, 2002 , March 3, 2004 - The Reading Eagle Times, Articles about Anita Wills, Genealogy Search, Reading Pa; EXHIBIT • October 2002 - August 2003 at Constitution Hall in Washington DC; Exhibit features African and Native American Soldiers, and includes documents from Ms. Wills collection on Charles and Ambrose Lewis, her ancestors who were Revolutionary War Soldiers.
George Washington Descendent doesn't Approve of Prison Slavery
As an African American who has traced my ancestors back to Cousin George Washington, I have to voice my distaste for our Prison System. It is especially poignant to me because my thirty four year old son has been sentenced to a prison term of thirty-three plus years. I have a few comments about the District Attorney, and Judge that sentenced him, but his case is on appeal, and I am not going into it now. My name is Anita Wills, a mother, writer, lecturer, and Historian. I am the author of a book titled, Notes And Documents of Free Persons of Color. In the book I use genealogy, and DNA to document my maternal family’s history, here in America, and in Wales. The book spans four hundred years in America, and tells about those who had extraordinary achievements. The book begins in 1950's Pennsylvania, where my father, George Baxter Senior, is being investigated by the FBI. My father was a linguist, even though he worked in the Steel Mills, and one of the languages he spoke was Russian. That put him under the scrutiny of the FBI, who was suspicious of An African American who spoke Russian. The book travels back in time, and documents the achievements of my ancestors, who were slaves, and free blacks in Virginia and Maryland. That is why in the late 1600's Virginia began codifying the church laws,
and adding edicts from
This situation reminds me of one of my ancestors who was taken to court
at the age of seven, and sentenced to serve George Washington’s father
for thirty years. Her name was Mary Bowden, and she would be the first
of three Generations to serve the Washington family. She was sentenced
under the laws of Colonial Virginia, which were made by, and for the benefit
of white males. What was her crime? She was mulatto, we are not certain
who her mother was, but there is speculation
Just as today, in Colonial Virginia, the laws made no sense, because they avoided penalties for crimes wealthy whites were likely to commit. They were aimed at persons who were poor, and disenfranchised. The harshest laws were saved for African Slaves, who were by design at the bottom of the rung. If I believed that my son deserved that sentence, or the treatment he is receiving at Susanville, I would not be here. However, as a descendant of slaves, I am concerned about how this system is exploiting prisoners. For each prisoner that is working for nine cents an hour (less than workers in Bangladesh), another person is unemployed. When Corporations benefit from our sons and daughters going to prison, it means that laws are going to be passed to keep these prisons operating. America is the only Industrialized Country that sales Stock in its prisons. This is exactly why the north and south fought the Civil War, to end slavery. Yet, the media will use the issue of prisons as if they are rehabilitating those who are incarcerated. Most of those who are imprisoned will be getting out, some for good behavior, and others will max out. They will be going back to the same neighborhoods they left, and what will they take back there? If someone is being exploited, and they have a mind to, they will learn to exploit others. An inmate got a letter to us, and told us to check on Kerry (my son),
because they had taken him away. We received the letter this past Monday,
and spent two days chasing him down. Kerry had a breakdown, and was in
a psyche ward for two weeks, yet no one bothered to tell us. His counselor,
some man named Mr. White, slammed the phone down on Kerry’s girlfriend
when she
No mother should ever have to endure this worry. My son could have been dead and buried, and I would not have known about it. In Virginia the, home where George Washington was born, is a National Monument. The birth site, and home of George Washington, is a working plantation. I believe the prisoners from Virginia's State Prisons are now working it. The land is basically the same as it was when my ancestors served indentures there. I believe at least one of Washington’s slaves is the father of my ancestor, Patty Bowden. He is buried in an area that is no more than a ditch, on the outskirts of the Washington Plantation. How sad that after all of the struggles my family and many more have endured, after all the glory and achievements, this society is still at square one. America is getting away from the Democratic Principles that we are supposed to have extended to all of our citizens. My son is a Carpenter, and was a taxpayer; he was raising his sons, prior to his imprisonment. The prison system now sees him as a Carpenter, who could possibly build the handcrafted office furniture, they sale to fortune 500 Corporations. The prison industrial complex is looking for a few good men. As long as they are young, with strong backs; black, white, brown, they are now equal opportunity exploiters. Don’t worry, if crime goes down, they will tighten laws to make sure that the Jails are kept full. In the PIC, the whites can be used as over seers for the blacks and browns. But every inmate who is put out to work like livestock for 9 cents to 45 cents an hour is a slave, no matter what their race. The jobs they do are dangerous, hard labor. They are not educational. What is educational about cleaning up horse and cow manure or the garbage dumps? It is not about victims, and criminals, it is about a system that is broken, and needs fixing. It cannot be fixed by enslaving some people, so that others can benefit from their crimes. Slavery was wrong then, and it is wrong now. Are we going to revisit this in a hundred years, when the descendants of prisoners are suing the State of California, for reparations? That is where we are headed. We need to end slavery and profit from the labor of human beings then we can focus on better solutions to crime such as education, prevention and accountability of government officials, especially DA's and Lawyers.
NEWS ARTICLE RICHMOND.COM: http://www.richmond.com/locallife/output.cfm?ID=2777655&vertical=LocalLife LEBOUDIN PUBLISHING HOUSE:
2. Beginning & Intermediate Genealogy Workshop:
BOWDENS OF POPES CREEK SITE:
http://www.thereporter.com/Stories/0,1413,295~30192~2345112,00.html# The Reporter
Governor must rein in corrections
Thursday, August 19, 2004 - The article on the Shumake family was very informative ("Seeking prison reform: Families rally to decry system's failures," The Reporter, Aug. 13). I was in speaker at the rally and now understand how out of control the California Department of Corrections is. We have people who are sentenced to prison, not to die, and they are coming out in body bags. My own son, Kerry Baxter Sr., is incarcerated at High Desert State Prison in Susanville, and was taken to a mental ward two weeks ago. He is 500 miles from his family in the Bay Area, and getting there is an infrequent event. The person who told us about our son was another inmate, and his letter was not supposed to reach us. That is how I came to be a participant in the event. When we called the prison, a man we spoke with said he was Kerry's counselor, but did not know where he was. When Kerry's girlfriend pressed him about Kerry' s whereabouts, he slammed the phone down in her ear. We had to have state and county officials call there in order to get information on my son. This is the same treatment that the prisoners at Abu Grabi in Iraq were receiving. These correctional officers, who are paid by taxpayers like myself, are abusing the prisoners who come under their care. Not because the prisoners have done anything to them, but because the CDC looks for sadistic people to work in the prisons. We are paying the salaries of these abusive, unqualified state employees. The union they created was created with California taxpayers money. I cannot believe the offenses that are going on in this, one of the most liberal states of the union. It reminds me of the suffering my ancestors went through during slavery - although those who are impacted now run the gamut of races - and had no one to speak for them. This is not to say that we should take focus away from victims and their families. We must make sure that there is equal justice for all, and that correctional officers get out of the business of punishment. Gov. Arnold Swarzenegger is managing to rein in every other department, and he needs to make radical changes within that department as well. Anita L. Wills, San Leandro
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