by Joe Allen

Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa are not names familiar to most Americans. The longest-serving political prisoners in the United States, these two former Black Panthers have spent more than thirty-five years behind bars for a crime they did not commit -- the 1970 murder of Omaha, Nebraska, police officer Larry Minard.

The American media and the political establishment scoff at the very idea that there are political prisoners in the United States. Yet many sixties militants -- especially Black and Native American revolutionaries -- were deliberately framed by the police and FBI in their efforts to suppress the radical movements of that period. The Omaha Two were also caught in that dragnet. It has been known for decades that they were targets of the FBI's infamous Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO), but it is only lately that long thought-to-be-destroyed evidence has emerged that could lead to a new trial for Ed Poindexter.