Shango Bahati Kakawana

Shango Bahati Kakawana (Bernard Stroble) was one of the Attica Brothers, indicted on murder and kidnapping charges over the stabbing deaths of two inmates in the prison yard during the September 1971 uprising — among the most serious of the Attica prosecutions. During the September 1971 uprising at New York's Attica prison — in which inmates seized the facility and held hostages for four days before Governor Nelson Rockefeller ordered an armed assault that killed 39 men — the state, in December 1972, indicted 62 surviving inmates on some 1,289 counts while charging no trooper or guard; the Attica Brothers Legal Defense organized their cases, and Governor Hugh Carey closed the inmate prosecutions in 1976. After a closely watched trial he was acquitted of all charges.

One of the 'Attica Brothers,' tried on murder and kidnapping charges arising from the 1971 Attica rebellion; The Black Panther Vol. 14 (1975) reports he was acquitted after the court found the alleged kidnapping never took place.

Reporting on the March 11, 1984 Darnell Summers celebration, Revolutionary Worker identifies Reverend Stroble, known as Mother Smith, as Shango’s mother and an active Summers supporter. It recalls Shango supporting the campaign and distributing the newspaper while on parole before his December 1982 murder. The mother’s belief that his killing was political retaliation is attributed to her, rather than treated as an independently proved motive. The report does not supply a new prison admission or release date. Source: https://www.bannedthought.net/USA/RCP/RW/1984/RW247-English-OCR-sm.pdf#page=11

The March 1973 Attica News roster prints Bernard Stroble (Shango) among the uprising prisoner defendants, linked to indictment 5, 15: 34 first-degree kidnapping counts; coercion and unlawful imprisonment. The table lists maximum statutory exposure, not sentences actually imposed or time served; no custody dates or duration are inferred. Source: https://freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/DOC510_scans/Attica/510.Prisons.AtticaNewsVol1No1.pdf#page=6

The December 10, 1982 Revolutionary Worker obituary identifies Bernard Stroble as Brother Shango and reports his fatal shooting outside his Detroit home on December 1. This corroborates the recorded death date, 1975 Attica acquittal and 1979 release from Jackson State Prison after a federal court overturned an earlier conviction. Its thirteen years in prison is an overall reported total, not an additional Attica sentence. After release he worked in a shoe-repair store on Linwood, distributed revolutionary literature, and helped organize defense of Darnell Summers, including arranging office space above his mother Reverend Mozie Smith’s storefront mission. The mission had supported the Attica defense in the 1970s. He reportedly rejected a job in Mayor Coleman Young’s administration. The article describes him wounded in the Attica retaking and lying still for hours. Its suspicions about state involvement in his later murder remain attributed allegations, not established findings. Source: https://bannedthought.net/USA/RCP/RW/1982/RW184-English-OCR-sm.pdf#page=5

The newspaper reports acquittal of Bernard Stroble, called Shango, in an Attica-related trial. Acquittal of those counts is not by itself proof of physical discharge from all underlying confinement. The Black Panther, September22,1975, volumeXIVnumber1, original PDF page 10. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/black-panther/14%20no%201%201-28%20sep%2022%201975.pdf#page=10