Sekou Kambui

Sekou Kambui was a Civil Rights activist with the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC), Congress for Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). When Sekou was 19 years old, he became affiliated with the Black Panther Party and Republic of New Afrika. In the 1970s, Sekou spent most of his time community organizing in Birmingham, Alabama with the Alabama Black Liberation Front, the Inmates for Action, and the Afro-Amerikan People’s Party. Because of his activism in the Civil Rights movement, he was watched closely by the FBI’s counterintelligence program entitled COINTELPRO, and was subsequently profiled and pulled over on January 2, 1975 for allegedly running a yield sign and/or speeding. During the traffic stop the officer found a pistol in Sekou’s vehicle, and after strong suspicion by the officer that it was the weapon listed as stolen during a Tuscaloosa, Alabama murder, Sekou was taken into custody and charged for the murders of the two white men; a KKK official and a billionaire oilman. During his trial defense witnesses provided alibi testimony for Kambui during the time of the murder leading to a hung jury only for those witnesses to later flee the state after being threatened by Birmingham Police. Leaving Kambui with no defense during his second trial. Throughout both trials, major witnesses admitted that they had been coerced into testifying falsely against Sekou and were repeatedly visited by certain members of the Tuscaloosa County and Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department and were deliberately coached on what to say during their testimonies. Sekou was never placed at or near the crime scene, the real murder weapon was never found, nor was there ever any direct evidence to connect him to the murders.

Black Flag issue 213 describes Kambui as of African/Cherokee heritage, born in Alabama in 1948, joining the Black Panthers in 1967 and the Republic of New Afrika while in Detroit before returning to Birmingham. It credits his civil-rights work with organizing youth demonstrations and security for SCLC, CORE and SNCC, followed by Alabama Black Liberation Front, Inmates for Action defense committee and Afro-American Peoples Party work. The support account dates his Tuscaloosa County Circuit Court trial to May 2, 1975, case 75048818, and his Jefferson County Circuit Court trial in Birmingham to August 13, 1975, case 75032347, reporting convictions and consecutive life sentences. It reports parole denials in 1986, 1988, 1991, 1995 and 1996, alleges retaliatory transfers before the first three hearings, and mentions a prospective November 1997 hearing. These are trial dates rather than independently established sentencing or admission dates. Its rounded twenty-two years confined and forthcoming parole hearing are not release or complete time served. Source: https://files.libcom.org/files/SCN_0003_compressed.pdf#page=17