Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Eddie Conway Tribute
Mali Collins
15 Mar 2023
🖨️ Print Article
Eddie Conway Tribute
(Photo: Courtesy of TRNN)

The late Eddie Conway was a young member of the Black Panther Party who was framed for the killing of a police officer and spent more than 40 years in jail. His experience as a political prisoner was not unique in a country where some BPP members and others still languish in jail after decades. After his release he rededicated himself to activism and to journalism. Eddie Conway presente!

I write to call attention to the life and death of Marshall “Eddie” Conway, activist, student, teacher, producer, journalist, and soldier of the Black Panther Party from Baltimore, Maryland. On February 13, 2023, he made his transition to ancestor. Brother Conway was a hero of Baltimore City and oppressed people everywhere.

During his time in the Black Panther Party, Eddie was also a United States Postal Worker. During his time in the USPS, Eddie was being surveilled by Black Panther members who were really undercover Baltimore Police (BPD), and USPS coworkers.

On April 21, 1970, at the age of 24, when Eddie was working for the USPS, the killing of two Baltimore Police Officers led to the arrest of two black men, both members of the Black Panther Party. Eddie, a third BPP member, was arrested for being involved. Like many trials and convictions of Freedom Fighters for Black liberation, multiple inconsistencies and irregularities occurred during the identification of his involvement in the incident, trial, and conviction. There are too many to write here and it would take space away from Eddie’s memory. Nevertheless, Brother Conway was convicted in 1970 and remained in jail until 2014 to the age of 67. He was released because of the constant struggle of those who loved and cared about him and honored his service to liberation.

During his time in incarceration, Brother Conway received three college degrees, started a literacy program, and started a prison library. After his release, he was a producer at The Real News Network and hosted his own show called, “Rattling the Bars,” and published his own memoir, “Marshall Law.”

As the articles written about Eddie in various local newspapers continue, we make room for the truth of who he was amidst the reprisal of the unjust circumstances that led to his incarceration. There remains a production of myths even after one’s death that refuse to recognize Black liberation soldiers as heroes and veterans.

To quote Kenyan poet and writer Keguro Macharia: “Look how far we have come. Who is comforted by these fictions?” Comfort does not exist in lies and state “neutralization.” Those left behind to mourn Brother Conway are not comforted by these fictions. They are reminded everyday of his commitment to liberation for all living things, and comforted by the spiritual and material vestiges he leaves behind.

Scholar of political incarceration and Assistant Professor of Anthropology at American University, Dr. Orisanmi Burton, comments: “The fact that warrior-scholars like Brother Conway have been targeted for “neutralization” by the racist state indicates that we who are struggling for liberation have much to learn from them, even after they cross the threshold of life and death.“

Eddie will be remembered as a wonderful partner, friend, and hugger. Despite the attempt to calcify Eddie’s life as forgotten and the fictions that contour his memory, his legacy lives on.

Mali Collins is an Assistant Professor in the African American and African Diaspora Studies Department at American University.

Black Panther Party
Free All Political Prisoners
political prisoners
Baltimore
Eddie Conway

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

Johari Diata Osei , Dhoruba bin-Wahad
The Black Panthers Didn't Start in Oakland. The History We Tell Does.
28 October 2026
The Black Panther Party did not begin in Oakland on October 15, 1966, but emerged from earlier organizing in Harlem and Lowndes Count
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
Black Radicalism and the Return of the “Subversive Negro”
16 September 2026
NSPM-7 and the State Department's international campaign against "far-left political terrorism" represent new and more dangerous form
Michael Steven Smith
Meet the Radical Legal Collective That Won Justice for Fred Hampton and Continues Fighting to This Day
09 September 2026
Longtime attorney Flint Taylor’s new book tells the story of the People’s Law Collective, which grew out of the radical movements of the late 1
Karin Stanford
Afterlife of a Hijacker
11 August 2026
Former Black Panther Deputy Minister of Defense Byron Booth's journey from Compton to Cuba, Algiers to Lagos, reveals the global reac
Assata Shakur
No One Can Stop The Rain
01 October 2025
Assata Shakur wrote the introduction and this poem for the 1990 book
Erica Caines
“Crime”, The Trojan Horse For Colonial Control
24 September 2025
The rhetoric of crime prevention has always served to enforce colonial order.
Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
Southern Panther Malik Rahim
14 May 2025
In “A Southern Panther,” movement elder Malik Rahim talks about his lifetime of battling ra
Safiya Bukhari
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
ESSAY: On the Question of Political Prisoners, Safiya Bukhari,1995
07 August 2024
To commemorate Black August, read Safiya Bukhari's essay on political prisoners and political mov
Joan Gibbs
Matt Tracy
Joan Gibbs, Renowned Lesbian Activist and Attorney, Dies at 71
10 April 2024
Joan Gibbs, long time civil rights attorney and activist, is remembered for her deep commitment to her community and for so
NY Panther 21
Dhoruba bin-Wahad
55th Anniversary of the NY Panther 21 Case
03 April 2024
The trial of the New York Panther 21 was the moment in the Black liberation movement that ushered in an era of intensified state repressio

More Stories


  • Black America, Endless War and the Evil Genius of Russiagate
    Glen Ford , BAR executive editor
    Black America, Endless War and the Evil Genius of Russiagate
    27 Feb 2020
    The Democrats -- who are now the most aggressive war party – have succeeded in linking Donald Trump to Russia, and then lumping all critics of U.S.
  • Freedom Rider: Bernie Sanders' Foreign Policy Trap
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: Bernie Sanders' Foreign Policy Trap
    26 Feb 2020
    It is time for leftists to stop giving Sanders a pass and make demands on him and all other candidates for office.
  • The U.S. is World’s Merchant of Death in Capitalism’s Great Race to the Bottom
    Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
    The U.S. is World’s Merchant of Death in Capitalism’s Great Race to the Bottom
    26 Feb 2020
    The U.S.-led arms trade and the Great Race to the Bottom are interconnected phenomena that cannot be fought separately.
  • Bernie Sanders and the Military Industrial Complex
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Bernie Sanders and the Military Industrial Complex
    26 Feb 2020
    If Bernie Sanders keeps going along with the Russiagate propaganda, he will find himself “Trumped” by the War Party and unable to enact his agenda.
  • My Wise Country Cousin on Dem Big Negroz Ridin’ wit Emperor Stop’nFrisk
    BAR Poet-in-Residence Raymond Nat Turner
    My Wise Country Cousin on Dem Big Negroz Ridin’ wit Emperor Stop’nFrisk
    26 Feb 2020
    Massa Mikul say, “Gib me de blak congressmen an’ mayors— Negroz who unerstan— ‘cause dey is all multimillionaires…” He say, “Big Negroz don’ feel lak dey's takin’ too big ob a risk
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us