MLK Was a Lawbreaker: Martin Sostre on King’s Radical Legacy Event to be held Saturday, Jan 18th, 3pm at Merriweather Library

On Saturday, January 18 th at 3PM, the Justice for Geraldine and Martin Campaign will host a reading and discussion of Martin Sostre’s writing “Martin Luther King Was a Lawbreaker” at the Merriweather Library. This event features a panel discussion including peace and social justice activist, Jim Anderson, PUSH Buffalo Climate Justice Organizer and griot, Rev. Dr. Majadi Baruti, and Fruit Belt activist and East Side Parkways Coalition member Dennice Barr.

Sostre’s “Martin Luther King Was a Lawbreaker” sought to resist King’s whitewashing from those who “seek to rob him of his grave and greatest deeds and contributions to the Black liberation struggle: his militant mobilization of the Black masses for the purpose of confrontation with the white racist oppressor, violating white ‘law and order,’ undermining white authority, and radicalizing the Black masses.”

“MLK Was a Lawbreaker” is part of an ongoing, volunteer-led effort to exonerate Sostre, and his co-defendant, Ms. Geraldine Pointer (then Robinson) for their frame up and wrongful arrests on July 15th , 1967.

Attendees are encouraged to contact Erie County District Attorney Michael Keane (D) expressing their support for Sostre and Pointer’s exonerations. Since opening in 1965, Sostre’s Afro Asian Book Shop at 1412 Jefferson Avenue served as an empowering and liberating space for

Black Buffalonians. Pointer managed another revolutionary bookstore at 289 High Street. Due to the bookstores’ growing prominence and contributions to Buffalo’s radical Black political consciousness, local law enforcement targeted Sostre and Pointer. During Buffalo’s 1967 rebellion from June 27 - July 1, Sostre’s book shops remained open as residents gained safety from ongoing police violence, further catching law enforcement’s attention.

Arrested on July 15, 1967, 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.

As Sostre’s trial, arson and riot charges were dropped, 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. Pointer 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