‘Justice for Geraldine and Martin Event’ Set for Aug. 15
By James Coughlin
Martin Sostre (Left) Geraldine (Robinson) Pointer (Right)
On Thursday August 15th, at 6 p.m., community members will gather at Frank E Merriweather Jr Library, located at 1324 Jefferson Avenue in Buffalo, to announce the application to the Erie County District Attorney’s Office Conviction Integrity unit to review and vacate the convictions of Geraldine (Robinson) Pointer and Martin Sostre, stemming from falsified and uncorroborated arrests almost fifty-seven years earlier, on July 15th, 1967. Attendees will call upon Acting Erie County District Attorney Michael J. Keane (D) to exonerate Pointer and Sostre.
Their arrests came three weeks following Buffalo’s rebellion of June 27 - July 1, where Black Buffalonians revolted against police brutality, segregated housing, and racialized inequality.
Since opening in 1965, Sostre’s Afro Asian Book Shop at 1412 Jefferson Avenue served as an empowering and liberating space for Black Buffalonians, and a refuge for those seeking safety from police brutality throughout the rebellion. Pointer managed another revolutionary bookstore at 289 High Street. Due to the bookstores' growing prominence and contributions to the radical Black political consciousness in Buffalo, Sostre and Pointer were targeted by local law enforcement.
Sostre was charged with illegal sale and possession of narcotics, inciting a riot, arson, resisting arrest, and assault. Pointer, who was working with him at the Afro Asian Book Shop, was charged with selling narcotics and interfering with an arrest. Authorities accused Sostre of conducting $15,000 in weekly drug sales and using his basement to manufacture and distribute Molotov cocktails. Narcotics Assistant Chief of Detectives Michael Amico claimed to have motion picture evidence of drug sales and portrayed Sostre as a violent drug trafficker distributing “bombs to hoodlums.” By the time of his trial the following year, the arson and riot charges were dropped, the motion picture footage could not be found, and the drug charges were reduced to a single $15 bag of heroin supplied by a police informant who later recanted his testimony. Sostre was sentenced to 31-41 years by an all-white jury, and Pointer to 7-15 years. She lost custody of her five children before being reunited with them after two and half years of imprisonment. Following nine years of incarceration, Sostre was granted executive clemency on December 24, 1975 and released on February 9, 1976.
Geraldine Pointer will be in attendance to highlight her contributions as well as those of other Black women involved in Buffalo’s Black Power movement. Featured will be the 1974 documentary Frame-up! The Imprisonment of Martin Sostre which details the broader historical context of Buffalo’s uprising, Sostre’s and Pointer’s imprisonment, and Sostre’s fight for bodily autonomy and dignity while incarcerated in the New York prison system.