Documentary screening and discussion about the story of political prisoners John “Balagoon” Cole and Christopher “Naeem” Trotter.
Join the National Black Radical Organizing Conference (NBROC) for an event honoring political prisoners and featuring the documentary film The Pendleton 2: They Stood Up. This film tells the story of John “Balagoon” Cole and Christopher “Naeem” Trotter, two prisoners who intervened to save a fellow inmate, Lincoln “Lokmar” Love, from a beating by KKK-affiliated prison guards in 1985, leading to their unjust incarceration for over four decades. The event will feature the film’s co-director, Too Black, alongside members from Black Alliance for Peace, Black Men Build, Community Movement Builders, and Spirit of Mandela.
Film Description
On the morning of February 1, 1985, Lincoln “Lokmar” Love was doomed to the same fate as George Floyd, Tyre Nichols, and so many other Black men in the US. As he lay handcuffed and shackled, Pendleton Correctional Facility guards beat the prisoner beyond recognition as terrified bystanders watched from their cells. But Lokmar’s story ended differently when 2 fellow prisoners sacrificed their freedom to save him from his assailants — a Ku Klux Klan-affiliated guard gang known as the Sons of Light. “The Pendleton 2: They Stood Up” tells the story of John “Balagoon” Cole and Christopher “Naeem” Trotter, the leaders of the Indiana prison uprising that rescued Lokmar, exposed Pendleton’s dehumanizing conditions, and unleashed the vindictive wrath of the Indiana Department of Correction. Presented by the Defense Committee to Free the Pendleton 2, “They Stood Up” features exclusive first hand testimony from Cole and Trotter, as well as interviews with family members and witnesses to the uprising who continue to fight for the Pendleton 2 after four decades of unjust incarceration and solitary confinement.
