> A Times Editorial
>
> Yeshitela deserves a pardon
>
> =A9 St. Petersburg Times, published February 13, 2000
>
> More than 33 years ago, a young black man named Joe Waller tore down a
> racist mural hanging in St. Petersburg's City Hall.
>
> Then he was punished by the racially biased legal system of the time.
>
> For his act of non-violent civil disobedience, Waller served 18 months in
> prison. Many violent offenders do less time, in less oppressive conditions.
> Pinellas Circuit Judge David Seth Walker, who was assigned to Waller's case
> as it was appealed in the 1970s, says a similar act today likely would lead
> to probation and the withholding of a formal finding of guilt.
>
> But, of course, there would be no similar act today, because no modern local
> government would hang such a mural in a public space. Thanks to the courage
> of people such as Waller, communities throughout the South finally began to
> come to terms with the institutional vestiges of Jim Crow racism.
>
> Much else has changed since 1966. Joe Waller is now gray-haired Omali
> Yeshitela, an intellectual community activist whose rhetoric sometimes lapses
> into the ideological platitudes of that earlier era.
>
> At times, Yeshitela seems to be stuck in 1966. But who can blame him? A
> man's life can be scarred forever by an event that unfairly strips him of 18
> months of freedom.
>
> St. Petersburg's scars have not healed, either. But dozens of local
> residents are supporting an effort that can bring a measure of healing to
> Yeshitela and the city he once again calls home. They have written letters
> supporting Yeshitela's
> petition for a pardon from Gov. Jeb Bush and members of the state Cabinet.
> Yeshitela's supporters are black and white, young and old, prominent and
> obscure. Even Walker says that, if asked by clemency officials, he would
> support Yeshitela's petition.
>
> St. Petersburg's City Council has been bogged down for months over what
> should have been a simple effort to offer a formal apology for the events
> that led to Joe Waller's arrest in 1966. The rhetoric surrounding the
> council's prolonged debate has revealed a continuing level of racial
> insensitivity that paints as ugly a picture as any mural could.
>
> State officials can succeed where local officials have failed. The merits of
> Yeshitela's petition should be obvious. A quick and straightforward pardon
> from clemency officials would mean a great deal to Yeshitela. It would mean
> even more to the rest of St. Petersburg.