In 1990 I made the fateful decision to enter into a protest against a local university’s financial ties to the brutally oppressive South African Government coupled with racial inequalities on the campus at the time. The initial plans for the protest started in 1989 and were geared towards a peaceful sit in. Nonviolent in nature it was designed to disrupt the daily goings on at the admissions department, but plans kept falling through. Everybody involved in the plans were sincere, but backed out time and again mostly due to fear of losing a good education.

Towards the end of 1989 – beginning of 1990 two students at the college and myself (a high school student) started discussing frustration with the stalled and failed attempts to get things going. We wanted to do something big, which would get attention and get the changes we sought implemented. The decision was made to engage in a firebombing of the president of the university’s office. The three of us generally believed it was the best way to get our message out and draw attention to our cause.

Speaking for myself I thought it would create the biggest impact three people could make. Individually we had our own motives but generally agreed on that premise. We managed to convince four others to serve as lookouts. The night came and we all did our parts, went home and went back to our lives. The act by itself did little to change the targeted policies, but it created a climate of violent protests, nasty politics and shady activities on campus that year.

The aftermath of the situation did affect on us. When the dust settled one of the three was murdered in a drug deal gone sour while the remaining two had been arrested and subjected to court proceedings. Although two of us were alive we did not escape the cycle we stepped into upon making those fateful decisions.

I am a convicted felon now and have had the issue of what happened then come up more than once in ways that have significantly affected my life. For instance, whenever I enter a new circle of people and my past comes up it creates a distorted view of who I am. People tend to want to put me in a box of one kind or another. I’ve been labeled crazy, dangerous, a terrorist, criminal, untrustworthy or some combination of thereof. After 911 people no longer separate between student protesters and terrorists, especially where ethnicity is thrown in to the mix even though in my case I’m not the same as I was eighteen years ago when I was a teenager.

In the end the crime overshadowed the cause. Once the conspirators were revealed any focus on change was lost. All people could talk about was why anyone would engage in destructive behavior. They wanted the details and wanted to know how people with promising futures could throw it away. The story became a salacious mess offering up heapings of short term gratification with South Africa becoming more and more boring compared to our details.

No doubt colleges across the country that year grew leery of activities by political organizers with an eye towards staving off repeats of what we did. The act could only do damage to the efforts of the majority of protesters and activists legally or at least peacefully voicing their opinions. The lessons were hard, and some are worth passing on.

One is that being a follower can be a losing scenario especially regarding breaking the law. All three of us were forever impacted, but when all was said and done it was me who was left holding the bag and in some ways still am. Those calling the shots or making the decisions are almost always buffered by those below. Pawns are the first to go. So, in a criminal matter who ends up having the finger pointed at them? Whose face gets plastered all over the front pages? Even with the big boys, as with the collapse of Enron, one or two of them always seem to skate by. I spent most of that time saying things like, “sounds good to me.”

I entered into the activities of 1990 feeling in part that I was making a better America through my actions. I believed my actions would bring about equality and injustices would be made right. But my actions created more injustices. Life became more difficult for people and created divisions and strife which previously were not there and deepened existing ones.

Looking back political change through legal channels seems more effective. It lends any cause a measure of credibility which illegality can’t offer. No doubt people have been wrongly convicted in the past, but generally speaking you can’t be brought to court and convicted for breaking laws which you have followed. You’ve either broken the law or you haven’t and if you have it’s just a matter of time as to when you’ll get caught and the eventual impact of your crime. When you stay legal you can stand up to your adversaries eyeball to eyeball.

In fact they may end up breaking the law to accomplish their goals making you seem more credible and revealing something about their true nature and character. If they do so your adversaries begin to make your case for you and frayed ends in the fabric of their argument (if they truly have one) will reveal themselves asking to be pulled on. They may use dirt and skeletons to threaten or smear you with which may suddenly pop up in a timely and exaggerated fashion depending on who wants you to cease. Either way getting change is a matter of maintaining your sense of humor and realizing your goal step by step day in and day out. : )

To read more about my experiences then and since go to www.lawsuitagainstuconn.com click here.